The fish in the creek is sentient, even if I can't speak with it

Bibliographic Data

ID4988737
AuthorsMichael L Woodruff (East Tennessee State University, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume41
Issuespe
Pages119-152
Publication date2018-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTrans/Form/Ação (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0101-3173 • E-ISSN: 1980-539X
PublisherFapUNIFESP (SciELO) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1590/0101-3173.2018.v41esp.08.p119
OpenAlexW2913724063
SCIELO_PIDS0101-31732018000500119
LanguageEN
References cited72

In this paper I argue that Velmens' reflexive model of perceptual consciousness is useful for understanding the first-person perspective and sentience in animals. I then offer a defense of the proposal that ray-finned bony fish have a first-person perspective and sentience. This defense has two prongs. The first prong is presence of a substantial body of evidence that the neuroanatomy of the fish brain exhibits basic organizational principles associated with consciousness in mammals. These principles include a relationship between a second-order sensory relay, the preglomerular complex, and the fish pallium which bears a resemblance to the relationship between the mammalian thalamus and the neocortex, the existence of feedback/feedforward and reentrant circuitry in the pallium, and structural and functional differences among divisions of the fish pallium. The second prong is the existence of behaviors in fish that exhibit significant flexibility in the presence of environmental change and require relational learning among stimuli distributed in space, over time, or both. I conclude that, although they are instantiated differently, a first-person perspective and sentience are present in fish

Biology · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Consciousness · Epistemology · Fish · Fish <Actinopterygii> · Neocortex · Perception · Perspective (graphical) · Sentience · Computer Science · Memory and Neural Mechanisms · Neural dynamics and brain function · Neuroscience · Olfactory and Sensory Function Studies · Philosophy · Psychology

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