Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Institution
-
- WellBeing International (408)
- California Institute of Integral Studies (52)
- Selected Works (49)
- City University of New York (CUNY) (10)
- SelectedWorks (6)
-
- Lesley University (5)
- Claremont Colleges (3)
- Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (3)
- University of Louisville (3)
- University of New Hampshire (3)
- University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (3)
- University of Rhode Island (3)
- California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (2)
- Chapman University (2)
- Florida International University (2)
- Portland State University (2)
- Washington University in St. Louis (2)
- Fordham University (1)
- Georgia Southern University (1)
- Kansas State University Libraries (1)
- Linfield University (1)
- Louisiana State University (1)
- Northern Michigan University (1)
- Old Dominion University (1)
- SUNY College Cortland (1)
- Seattle Pacific University (1)
- The University of San Francisco (1)
- University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (1)
- University of Central Florida (1)
- University of Massachusetts Amherst (1)
- Keyword
-
- Consciousness (52)
- Sentience (48)
- Pain (31)
- Cognition (28)
- Fish (26)
-
- Welfare (22)
- Animal welfare (20)
- Ethics (16)
- Evolution (14)
- Sheep (14)
- Mind (13)
- Animal cognition (12)
- Brain (12)
- Emotion (12)
- Emotions (12)
- Nociception (11)
- Jealousy (10)
- Dogs (9)
- Intelligence (9)
- Invertebrates (9)
- Personhood (9)
- Animal consciousness (8)
- Animal sentience (8)
- Animal suffering (8)
- Perception (8)
- Precautionary principle (8)
- Psychology (8)
- Feelings (7)
- Hard problem (7)
- Self-awareness (7)
- Publication Year
- Publication
-
- Animal Sentience (408)
- CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century (31)
- Journal of Conscious Evolution (17)
- Leslie Marsh (9)
- Lori Marino, PhD (7)
-
- Carroy U "Cuf" Ferguson, Ph.D. (6)
- Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects (6)
- Bernard Rollin, PhD (5)
- Culum Brown, PhD (4)
- Jennifer Mather, PhD (4)
- All Faculty Scholarship (3)
- Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses (3)
- Faculty Scholarship (3)
- International Bulletin of Political Psychology (3)
- International Journal of Transpersonal Studies (3)
- Jonathan Balcombe, PhD (3)
- Kristin Andrews, PhD (3)
- Leslie Irvine, PhD (3)
- Lynne Sneddon, PhD (3)
- RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002) (3)
- CMC Senior Theses (2)
- Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence (2)
- FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2)
- Graduate School of Art Theses (2)
- Master's Theses (2)
- Peter J. Li, PhD (2)
- Publications and Research (2)
- Robert C. Jones, PhD (2)
- Theses and Dissertations (2)
- Anthós (1)
- Publication Type
- File Type
Articles 1 - 30 of 581
Full-Text Articles in Cognition and Perception
A Talk With Time, Samanatha Kuban
A Talk With Time, Samanatha Kuban
Master's Theses
I chose to write a collection of genre-mixing short stories to depict the vastness and complexity of time as my English Master’s thesis project. Thinking about the constructs of time and how they function or do not function within our society sparked my interest in this field of knowledge and discussion. I am a person that tends to feel a large amount of anxiety surrounding the passage of time or time limits so reading deeper into studies of time and how we think about it in various ways proved to be an outlet for a better understanding. I chose to …
Avoiding Anthropomoralism, Julian Friedland
Avoiding Anthropomoralism, Julian Friedland
Between the Species
The Montreal Declaration on Animal Exploitation, which has been endorsed by hundreds of influential academic ethicists, calls for establishing a vegan economy by banning what it refers to as all unnecessary animal suffering, including fishing. It does so by appeal to the moral principle of equal consideration of comparable interests. I argue that this principle is misapplied by discounting morally relevant cognitive capacities of self-conscious and volitional personhood as distinguished from merely sentient non-personhood. I describe it as a kind of anthropomorphizing moralism which I call anthropomoralism, defined as the tendency to project morally relevant characteristics of personhood onto merely …
Creating Project Contrast: A Video Game Exploring Consciousness And Qualia, Pierce Papke
Creating Project Contrast: A Video Game Exploring Consciousness And Qualia, Pierce Papke
Honors Projects
Project Contrast is a video game that explores how the unique traits inherent to video games might engage reflective player responses to qualitative experience. Project Contrast does this through suspension of disbelief, avatar projection, presence, player agency in storytelling, visual perception, functional gameplay, and art. Considering the difficulty in researching qualitative experience due to its subjectivity and circular explanations, I created Project Contrast not to analyze qualia, though that was my original hope. I instead created Project Contrast as an avenue for player self-reflection and learning about qualitative experience. While video games might be just code and art on a …
The Psychedelic Dasein: Modelling The Effects Of Psilocybin With Heidegger’S Phenomenology, Eamon Robert Stuart Macdougall
The Psychedelic Dasein: Modelling The Effects Of Psilocybin With Heidegger’S Phenomenology, Eamon Robert Stuart Macdougall
Major Papers
This paper argues that the mystical experience induced by psilocybin (understood through the tradition of Heideggerian phenomenology) modulates the attuned understanding of oneself, the world, and how the individual relates to the world. This kind of particular experience is not accessible to the individual through ordinary consciousness, therefore psilocybin may give us access to a new kind of understanding. This understanding may offer a solution to the empirical deficiencies surrounding the short-term and long-term effects of psilocybin, such as how a meagre two to three high doses have yielded unprecedented results in the treatment of tobacco addiction, and in the …
Plant Sentience: "Feeling" Or Biological Automatism?, Andrea Mastinu
Plant Sentience: "Feeling" Or Biological Automatism?, Andrea Mastinu
Animal Sentience
Sentience refers to the ability of an organism to have subjective experiences such as sensations, emotions and awareness. Whereas some animals, including humans, are widely recognized as sentient, the question of whether plants are sentient is still debated among scientists, philosophers, and ethicists. Over the past 20 years, many scientists such as Trewavas, Baluška, Mancuso, Gagliano, and Calvo have reported interesting discussions about memory, behavior, communication, and intelligence in plants. However, the reported conclusions have not convinced the entire scientific community. In this commentary, I would like to focus on two critical aspects related to sentience: cognition and emotion
Plant Sentience: Bias And Promise, Sidney Carls-Diamante
Plant Sentience: Bias And Promise, Sidney Carls-Diamante
Animal Sentience
Whichever side of the debate one chooses, plant sentience is a fertile research area that challenges received views and assumptions, generates novel insights, and suggests new ways that felt states might arise. My commentary discusses methodological and philosophical implications.
Mandala: On The Logos Of Place, Michael Schwartz
Mandala: On The Logos Of Place, Michael Schwartz
Journal of Conscious Evolution
Suddenly, during the night, one awakens while dreaming – aware that this is a dream. The “rules” of action, reaction, and of form itself are not that of the waking state – one might leap in the air and fly, transform one’s body into any number of forms, reach up in the sky and grab the sun and clouds, pulling them to the side, bringing forth a canopy of moon and stars. The entire scene, in the lucid dream, has a heightened sense of radiance and joy, vitality and freedom.
Imagine this sense of lucid dreaming is occurring right here …
Remembering The Future: Wild Time And The Cosmic Imagination, Arabella Thaïs
Remembering The Future: Wild Time And The Cosmic Imagination, Arabella Thaïs
Journal of Conscious Evolution
Entropy – the Second Law of Thermodynamics – is generally held to prove “time’s arrow”: that time is linear and unidirectional, and that the universe is following this trajectory. This paper presents a preliminary exposition into a new, integral ontology of time in which time is hyper-dimensional, non-linear and flows in both directions. This is supported through trans-disciplinary praxis at the intersection of aesthetics, cosmology, quantum mechanics, and chaos theory. The metaphysical implications of reverse causality are investigated, and confer a teleological universe that is coherent with the paradigm of an intelligent, self-realising cosmos in which beauty is a fundamental …
Plants Detect And Adapt, But Do Not Feel, Paul C. Struik
Plants Detect And Adapt, But Do Not Feel, Paul C. Struik
Animal Sentience
Plant sentience is a hot topic in scientific and popular media. There are moral reasons to respect both the service of plants to humanity and their natural integrity as creatures playing their own significant role in a complex ecosystem. However, to infer that plants have certain cognitive capacities that are present also in certain human and nonhuman animals calls for scientific rigor beyond mere analogy. The unique capacities of plants identified by Segundo-Ortin & Calvo are not necessarily linked to sentience. Nor is it likely that sentience is an evolutionary trait that is present to some extent in all living …
Insentient “Cognition”?, Stevan Harnad
Insentient “Cognition”?, Stevan Harnad
Animal Sentience
A sentient state is a state that it feels like something to be in. Cows have them, cars don’t. Cognitive capacities are a subset of behavioral capacities. Not all behavioral capacities are cognitive (but the distinction is fuzzy). Might the difference have something to do with whether the behaver is sentient?
Seeing And Unlearning Whiteness: A Mindfulness Workshop For Racial Justice, Emily Haranas
Seeing And Unlearning Whiteness: A Mindfulness Workshop For Racial Justice, Emily Haranas
Mindfulness Studies Theses
Racism is a deeply embedded, foundational aspect of American society. However, because the privilege of Whiteness insulates White individuals from the workings of systemic injustice and oppression and enables them to choose the conditions of their accountability in the movement for racial justice, many remain painfully blind to this fact. As such, there is a significant need for those who have been racialized White to develop a critical awareness of the powers and privileges ascribed to their racial identity. The working premise of this thesis is that mindfulness can assist White individuals in unlinking the socialized habits of mind that …
Not Beloved, Only Broken: Sex Dolls, Robots, And Woman Hating: The Case For Resistance By Caitlin Roper (Spinifex Press, 2022), Donovan Cleckley
Not Beloved, Only Broken: Sex Dolls, Robots, And Woman Hating: The Case For Resistance By Caitlin Roper (Spinifex Press, 2022), Donovan Cleckley
Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence
No abstract provided.
Appraising Evidence For Valence, Víctor Carranza-Pinedo
Appraising Evidence For Valence, Víctor Carranza-Pinedo
Animal Sentience
I make some remarks about whether evidence of valenced responses constitutes evidence of valenced states, and therefore of sentience, in organisms.
Plant Sentience? Between Romanticism And Denial: Science, Miguel Segundo-Ortin, Paco Calvo
Plant Sentience? Between Romanticism And Denial: Science, Miguel Segundo-Ortin, Paco Calvo
Animal Sentience
A growing number of non-human animal species are being seriously considered as candidates for sentience, but plants are either forgotten or explicitly excluded from these debates. In our view, this is based on the belief that plant behavior is hardwired and inflexible and on an underestimation of the role of plant electrophysiology. We weigh such assumptions against the evidence to suggest that it is time to take seriously the hypothesis that plants, too, might be sentient. We hope this target article will serve as an invitation to investigate sentience in plants with the same rigor as in non-human animals.
Language Matters, Teya Brooks Pribac
Language Matters, Teya Brooks Pribac
Animal Sentience
The term sentience tends to be associated with affective valence along with affectively neutral sensory states. In the absence of evidence for affectively laden states in plants, the use of the term sentience in the exploration of plant sensory and behavioral complexity is misleading and ethically problematic for its potential to trivialize animal sentience.
The Ins And Outs Of Undergraduate Research And Leadership: A Student's Perspective, Regina F. Hockert
The Ins And Outs Of Undergraduate Research And Leadership: A Student's Perspective, Regina F. Hockert
Kinesiology and Public Health
This manuscript is a reflective write-up of Regina Hockert’s experience in completing KINE 462, Honors Kinesiology Senior Project, during the 2022 Fall Quarter. It describes their experience as an undergraduate research leader, including specific milestones and artifacts related to a broader replication study and the daily activities of Dr. Jafrā Thomas’ lab. This essay was designed to be a written reflection around their senior project presentation and the insights shared through that medium about the senior project experience. It is created to showcase lessons learned in relationship with the tasks and responsibilities required of working in-depth on student-led research. …
In-Between Spaces: Atmospheres, Movement And New Narratives For The City, Paul Alexander Stoicheff
In-Between Spaces: Atmospheres, Movement And New Narratives For The City, Paul Alexander Stoicheff
Masters Theses
We often think of architecture as distinct buildings, yet as we move through the city we continuously pass through a built environment that is a collage of buildings. These spaces between buildings are underestimated as influences on our experience of everyday life in the city. Considering architecture as linked existential experiences through spaces rather than confined to individual buildings is more in line with our experience of the city as a series of interconnected spaces and places. Rather than describing a single, static architecture through words, how can we express this linked experience of spaces dynamically through narratives? Can writing …
The Politics Of The Self: Psychedelic Assemblages, Psilocybin, And Subjectivity In The Anthropocene, Joshua Falcon
The Politics Of The Self: Psychedelic Assemblages, Psilocybin, And Subjectivity In The Anthropocene, Joshua Falcon
FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation examines how psychedelic substances become drawn into particular sociohistorical and political arrangements, and how psychedelic experiences with psilocybin ‘magic mushrooms’ are used as tools of subjectivation. Guided by literatures in philosophy, critical theory, and the social sciences that focus on subjectivity, assemblage theory, and critical posthumanism, I argue that psychedelics are drawn into variegated assemblages, each of which conceptualizes the nature of psychedelics in highly specific ways that reflect implicit conceptions of the world and the self. In developing the concept of psychedelic assemblages, this research provides a window onto the politics of the self in the Anthropocene. …
Unconscious Humans, Autonomous Machines And The Difficulty Of Knowing Which Animals Are Sentient, Marian Stamp Dawkins
Unconscious Humans, Autonomous Machines And The Difficulty Of Knowing Which Animals Are Sentient, Marian Stamp Dawkins
Animal Sentience
The framework proposed by Crump et al. still leaves much doubt about whether invertebrates such as crabs are sentient. For example, many complex behaviours - even in humans - occur without sentience. Also, simple machines could easily meet all of Crump et al.’s eight proposed criteria for sentience. Acknowledging the limitations of what we currently know about sentience is important both for formulating legislation correctly and for advancing scientific understanding of this most puzzling of biological phenomena.
How Perception Meets Hermeneutics: An Empirical Investigation Of Tasseography, Elizabeth Avetisian
How Perception Meets Hermeneutics: An Empirical Investigation Of Tasseography, Elizabeth Avetisian
International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive
Tasseography is a divination method to provide insight about the seeker’s past, present, or future life by interpreting patterns in the dregs of a liquid. Although it has been practiced with coffee throughout Europe and Middle East, particularly among women, no known studies exist on the seer’s perceptual process of the ambiguous patterns or how the roles of the seeker and seer, symbols, ritual, and cultural epistemology shape the divinatory hermeneutics. This study focused on the Armenian coffee divination ritual, asking what are the processes and conditions that enable experienced cup readers to obtain divinatory insight in tasseography? Two seekers …
Time To Stop Pretending We Don’T Know Other Animals Are Sentient Beings, Marc Bekoff
Time To Stop Pretending We Don’T Know Other Animals Are Sentient Beings, Marc Bekoff
Animal Sentience
Rowan et al.’s target article is an outstanding review of some of the history of the science of sentience, but one would have liked to see a much stronger “call to action.” We don’t need any more data to know that many other animals are sentient beings whose lives must be protected from harm in a wide variety of contexts. It is not anti-science to want more action on behalf of other animals right now.
Sentience In Decapod Crustaceans: A General Framework And Review Of The Evidence, Andrew Crump, Heather Browning, Alex Schnell, Charlotte Burn, Jonathan Birch
Sentience In Decapod Crustaceans: A General Framework And Review Of The Evidence, Andrew Crump, Heather Browning, Alex Schnell, Charlotte Burn, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
We outline a framework for evaluating scientific evidence of sentience, focusing on pain experience. It includes eight neural and cognitive-behavioural criteria, with confidence levels for each criterion reflecting the reliability and quality of the evidence. We outline the rationale for each criterion and apply our framework to a controversial sentience candidate: decapod crustaceans. We have either high or very high confidence that true crabs (infraorder Brachyura) satisfy five criteria, amounting to strong evidence of sentience. Moreover, we have high confidence that both anomuran crabs (infraorder Anomura) and astacid lobsters/crayfish (infraorder Astacidea) meet three criteria—substantial evidence of sentience. The case is, …
Animal Sentience Research: Synthesis And Proposals, Andrew Crump, Heather Browning, Alex Schnell, Charlotte Burn, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience Research: Synthesis And Proposals, Andrew Crump, Heather Browning, Alex Schnell, Charlotte Burn, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
Most commentaries on our target article broadly support our approach to evaluating evidence of animal sentience. In this Response, we clarify the framework’s purpose and address criticisms of our criteria. A recurring theme is that a framework to synthesise current evidence of sentience is not the same as an agenda for future directions in animal sentience research. Although future directions are valuable, our framework aims to evaluate existing evidence and inform animal welfare legislation.
All Living Organisms Are Sentient, Arthur S. Reber, Frantisek Baluska, William B. Miller Jr.
All Living Organisms Are Sentient, Arthur S. Reber, Frantisek Baluska, William B. Miller Jr.
Animal Sentience
We argue that all living organisms, from the simplest unicellular prokaryotes to Homo sapiens, have valenced experiences—feelings as states of preference—and are capable of cognitive representations. Bacteria can learn, form stable memories, and communicate, hence solve problems. Rowan et al.'s statement that "Subjective feelings are just that — subjective — and are available only to the animal (or human) experiencing them" is true but irrelevant. When we see a fish flopping about in the bottom of a boat we immediately recognize suffering without having a glimpse of the nature of piscine distress. Some controlled anthropomorphism can go a …
Legal Recognition Of Animal Sentience: The Case For Cautious Optimism, Jane Kotzmann
Legal Recognition Of Animal Sentience: The Case For Cautious Optimism, Jane Kotzmann
Animal Sentience
Rowan et al.’s target article provides a valuable indication of the work that was required to reach the point where animals are recognised as sentient in various laws. To ensure this work was not in vain, the language of sentience needs to be used as a moral currency to demand further cultural change involving greater human respect for animals.
The Science Of Animal Sentience And The Politics Of Animal Welfare Should Be Kept Separate, Marian Stamp Dawkins
The Science Of Animal Sentience And The Politics Of Animal Welfare Should Be Kept Separate, Marian Stamp Dawkins
Animal Sentience
Although linked historically by Rowan et al., the scientific study of animal sentience and political campaigns to improve animal welfare should be kept separate, for at least two reasons. First, the separation makes it clear that standards of evidence acceptable for ethical or political decisions on animal welfare can be lower than those required for a rigorously scientific approach to animal sentience. Second, it helps to avoid confirmatory bias in the form of giving undue weight to results that are in line with pre-conceived ideas and political views.
Revisiting Donald Griffin, Founder Of Cognitive Ethology, Carolyn A. Ristau
Revisiting Donald Griffin, Founder Of Cognitive Ethology, Carolyn A. Ristau
Animal Sentience
Donald Griffin’s writings, beginning with The Question of Animal Awareness (1976), strove to persuade scientists to study the possibility of animal sentience, the basis of Rowan et al.’s efforts to promote animal well-being. Facing great hostility (but also some acceptance) for his ideas, Griffin initially avoided animal welfare advocacy, fearing it would further undermine his efforts to gain recognition of animal sentience. In later years, however, he began to ponder the ethical implications of animal sentience, intending to study wild elephants’ communication and social behavior to better understand their experienced life and apply it to improving conservation methods. As he …
Defining And Assessing Sentience, Barry O. Hughes
Defining And Assessing Sentience, Barry O. Hughes
Animal Sentience
Precisely what is meant by the term sentience and how does it overlap with being conscious? We accept that animals have feelings but how do we know what they are and can we measure them? It is important that we clarify the terminology underlying these difficult concepts. Over the last 50 years a scientific discipline has developed to tackle these questions in a systematic way. We have to avoid thoughtless anthropomorphism yet we have to try to relate sentience in animals, as appropriate, to corresponding experiences in humans.
Pain Sentience Criteria And Their Grading, Eva Jablonka, Simona Ginsburg
Pain Sentience Criteria And Their Grading, Eva Jablonka, Simona Ginsburg
Animal Sentience
On the basis of the target article by Crump and colleagues, we suggest a more parsimonious scheme for evaluating the evidence for sentience. Since some of the criteria used by Crump et al. are not independent and some are uninformative we exclude some criteria and amalgamate others. We propose that evidence of flexible learning and prioritization, in conjunction with relevant data on brain organization, is sufficient for assigning pain-sentience to an animal and we suggest a scoring scheme based on four criteria.
Free Will And Animal Suicide, Sabina Schrynemakers
Free Will And Animal Suicide, Sabina Schrynemakers
Animal Sentience
David Peña-Guzmán presents two arguments against the view that because only humans have free will only humans can commit suicide: (1) nonhuman animals may possess free will, and (2) the libertarian notion of free will is incompatible with scientific explanation. The free will objection to animal suicide is indeed mistaken, but Peña-Guzmán’s criticism of the libertarian notion of free will seems misplaced. His target should instead be the assumption that free choices must be made consciously or self-reflectively or the assumption that freedom cannot come in degrees.