I really appreciate this post, and think you did a great job writing it. This is one of the most comprehensive summaries of animal consciousness research I have seen, and I will likely be referring back to it. If you’re interested, I have compiled a few sources that try to demonstrate that “animals are conscious” is the consensus view among people who study it. (I was dating someone who weakly believed that animals weren’t conscious, so I sent him a 7 page email on animal consciousness).
I would summarize the errors you’re describing as such:
Zombie error: Misunderstanding the views of others when refuting their arguments
Decision theory error: His theory has contradictions and weird implications?
Animal error: Epistemics. Refusing to engage with evidence.
The zombie and animal errors feel like fundamental, egregious errors. The decision theory error just feels like a philosophical disagreement? Your critique of it sounds like a lot of philosophical critiques of other philosophical theories. So a disagreement, but not evidence of egregious errors. But I’m not a philosopher and haven’t read philosophy in a long, long time. So I may be mistaken about the nature of your disagreement.
I really appreciate this post, and think you did a great job writing it. This is one of the most comprehensive summaries of animal consciousness research I have seen, and I will likely be referring back to it. If you’re interested, I have compiled a few sources that try to demonstrate that “animals are conscious” is the consensus view among people who study it. (I was dating someone who weakly believed that animals weren’t conscious, so I sent him a 7 page email on animal consciousness).
I would summarize the errors you’re describing as such:
Zombie error: Misunderstanding the views of others when refuting their arguments
Decision theory error: His theory has contradictions and weird implications?
Animal error: Epistemics. Refusing to engage with evidence.
The zombie and animal errors feel like fundamental, egregious errors. The decision theory error just feels like a philosophical disagreement? Your critique of it sounds like a lot of philosophical critiques of other philosophical theories. So a disagreement, but not evidence of egregious errors. But I’m not a philosopher and haven’t read philosophy in a long, long time. So I may be mistaken about the nature of your disagreement.