[meiraleal]

Chemical interactions isn't the same as conscious. I would say that it is exactly the opposite: consciousness is the capability of ignoring your chemical reactions and do what your will says. For example to not eat when hungry, an unconscious animal can't do that.

[HPsquared]

That's just extra layers of chemical reactions.

[HarHarVeryFunny]

No... basic life support functions/instincts are controlled by the evolutionally older parts of the brain, but can be overridden by the the cortex (or equivalent).

The word "consciousness" is all but useless in discussing brain function, or even subjective experience, since it's overloaded and covers so many diverse phenomena. Good luck finding any two people who agree on exactly what the word means!

You seem to be talking more about "free will" than any aspect of consciousness, although there is no scientific basis for thinking that free will is anything other than a subjective illusion. Your cortex is able to override basic instincts, but is still doing so via neural outputs and chemistry. Why one person's cortex might override hunger in a given situation, while another person's cortex doesn't, really is not something they have any control over. It's chemistry and physics (not magic and "free will") all the way down. Your cortex does what it does because of how it is wired, which is a result of your personal life history. It's funny that we can often recognize this in others - guessing with high probability what they are going to do in a given situation, while still thinking that we ourselves are not controlled by our past and have the "free will" to do whatever we like (but in reality what we like is controlled by our past - there is no escaping it).

What we subjectively feel as ourselves making a decision to do something is really just us observing our own thought processes, over which we have no control. This is really the only place where anything that I would label as part of that fuzzy word "consciousness" is coming to play - this ability to self-observe.

This ability to self-observe and feel as if the observer (which is also just our cortex) is in control, is perhaps based on specific cortical pathways that evolved to further our cortex's predictive purpose/function. However, it's certainly possible to imagine a brain that was wired differently and didn't have this ability, although maybe in reality all animal brains with a cortex/equivalent, even a more primitive reptilian one, do have this ability?

Finally, getting back to the topic of this thread, it seems highly unlikely that insects do have this self-observational/awareness aspect of consciousness, simply because they don't have an advanced enough nervous system/brain to support it. You can't think about something if you don't have anything (cortex) to think with. Animals as simple as inspects are really closer to what we think of as machines (although it seems this metaphor/distinction is rapidly going to become useless).

[sanitycheck]

Agree entirely about free will, though I think the continued illusion of it is probably necessary to keep human civilisation running.

When I read about people (scientists, no less) apparently arguing that chimpanzees might not be conscious I wonder what planet they're on. It seems quite clear that every mammal is conscious in a way that most humans have always understood.

Apparently some ants pass the mirror test, so it should probably be uncontroversial to say that insects are conscious. Unless we think that also means ants have free will, that is - and for me, mulling over that problem is what led an acceptance that free will is not a thing for humans either. The usual belief in it results in the mess philosophy got itself into and has yet to extricate itself from, which feels a lot like how we spent thousands of years trying to explain God, a thing that also does not exist.

[meiraleal]

> Finally, getting back to the topic of this thread, it seems highly unlikely that insects do have this self-observational/awareness aspect of consciousness, simply because they don't have an advanced enough nervous system/brain to support it. You can't think about something if you don't have anything (cortex) to think with. Animals as simple as inspects are really closer to what we think of as machines (although it seems this metaphor/distinction is rapidly going to become useless).

I'm glad that after your "rebuke", you concluded the same thing but called it "self-observational/awareness aspect of consciousness". Only a conscious animal could do that.

[HarHarVeryFunny]

You're using a circular definition there - "only a conscious animal can do consciousness stuff".

My "rebuke" wasn't intended as such - it was meant as a break-down of the mechanisms involved, and basically defining what this relevant aspect of "consciousness" (self-observation, in the way I described it) means.

Note that consciousness wouldn't actually be needed for an animal to override instincts - you could still imagine an animal that had a cortex but no self-awareness. I tend to doubt they exist, but not inconceivable. There's a medical condition called "blind sight" were patients report being blind, but can still navigate a cluttered corridor of obstacles, or gaze track moving objects, without being aware of it (i.e. they can see, but are not consciously aware of being able to see).