• Question: How do we know that dogs and cats don't have conscious thought?

    Asked by Lily to Adam, Adele, Deborah, Matt, Samantha on 10 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: Matthew Lee

      Matthew Lee answered on 10 Jun 2017:

      Hmmmm I don’t know. I think this probably comes down to what you define ‘conscious thought’ (or consciousness) as. To me it is the ability to be aware of what goes on inside your head, so to understand why you are eating food or why you are afraid of heights for example. I’m not sure cats and dogs know why they are hungry, they just know they are hungry. But then again I’m not a neuroscientist or psychologist so I could be talking absolute rubbish!

      Still not sure though, you should ask a psychologist or a neuroscientist. Spoilers: a psychologist and a neuroscientist will probably have different opinions on what consciousness is so you might not get a straight solid answer.

    • Photo: Samantha Ahern

      Samantha Ahern answered on 12 Jun 2017:

      There is still a lot of discussion about what consciousness is and whether it is required for intelligence, this is one of the many ongoing debates about AI researchers. The question of what we mean by an AI is something I wrote about as part of my MSc.

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