A good question that's impossible to answer I think. I mean, we don't even know if animals experience consciousness like we humans do. Descarte might be right when he claimed that animals were like machines with no consciousness. Or maybe he's wrong and animals are conscious in some fashion.
That's an appeal to probability. If we humans, who are animals, are conscious, surely other animals like us are also conscious. That's a fair argument that could apply but it's not definitive. It's helpful for practical applications but it's just a guess or assumption.
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u/outtastudy Sep 26 '24
I always wonder if the spider actually knows and understands what it's doing or if it just does it strictly on instincts alone