34| Animal Minds — Kristin Andrews on why assuming consciousness would aid science

About this episode

Kristin Andrews discusses the importance of assuming animals have minds to advance scientific understanding of consciousness.

There is no consensus on what minds are, but there is plenty of agreement on where they can be found: in humans. Yet human consciousness may account for only a small proportion of the consciousness on our planet. Our guest, Kristin Andrews, is a Professor of Animal Minds at the University of York, Ontario, Canada. She is a philosopher working in close contact with biologists and cognitive scientists and has spent time living in the jungle to observe research on orangutans. Kristin notes that comparative psychology has historically resisted attributing such things as intentions, learning, consciousness, and minds to animals. Yet she argues that this is misguided in the light of the evidence, that often the best way to make sense of the complexity of animal behavior is to invoke minds and intentional concepts. Recently Kristin has proposed that the default assumption — the null hypothesis — should be that animals have minds. Currently, biologists examine markers of consciousness on a species-by-species basis, for example looking for the presence of pain receptor skills, and preferential tradeoffs in behavior. But everywhere we have looked, even in tiny nematode worms, we find…

People in this episode

Host: James Robinson

Guest: Kristin Andrews

Topics covered

• animal consciousness
• comparative psychology
• intentionality
• cognitive science
• philosophy of mind

Keywords

• animal minds
• consciousness
• psychology
• intentions
• cognition
• biologists
• research

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of York

Places: Ontario, Canada

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