![]() Three branches are particularly significant: In this respect, regarding both the physiological and the behavioral levels, the development of the different branches of science undeniably brings considerable support to the assertion of animal sentience. Our attribution of a mental life to others is based on analogy, on the physical and behavioral similarities between those beings and ourselves. the fact that we ourselves have feelings. The starting point of our knowledge and beliefs about sentience is the personal experience we have of it, i.e. We do have an intuitive knowledge of the existence of sentience in others, even if our confidence in asserting its presence dwindles as we move to beings very different from ourselves, such as mussels and jellyfish. What is the basis of this confidence in the solidity of our knowledge of sentience? It is the idea that common sense, supplemented with scientific data, no longer leaves any doubt about the reality of consciousness. The movement for animals is confident in the support it can obtain in this respect from both modern science and modern philosophy: the Cartesian body/soul dualism is almost unanimously rejected, and no one nowadays defends outright the animal-machine doctrine. A decisive factor for bringing humans to treat other animals ethically is thus the unrestricted recognition of their possession of a mental life, of the fact that they think, desire, feel and so on. The vividness with which we are conscious of a being’s emotions determines the amount of attention we will give her. These reasons are based on our own situation as sentient and deliberative beings.įor the main currents of philosophy - and for common morality - sentience is a necessary condition for a being to be a moral patient (for utilitarianism it is also a sufficient condition). We thus have enough reasons to reject the main ways in which sentience is denied or dismissed in many realms of current philosophy or science. Although we cannot prove the reality of sentience, we can show it impossible for anyone to disbelieve in it - just as no one can really disbelieve in the reality of the physical world. One path we are contemplating is a “Declaration on Sentience” in which scientists and other thinkers would subscribe to the following assertion: sentience is an objective reality of the world and belongs to the realm of science.ĭespite the current intractability of the “mind-matter” problem, we do have something on our side. We must not allow the existence and relevance of animal sentience to be denied in the name of science. We believe it necessary for the movement for animals to understand that it cannot by-pass the “mind-matter” problem. This is a real obstacle to having animal sentience taken seriously as such it has been largely underestimated. This situation paves the way for discourses in which sentience seems to escape the realm of knowledge to fall into that of private beliefs, which individuals can choose as freely as their religion. Physics - the mother-science once we reject Cartesian dualism - is currently unable to include sentience in its account of the world.Ī large part of the philosophy of mind describes a mindless mind, from which subjectivity - feeling, qualia - has been stripped, leaving only in place functional relations. Not only is the subjective point of view absent from current science it is precluded by construction from our fundamental realms of knowledge. This area further distinguishes such phenomena from the notion of sentience as a qualia of being and an expression of aliveness.Animal people are usually confident that Cartesianism is something of the past and that modern science clearly establishes that animals are sentient beings.īut actually the scientific status of sentience is anything but firmly established. It explores both the aspect of consciousness as an expression of awakened awareness in human beings, and also as an expression of a more generalized field of mentation in and among living beings. Research into Sentience and Consciousness in Animate Beings considers individual and collective self-awareness in living things. ![]() SENTIENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESSIN ANIMATE BEINGS They also consider expressions of consciousness in the non-living domains of existence. They may also derive from first-person life experiences (phenomenological research) or from historical, diachronic or longitudinal study.Ĭosmic Consciousness studies consider topics such as cosmic mind, the Zero Point energy Field (ZPF), the quantum plenum, the Akashic field or A-Field, the ether, the implicate order, and morphogenic fields. These states may be individual, collective, transpersonal, non-human or pan-cosmic. Studies in New Paradigm Sentience and Consciousness consider states of prehension, awareness, reflection, sense-making, and experiential being that can be expressed and communicated in some form.
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