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0 pointsmitthrowaway21y ago0 comments

Ever since Darwin, the scientific view has been descent with modification. We're all branches of the same phylogenetic tree, and many of those branches are very close to us, such as other mammals. We have topologically similar digestive, immune, circulatory, respiratory, nervous, and reproductive systems. While there are important differences between, say, the foods that a cat and a human can digest, the differences in how the overall system works are small compared to the similarities.

Therefore, it's a reasonable starting guess that humans and closely-related animals would have many structural similarities in their mental experience, although with some differences. It tilts the balance towards needing evidence that other animals are not conscious, rather than needing evidence that they are.

And when we look for evidence, we see intelligence even in branches as far away from us as crows and octopuses, suggesting that maybe consciousness (which we guess might correlate with intelligence) has deep roots in that tree, or else emerges independently quite easily.

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rrr_oh_man1y ago

Speaking of consciousness and tress:

https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcs.1...

mitthrowaway2OP1y ago

There's definitely more going on with trees than we once thought, but I'm at least confident that wherever human consciousness comes from, it certainly must be tied to the nervous system. If we inherited consciousness from our ancestors, then the most distant common ancestor that we could possibly have inherited it from would be at most around the point where we branched from jellyfish. So if trees or other plants are conscious in their own way, then they also must have independently evolved it in their own way; it's not a trait that they share with us based on common heritage alone.

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