When it comes to the nature of consciousness, I have fairly specific opinions. I don’t think consciousness is a continuum. I think it’s like an input or output channel. Either it’s connected or not. I think either something has consciousness or it doesn’t. It seems like my perspective on consciousness is one of the major things that separates my perspective on animal welfare from other people’s.
I can appreciate that humans are animals, but I think if an animal doesn’t have consciousness, we don’t need to worry about its welfare because there’s nobody home. Nothing is actually experiencing things from the perspective of that animal. So I think the major question is if they have consciousness or not, and which species.
When it comes to the nature of consciousness, I have fairly specific opinions. I don’t think consciousness is a continuum. I think it’s like an input or output channel. Either it’s connected or not. I think either something has consciousness or it doesn’t. It seems like my perspective on consciousness is one of the major things that separates my perspective on animal welfare from other people’s.
I can appreciate that humans are animals, but I think if an animal doesn’t have consciousness, we don’t need to worry about its welfare because there’s nobody home. Nothing is actually experiencing things from the perspective of that animal. So I think the major question is if they have consciousness or not, and which species.