Shadowy Man

You don't live with cats, do you?

MyKell

animals can comunicate with one another. Human language is not an absolute requirement for basic consciousness, it might be necessary for self-consciousness. Most scientists/philosophers are pretty sure that higher animals have the basic "phenomenological" level of consciousness. That is, the ability to construct a mental scence. A zombie system is highly inefficient in dealing with the huge level of information a fish deals with.

The Porter

How come my dog dreams then?

She will be sound asleep and her legs will go as if she is running, sometimes she growls and bears her teeth (something she never does awake) she even wags her tail.

7thangel

How did you know your dog dreamed, and not you dreaming of a dreaming dog?

Jolimont

From what I've gathered in my reading of neurophilosophy, I've come to believe that consciousness is a function of having a complex brain. In other words, our incredibly complex brain creates consciousness, not some god.

As I see it, animals have consciousness proportionate to the size and complexity of their brains, so my guess is many of them do have some sort of consciousness. I do believe inflicting pain on animals is cruel, but I do eat meat, so I'm a damned hypocrite I suppose. I do treat most animals better than telemarketers if that means anything!

Shadowy Man

Or maybe it was your dog dreaming that you were dreaming your dog was dreaming.

Answerer

Although we, humans, are far more intellectual superior to the animals, I still feel that their worth of living is not far from ours. Don't forget we might be evolved from certain 'animals' as well.

parkdalian

Consider the driver's dilemma:

You're driving fast down a narrow canyon road and around a blind corner, you come upon a pair of animals blocking both lanes. You can't stop in time and there is no shoulder to swerve around them, so you must hit and kill one or the other.

You can pick any pair of animals, such as a dog vs a cow, or a horse vs a crocodile. The idea here is that you have to choose without thinking about it. (no rationalizing such as whether one is endangered as a species, or one is bigger therefore more likely to survive etc.)

You can also use this to test your visceral response to choices of humans, such as stranger vs relative, old man vs. child or hobo vs pretty girl, although these are kind of gory and cruel to imagine. Perhaps, even the emotional human value of life is not standard, depending on the category of human.

excreationist

parkdalian:
I'd avoid whatever I'd think would damage my car the most - so I'd avoid cow first, then the crocodile, then the dog.
If it was people, I'd try do go for the less crowded part of the road (taking into account where the people are likely to leap to) so that only one person or less is hit.

excreationist

Because its a mammal. Birds dream a bit too I think. I think dreams involving randomly(?) recombining memory fragments and this often comes in the form of narratives (experiences) but we can also subconsciously solve problems during sleep - e.g. some people wake up with a solution to the problem that was bugging them. I think dreaming involves the brain looking for large-scale patterns in things so that it can deal with the world in a more intelligent ("higher-level") way.