Invertebrate sentience table (introduced here) has “Self-administers analgesics” as one of the features potentially indicative of phenomenal consciousness. But it’s only filled for honey bees, chickens, and humans. I agree that more such experiments would be useful. It’s more directly tied to what we care about (qualia) than most experiments.
I think that animals might not eat painkillers until they are unconscious out of their survival instinct. There are substances that act as painkillers in nature, and the trait “eat it until you’re unconscious” would be selected against by natural selection. But if they would eat it until unconscious, that would provide good evidence that their lives are worse than non-existence.
Invertebrate sentience table (introduced here) has “Self-administers analgesics” as one of the features potentially indicative of phenomenal consciousness. But it’s only filled for honey bees, chickens, and humans. I agree that more such experiments would be useful. It’s more directly tied to what we care about (qualia) than most experiments.
I think that animals might not eat painkillers until they are unconscious out of their survival instinct. There are substances that act as painkillers in nature, and the trait “eat it until you’re unconscious” would be selected against by natural selection. But if they would eat it until unconscious, that would provide good evidence that their lives are worse than non-existence.
Interesting – thanks for sharing. Yes, agreed on all of this