17 November 2012

An unknown

...My argument is [that] because we don't understand animal consciousness, we ought to be opening our eyes to the possibility that a great range of animals, not just mammals, not just birds, maybe invertebrates are conscious as well. It seems to me that by saying we don't understand consciousness, you're not closing off animals' consciousness. You're not denying animal consciousness altogether. You're just simply saying we don't know and therefore it might exist in a much wider range of animals...
-- Marian Stamp Dawkins

1 comment:

Susannah Anderson said...

This is a great quote. I've been working* with inverts (crabs and hermits) for a while, and the question that always asserts itself, given their responses, is this; where does consciousness begin? How much behaviour is instinctual, and how much relies, instead, on the "mind" of the individual animal?

*"working", as an amateur taking advantage of retirement years.