Even if we grant the authorās low confidence in nematodesā having marker five (motivational trade-offs), current science provides ample confidence that nematodes have markers one (nociceptors), two (integrated brain regions), four (responsiveness to analgesics), and seven (sophisticated associative learning). Given high confidence that nematodes have even three of these markers, the reportās methodology [Birch et al. (2021)] would have us conclude that there is āsubstantial evidenceā of sentience in nematodes.
I guess research on motivational trade-offs would be the most useful to decrease the uncertainty about the sentience of nematodes. From section 13.4 of The Edge of Sentience:
In C. elegans, behaviour seems to be driven by immediate stimuli, with no reason to posit internal representations. That said, further investigation is clearly warranted, and we have to be open to all possible outcomes of this investigation, including an outcome in which we end up reclassifying nematodes as sentience candidates.
Becerra et al. (2023) has more relevant context about research on the sentience of nematodes.
That makes sense. I was thinking Guillaume would have thoughts about the cost, and that you and Guillaume could have thoughts about the benefits. I wonder what would be Arthropoda Foundationās willingness to pay for a similar guide about research on the sentience of nematodes.
I donāt think itās worth doing. I donāt think weād learn anything from the exercise. Skepticism about nematode sentience is driven partially by doubts that they achieve the same behaviors via the same mechanisms. So just establishing sameness of behavior wouldnāt be that helpful. The research agenda for them should focus on how more complex brains achieve the same kinds of things, which might shed light on whether those brains are meaningfully different from simpler ones. Or so Iām inclined to think at this point.
This guide took roughly one month of full-time work (I worked on it for two months intermittently), with weekly feedbacks and discussions. It could maybe be quicker if it was simply adapted for nematodes, as most of whatās presented here is how we study sentience for almost any animal. Take an average hourly rate of $40 and it should be around $5k.
Now, would it be useful to actually pay someone a full month to do it: I donāt know, based on what? Counterfactual value over doing/āfunding something else? By itself, more research and discussions would always be appreciable. I think it would still be worth doing, but maybe we need someone to work on this on their free time. However, where I agree with Bob is that decapods are really closely related āhigherā animals and we have high incentives to consider their abilites as very similar; whereas nematodesā abilities might be below a certain sentience threshold, notably as they lack a highly centralized nervous system. Current evidence for nematodes is very similar to what I explored in planarians: they show good signs of criteria 1 to 4 and the most basics characteristics of criterion 7 (and as disucssed by Birch, not every type of associative learning would weigh the same); and thus much deeper questions should arise about how and if much simpler brains could experience sentience. That said, preliminary work on sentience criteria for nematodes does not seem out of place for meābut we would probably need to discuss way further than that, also since human impact on nematodes is highly different than on shrimps
Guillaume and @Bob Fischer, do you think it would be useful to have a similar guide for nematodes? If so, how much funding would you need to do it?
Nematodes are one of the āFour Investigation Prioritiesā mentioned in chapter 13 of the book The Edge of Sentience by Jonathan Birch. From Andrews (2024):
I guess research on motivational trade-offs would be the most useful to decrease the uncertainty about the sentience of nematodes. From section 13.4 of The Edge of Sentience:
Becerra et al. (2023) has more relevant context about research on the sentience of nematodes.
Guillaume would know better than me! I donāt know how long he spent on this project.
That makes sense. I was thinking Guillaume would have thoughts about the cost, and that you and Guillaume could have thoughts about the benefits. I wonder what would be Arthropoda Foundationās willingness to pay for a similar guide about research on the sentience of nematodes.
I donāt think itās worth doing. I donāt think weād learn anything from the exercise. Skepticism about nematode sentience is driven partially by doubts that they achieve the same behaviors via the same mechanisms. So just establishing sameness of behavior wouldnāt be that helpful. The research agenda for them should focus on how more complex brains achieve the same kinds of things, which might shed light on whether those brains are meaningfully different from simpler ones. Or so Iām inclined to think at this point.
This guide took roughly one month of full-time work (I worked on it for two months intermittently), with weekly feedbacks and discussions. It could maybe be quicker if it was simply adapted for nematodes, as most of whatās presented here is how we study sentience for almost any animal. Take an average hourly rate of $40 and it should be around $5k.
Now, would it be useful to actually pay someone a full month to do it: I donāt know, based on what? Counterfactual value over doing/āfunding something else? By itself, more research and discussions would always be appreciable. I think it would still be worth doing, but maybe we need someone to work on this on their free time. However, where I agree with Bob is that decapods are really closely related āhigherā animals and we have high incentives to consider their abilites as very similar; whereas nematodesā abilities might be below a certain sentience threshold, notably as they lack a highly centralized nervous system. Current evidence for nematodes is very similar to what I explored in planarians: they show good signs of criteria 1 to 4 and the most basics characteristics of criterion 7 (and as disucssed by Birch, not every type of associative learning would weigh the same); and thus much deeper questions should arise about how and if much simpler brains could experience sentience. That said, preliminary work on sentience criteria for nematodes does not seem out of place for meābut we would probably need to discuss way further than that, also since human impact on nematodes is highly different than on shrimps
Thank you both for the relevant thoughts. Here is related chat I had with Gemini.