Basic Components of Consciousness in Non-Human and Human Mammals

    Consciousness is such a difficult concept, idea and word to define.  To date, no-one has come up with a definitive definition of what consciousness is.  When we can’t even define it’s meaning in relation to the human species, how then, can we define it in relation to non-human animal species?  This question, along with the burning question of whether or not non-human animals are even in possession of consciousness has been hotly debated in scientific and non-scientific circles for many years now.
    Although we humans have still not come to any satisfactory conclusions about the true nature of consciousness, there are many definitions with which to ground further thought and research upon.  These too, may be in their very concreteness quite slippery and unclear.   The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus defines consciousness as “1. awake and aware of one’s surroundings and identity, 2a. aware; knowing, b. intentional.”  This definition appears pretty straightforward, however, when one looks at this definition in comparison with a couple others, the small differences in wording can make a huge difference in the meaning of such a huge word, and concept, as consciousness.  Take for example the definition given by The Merriam Webster Dictionary, “1. aware, 2. known or felt by one’s inner self, 3. mentally awake or alert: not asleep or unconscious”, now compare this with the definition given by Webster’s New World Dictionary, “1. the state of being conscious; awareness, 2. the totality of one’s thoughts and feelings.”
    One definition talks of consciousness as a state of being aware of one’s identity and surroundings but this does not tell us if this includes being aware of one’s identity in relation to their surroundings.  It often seems as if non-human animals are more aware of their identity in relation to their surroundings than we human animals are!  They are not the species that is destroying the Earth.  Another definition talks about one’s inner self, how is a non-verbal animal going to communicate to us whether they have an inner self?  Now if we are to look at these definitions based upon what we can objectively conclude about non-human animals then it would appear that they are conscious.  They are definitely aware of their surroundings and usually work in harmony with them, they are definitely awake and conscious when not sleeping, and finally, many non-human animals seem to perform intentional acts whether in relation to survival needs or social needs.
    When it comes to terminology and definition of such a difficult concept such as consciousness, we could argue semantics for ages.  My point is that the study of animal consciousness is a very tricky one and we often forget that we can only interpret research from the viewpoint of a human.  It is very difficult to objectively research this area as most animals cannot communicate with us in a manner that we objectively understand.  For all we know non-human animals may be communicating with us in a sixth sense which most of us probably cannot interpret or understand.  The question then is; can there be a universal definition of consciousness that applies to all life, or are there very different types of consciousness?  For animal lovers there is often an urge to anthropomorphize in relation to the question of animal consciousness.  For millions of pet owners and animal lovers it seems quite obvious that animals have a definite conscious life.  Many conclude this through, (often unwittingly), anthropomorphizing animal behaviors, (relating a non-human animal behavior to that of a human).    
In order to truly prove animal consciousness, there has to be objective, scientific research.   The struggle for research which is objective and  scientifically thorough has been difficult.  Now, however scientists are starting to find new methods of and connections within research that seem to indisputably point to animal consciousness.  Most of this research has, and is being done in the area of non-human mammalian animals since they appear to be some of the highest functioning animals and therefore closer to humans.
Some researchers believe that consciousness is hardwired, while others believe that it is learned or enculturated.  In the research presented by Bernard J. Baars in his article: On the Difficulty of Distinguishing Between Conscious Brain Functions in Humans and other Mammals, Using Objective Measures, there is a seemingly overwhelming body of evidence to support the hypothesis that it is indeed hardwired, or at least the potential for it is.  This article is what this paper will be based on.  In this article, Baars tries to show that consciousness is “ a fundamental biological adaptation” (Baars, 1).  
The article begins with an overview of the skepticism of consciousness in the twentieth century.  He shows that before 1900 there was a seemingly open-minded scientific attitude toward the issue of consciousness in both humans and non-human animals and that shortly before 1900 these attitudes began to change.  Eventually due to the difficulty of Darwin’s theories, mind-body philosophies and cultural differences and disputes between religion and science scientists began to disregard consciousness as a delusion, this attitude persisted until the mid twentieth century.  Apparently, much of the skepticism surrounding consciousness was put in place by behavioral scientists.  Baars goes on to say that there is now a large body of evidence indicating that the behaviorists were wrong and that there is now a large amount of convincing evidence that there are no major differences in the brain functions which aid consciousness between human and non-human mammalian animals.
    Baars distinguishes between intelligence and consciousness.  He defines intelligence as problem solving and consciousness as “wakeful alertness and conscious perception, including the perception of pain and pleasure”.  He goes on to show that intelligence or problem solving ability is species-specific.  He gives the example of humans using a worded language and being able to manipulate those words as a species- specific ability.  He then gives an example using pigeons and states their uncanny air location abilities as a species-specific ability.  His point is that while intelligence consists of problem solving ability and may be related to different areas of different species’ brains, consciousness consists of certain fundamental brain mechanisms that are common across species, not only vertebrates but also some invertebrates as well.  
    A standard operational definition and observational index of consciousness in humans he gives as an “accurate, verifiable report” (e.g. Baars, 1988, 1998, in press ab).  This relates to sensory abilities and the conscious events surrounding them.  Other animals also posses these sensory abilities and have conscious events surrounding them.  In order to show that non-human animals have conscious sensory experiences or events Baars relates what is called the “commentary key”.  The commentary key method allows a species to give a behavioral comment on a previous response.  “This reflects the idea that human reports of conscious experiences are shared comments about those experiences.  When a child exclaims, “Mom airplane!” s/he is making a public comment about a conscious visual event, telling an observer what was just experienced” (Baars 3).  Baars relates research done on human and non-human animals with the condition of blindsight.  Using the commentary key, monkeys with blindsight which were tested were allowed to make “a metacognitive comment about their discriminative responses.  Like a human a macaque can choose accurately between colors, for example.  The commentary key allows it to signal whether its accurate behavior has a corresponding conscious qualitative  experience—specifically, whether a stimulus in the occluded visual field can be distinguished from a blank display in the intact field.  The macaques did not learn to discriminate between the two” (Baars, 4).  This was the same response as the human subjects and represented a denial of visual qualities.
    The next body of evidence that Baars goes over has to do with distractibility in relation to competing sources of sensory stimuli.  Apparently, the same reactions to competing sensory streams can be observed in both human and non-human animals.  Distractibility in behavioral science indicates “limited capacity for competing sensory streams, a well-established feature of conscious but not unconscious processes (e.g. Baars, 1988, 1998).  Non-human animals, it is stated also show behavioral signs of states such as sleep, drowsiness and alertness that correspond to the same conscious states in humans.  Baars believes that more research will and should be done based on a species ability to discriminate between and match classes of stimuli.  Many animals have been shown to posses these discriminatory abilities, which are akin to the ability of a human to distinguish between stimuli such as sounds, colors, etc. (what some philosophers refer to as conscious qualia).  An example would be a human showing their ability to pick out different shades of color and relate them to objects, this would necessitate a descriptive response, which in turn would indicate a conscious event.  There has now been research done showing these same abilities in non-human animals albeit expressed in different ways.
    Baars next argument involves EEG studies.  Between waking consciousness and deep, unconscious sleep there are major differences in EEG activity.  In waking states there is fast, irregular, low voltage field activity in the thalamocortical core of the brain while in deep sleep there is slow, regular and high voltage field activity in the same core area of the brain.  The same EEG activity has been shown in monkeys, cats and other species in relation to the same waking and sleeping states.  Baars goes further into this research by showing that the similarities in human and non-human mammalian species is even similar in relation to more complex brain functioning.  In waking and sleeping states in both species there is a huge difference in complex brain function and chemistry.
    According to research done in which large portion or hemisphere of the brain in subjects is removed and does not induce either coma or a loss of consciousness.  Apparently this goes to show the rather than being a vague part of the brain the areas that support consciousness in both human and non-human animals are actually very specific.  “In all mammals the state of waking consciousness seems to require only two small anantomical areas, the brainstem reticular formation and the intralaminar nuclei of the thalamus” (Baars, 5).  This showsthat the areas required for waking consciousness are the same in both human and non-human mammalian species and would lead one to a further belief that human and non-human mammals are conscious since they both have the same brain components of consciousness.
    Baars continues to delve into scientific research that he believes shows that not only human mammals are conscious but non-human mammals have the same ability.  HE strives to show this through an overview of the neurochemistry of waking consciousness and then the neural basis of conscious vision in the human and primate cortex, (these are sections 3.6 and 3.7 of his paper respectively).  I will not go into these sections here as they are not in layman terms and are quite difficult to understand for one not trained or at least educated in psychiatry and medical science.  I will only say that Baars believes that non-human mammals are what he calls “visually conscious” as humans are.  He believes this due to through physical research and evidence based on neurochemistry and brain function.
    The next section of Baars paper restates his hypothesis that “waking consciousness involves a basic biological adaptation with survival functions” (Baars,7).  This applies to all mammals in his hypothesis and is partly based upon the fact that all important functions take place during waking consciousness, for example learning, eating, nursing, mating, exploring and all other so called directed survival actions.  Baars concludes his paper by saying that we make inferential leaps as humans regarding consciousness.  He says that although skeptics state that objective evidence for states of non-human animal consciousness does not tell us about states of non-human animal subjective consciousness that we refer this evidence about human subjective consciousness all the time.  For example when someone says “ouch”, we instantly infer that they are feeling a state of pain which in the standard definition or indicator of consciousness indicates a subjective conscious state but we are inferring it through objective means.  He asks why then can we not make similar inferences about non-human animals, in this case mammals?
    My take on this paper is a positive one and is reinforced by a similar article that I found regarding visual perceptual consciousness.  This article seems to reinforce the view that non-human animal consciousness in relation to perceptual visual abilities can be similar across species indicating consciousness in more than just humans.  In this other paper the ability to differentiate between artistic styles, (in this case cubist and impressionist, mainly Picasso and Monet), was tested on pigeons.  This paper was fascinating also, as was Baar’s paper and revealed that pigeons once visually acclimated to the different styles were able to differentiate not only between Monet and Picasso but between other cubist and impressionist painters.  This paper showed that the brain components necessary for discrimination and judgements of style, (in this case artistic), are not as complicated as previously thought and can definitely not be relegated only to the human species.
    The thorough exploration of biological brain components of non-human and human mammals in Baar’s paper really struck me as impressive and surprising.  I had no idea that such through research had been done in these areas and that brain functioning and brain areas were similar or identical in relation to consciousness in both non-human and human mammals and also some invertebrates.  The various research and studies that he delves into in this paper are convincing of non-human animal consciousness, however, I feel that if he had done a longer more extensive paper his case would be more verifiable and indisputable.  He also tends to wander somewhat between topics and the topics themselves seem to almost be too broad and varied for one paper.  Overall though I was impressed by his research.  
                                     Works Cited:
“consciousness.”  The Merriam Webster Dictionary.   1997.
“consciousness.”  Webster’s New World Dictionary.  1985.
“consciousness.”  The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus.  2001.
Baars, Bernard J.  On the Difficulty of Distinguishing Between Conscious Brain    
    Funtions in Humans and other Mammals, Using Objective Measures.  
    12 Jul. 2000  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive
Vokey, John R.  Learning an Artist’s Style: Just What Does a Pigeon See in a Picasso?
    1999.  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive