I think you're over complicating it. When people generally talk about consciousness, they're talking about the phenomenology of awareness in the present moment. It's not really hard to define.
It's difficult to establish whether or not an animal is conscious in the way that it's difficult to establish whether another person is conscious. The only evidence we have for consciousness is the fact that we personally experience it ourselves. And because of that, we can't truly know if other's are conscious from a philosophical sense (i.e.—philosophical zombies) but we can posit scientifically that they must be since they share the same brain structure that we do.
Now when we're trying to establish scientifically whether or not an animal is conscious or not, it's more difficult because we don't have the subjective experience of being that animal, and we can't philosophically transfer the phenomenology of the experience our brain creates onto theirs. So, while I think the question "are animals conscious?" is well-bounded, it's not one that is currently answerable due to the currently private nature of consciousness.
> Are animals aware of their surroundings? Yes. Are animals showing the behavioural signs of pain when you hurt them? Yes. Can animals direct attention? Yes. Can animals remember? Yes. Can animals learn? Yes.
Reacting to stimuli is all possible without consciousness—just like crabs react to noxious, painful stimuli without nociceptors. So the phenomena you're describing is not what people are talking about when they're debating consciousness
Do all people experience your version of consciousness, awareness in the present moment? Or is this overly represented among people debating whether animals have it? Some people don't have an inner monologue.
That's totally true and something I don't know the answer to. But it's interesting to ponder if the experience of consciousness is the same for each individual. We believe that consciousness is possibly an emergent phenomena of cognitive processing, but since there is a wide amount of heterogeneity in the makeup of the human mind, it isn't extraordinary to claim that this 'presence in the current moment' may have different flavors for different individuals.
The claim that certain individuals lack an inner monologue is a testament to this—I can't imagine what that would be like but that is certainly nothing like my conscious experience is. To me, the lack of an inner monologue sounds very much like the 'dark universe' in which the brain is doing all of the processing and there is no conscious observer to witness the unfolding. I'm sure people without a inner monologue are still conscious.. but—it's interesting to think about how different their experience may be like.
Do you ever watch a movie/event or listen to music and notice you're not internally narrating what's happening because you're so engrossed in the action?
In one way, that sounds like more consciously present, in the other way it sounds like less. You are more here and now as you lack distracting commentary, or are you more here if you sit and ponder it?
Now you’ve just replaced “consciousness” with “awareness”. Self-awareness? Awareness of stimuli? Awareness of demarcation of animate and inanimate objects?
I understand it sounds simple, but there are so many different systems interplaying to give rise to whatever definition of consciousness you give, it’s really hard to give exact definitions.
Also, you still talk as if this “awareness in the moment” might be a simple dichotomy. I seriously highly doubt this is the case, especially when it comes to stuff like reflexes and instincts.
When I say "consciousness", the concept that I mean isn't reducible to other concepts. It's a concept that can only be found through introspection. And it seems like many have noticed the same concept, so we can label it with a word. But we can't define it such that someone who hasn't already noticed the concept will understand it. We can only describe it in such a way that those who already noticed it can confirm we're talking about the same thing. I think the parent's comment has done this adequately, and I don't think it's a problem that the definition is incomplete.
> When people generally talk about consciousness, they're talking about the phenomenology of awareness in the present moment. It's not really hard to define.
People often find this line much harder to draw after they have experienced qualia that is radically different from from what they have experienced before. The most common avenues for such an experience are psychedelics or deep meditation, and the experience is often called ego death.
There is much written on people's subjective experiences, but many people would say that they have experienced qualia which was not based on either awareness or the present moment. Of course, the experience still happened within a human brain, which is known to exhibit awareness of the present moment - but the subjective experience can feel as if neither of those concepts matter, or even exist, while still feeling very real.
These experiences often cause people to start thinking a lot more about the distinctions between consciousness, awareness, and qualia. I get that most people use 'awareness' to mean 'experiencing qualia', but I think most people using 'awareness' in that way have not experienced qualia that is bafflingly different from normal human qualia.
Because there’s no rigorous scientific definition of what consciousness is, and you can’t even just roughly point to it, just like most quasi-sciences it’s all up for debate.
From my perspective, the only people questioning whether or not non-humans have consciousness are coming from a religious perspective trying to reconcile their cognitive dissonance
So how do you define "aware"? Some inner model reflecting the environment?
A stone is "aware in the present moment". Its temperature is an inner state reflecting the environment, short-term. Its composition is an inner state reflecting the environment, long-term.
As a former owner of several cats, I can say that the cats I had definitely had consciousness. They were able to read my emotions and react to it. They knew how to get what they wanted. One of them loved looking at a mirror while wiping its face (It had observed me doing it). I could go on.
Well—there's a thought experiment of something like a 'dark universe'—a universe devoid of conscious observers, with the absence of awareness and perception while the physical processes continue unabated just as ours does with all of the people walking around, doing business, living cosmopolitan lifestyles, etc. This is theoretically possible because humans are just agents with brains that bring in stimuli, process it, and react. I.e. consciousness is not a necessary part of the equation to realize the universe is currently realized. The only reason we know consciousness is part of the equation, is because we experience it ourselves.
So I don't know if the fact that your cats are agents that are reacting to stimuli is proof that they're conscious. Again, if we were an outside observer, like an alien, we would have no way to prove humans are conscious. The only reason we believe scientifically that other humans are conscious is because we personally perceive conscious, and since other humans have the same neurological structures that we do, we can posit that they experience the same thing. Philosophically though we can't 'prove' other people are conscious, which gets us back to the philosophical zombie thought experiment.
My father had a siamese cat growing up, smart, would open drawers from behind to get food, tease dogs outside by standing just out of range of their leash. One day it slipped on a jump, his brother laughed at it. It ran away humiliated. That night while they were asleep it attacked his brother
It's difficult to establish whether or not an animal is conscious in the way that it's difficult to establish whether another person is conscious. The only evidence we have for consciousness is the fact that we personally experience it ourselves. And because of that, we can't truly know if other's are conscious from a philosophical sense (i.e.—philosophical zombies) but we can posit scientifically that they must be since they share the same brain structure that we do.
Now when we're trying to establish scientifically whether or not an animal is conscious or not, it's more difficult because we don't have the subjective experience of being that animal, and we can't philosophically transfer the phenomenology of the experience our brain creates onto theirs. So, while I think the question "are animals conscious?" is well-bounded, it's not one that is currently answerable due to the currently private nature of consciousness.
> Are animals aware of their surroundings? Yes. Are animals showing the behavioural signs of pain when you hurt them? Yes. Can animals direct attention? Yes. Can animals remember? Yes. Can animals learn? Yes.
Reacting to stimuli is all possible without consciousness—just like crabs react to noxious, painful stimuli without nociceptors. So the phenomena you're describing is not what people are talking about when they're debating consciousness