I am a little surprised that evidence for integrative brain regions is very high for all but the Penaeidae. Do we know to what extent this is the case because direct/​proxy studies on Penaeidae sentience haven’t been performed vs. studies were performed but results showed low evidence of sentience?
And answering some of your questions:
Which criterions do you think are the most convincing to update your confidence?
Criteria 2 ≈ 3 > 4 ≈ 5
Do you have other types of evidence that better influence your confidence?
Not evidence, but a heuristic I use when thinking about sentience is that any organism that performs reinforcement learning, i.e., making on-the-fly decisions informed by environmental stimuli is most likely sentient.
The report does not state explicitely why Penaeidae are given such a low rating compared to other taxons. From my understanding of their explanation, it would mainly be because brain regions highly involved with learning and memory (hemiellipsoid bodies) are especially reduced in Penaeidae. While Astacidea also display relatively small hemiellipsoid bodies, other brain regions (accessory lobes) have shown to compensate these integrative processes in this taxon, which has not yet been demonstrated for Penaeidae. It’s thus still a low rating for lack of data, not for proof of failing this criterion. It would be reasonable to expect that Penaeidae validate this criteria as well, until showed otherwise
… other brain regions (accessory lobes) have shown to compensate these integrative processes in this taxon, which has not yet been demonstrated for Penaeidae. It’s thus still a low rating for lack of data, not for proof of failing this criterion.
This reminds me of two things:
I am forgetting the precise terms here, but for a while in the 1800s through most of the 1900s, researchers thought that birds weren’t intelligent because they were essentially comparing human and avian brains 1:1, but later, others found that while birds lacked that specific component (neocortex?), some other regions of their brain were functionally similar and that birds were indeed smart rather than instinct-driven biological machines.
I recall watching Dustin Crummett’s presentation on insect sentience a while back, and when talking about lack of evidence of sentience in certain insects, he emphasized that the besides black soldier fly and honeybees, most insects aren’t that well-studied.
I am a little surprised that evidence for integrative brain regions is very high for all but the Penaeidae. Do we know to what extent this is the case because direct/​proxy studies on Penaeidae sentience haven’t been performed vs. studies were performed but results showed low evidence of sentience?
And answering some of your questions:
Which criterions do you think are the most convincing to update your confidence?
Criteria 2 ≈ 3 > 4 ≈ 5
Do you have other types of evidence that better influence your confidence?
Not evidence, but a heuristic I use when thinking about sentience is that any organism that performs reinforcement learning, i.e., making on-the-fly decisions informed by environmental stimuli is most likely sentient.
The report does not state explicitely why Penaeidae are given such a low rating compared to other taxons. From my understanding of their explanation, it would mainly be because brain regions highly involved with learning and memory (hemiellipsoid bodies) are especially reduced in Penaeidae. While Astacidea also display relatively small hemiellipsoid bodies, other brain regions (accessory lobes) have shown to compensate these integrative processes in this taxon, which has not yet been demonstrated for Penaeidae. It’s thus still a low rating for lack of data, not for proof of failing this criterion. It would be reasonable to expect that Penaeidae validate this criteria as well, until showed otherwise
Thanks for your input!
This reminds me of two things:
I am forgetting the precise terms here, but for a while in the 1800s through most of the 1900s, researchers thought that birds weren’t intelligent because they were essentially comparing human and avian brains 1:1, but later, others found that while birds lacked that specific component (neocortex?), some other regions of their brain were functionally similar and that birds were indeed smart rather than instinct-driven biological machines.
I recall watching Dustin Crummett’s presentation on insect sentience a while back, and when talking about lack of evidence of sentience in certain insects, he emphasized that the besides black soldier fly and honeybees, most insects aren’t that well-studied.