Since you seem to be one of those who denied(?) consciousness of a cat, how do you conceptualize it?
Something like “a cat is just a large finite automaton and I am not”? How do you draw the line? Through “soul”? Through “neocortex thickness”? Why a cat would not experience its life like you do when e.g. drugged or seriously drunk? I mean, cats aren’t drunk, but isn’t it easy to experience or at least imagine the “animal mode” in yourself? At times when you were startled or in rage or had sex like an animal, so that your intellectual parts didn’t work properly, did that pause your consciousness? Have you thought about it and if yes, what’s the answer?
Also why is it so surprising to you that a cat noticed a change and… how exactly does this connect to yes/no consciousness?
(These are all curiosity questions, I’m not an animal rights fighter or something like that.)
Ability to reflect non-heuristically on stimuli and not fall back into stress-reflex behaviour like schizophrenia. A animal that things god/the government/everyone is after them like a mice, is less concious then somebody able test that hypothesis and leave that fear filled fever dream. Its a scale though, and in my opinion, with considerable overlap, depending on situation and adaption.
I also agree with the article that "consciousness" is an overloaded term. I believe you and I would agree to it as something more akin to "sentience" but that is not the case for everyone.
I feel this topic always seems to unknowingly devolve into disagreements on first principals.
Yes, that's common. But in everyone's defense, when I researched it myself, it gets as messy as itt in mainstream pholosophy. You can never be sure what a person really talks about and for five minutes it sounds reasonable, but then you meet a claim that yanks a carrying wall from your comprehension.
We sure there’s a strong actual difference between the things? If consciousness is a spectrum, it seems likely connected to intelligence at a sort of fundamental level. The more intelligent, the more obvious it is that consciousness is there, at least.
Something like “a cat is just a large finite automaton and I am not”? How do you draw the line? Through “soul”? Through “neocortex thickness”? Why a cat would not experience its life like you do when e.g. drugged or seriously drunk? I mean, cats aren’t drunk, but isn’t it easy to experience or at least imagine the “animal mode” in yourself? At times when you were startled or in rage or had sex like an animal, so that your intellectual parts didn’t work properly, did that pause your consciousness? Have you thought about it and if yes, what’s the answer?
Also why is it so surprising to you that a cat noticed a change and… how exactly does this connect to yes/no consciousness?
(These are all curiosity questions, I’m not an animal rights fighter or something like that.)