Thanks for your thoughtful answer, Tom.

Would you please elaborate a bit more on why this argument isn't convincing? I agree with you that it's not convincing, but I'd like to here your reasoning.

Would you please tell me what your reason is for not thinking animal minds exist?

What if the coin lands heads a million times in a row?

Would you please elaborate a bit more on why this argument isn't convincing? I agree with you that it's not convincing, but I'd like to here your reasoning. — jdh

The probability that you were born a human and not any other animal is the same as the probability that you were born with a human mind and not an animal mind, or a human liver and not any other animals liver. I don't think you can pick some aspect of a human and argue that because it is unlikely, animals don't possess it.

Animals can't talk, but I don't see how you can infer that from the fact that you can, and that your species is relatively rare.

Animals can't create knowledge, including knowledge of themselves. This is a blessing.

Homo sapiens are just one of millions of extant species of conscious animals. If you rank these species in descending order of overall intelligence, human beings rank at the very top of the list--out of millions, we're number one. As a human being, it seems like I got very lucky, when it's conceivable that I could have been a bat, cicada, giraffe, cow, rat, spider, salmon, kangaroo, etc. — jdh

A probability model is only useful if it can be fitted to the real world. The probability of a species when a new life is actually born is not determined by a ranking system. It is determined by the species of the parents. You model is fictitious and worthless in determining the probability of your species. The fact is since both your parents were humans you had a 100% chance of being human.

You can make up fictitious probability models all day long but just thinking them up will not make them an accurate approximation of real world probability. The only way to do that is by collecting real samples.

Also, you would not rank the probability of a random life sample from Earth by intelligence, you would rank it by the proportion of human life out of all life on Earth.

I had a very long debate with my cat about this. When the stray first started to live me, he would often come to say thank you after I fed him, purring happily. For a long time I cynically thought the cat was just figuring out ways to get fed. Eventually the cat won the debate, and now I think more of my cat's mind than many human's, but then I am biased, because I got to know my cat quite well. Why? A cat's life is pretty empty, between feedings, and my cat does better with it than many people I have known. I don't expect many other people to appreciate that, but my cat would appreciate me saying it.

Homo sapiens are just one of millions of extant species of conscious animals. — jdh

There are a little over ONE million species of animals -- not multiples of millions. Of that one million, there are about 5,000 mammal species. A few birds and a few mollusks seem to be fairly bright. True enough, as noted, even insects can carry out some cognition. Some insects (bumblebees) are better at it than others (house flies).

Humans, then, stand at the apex of a fairly small pyramid, not a huge one.

There are activities we do that other animals don't do, like manipulating abstract symbols with ease and facility (writing music, poetry, novels, scientific theories, love letters, bad jokes, obscene books, and speeches for Donald Trump.) Not only do we do these things, we know we do these things, which as far as we can tell, other animals don't know. Not only do we know what we do and can do, we know what we can not do. A human can not outrun a cheetah or a gazelle; a human can not dive as deep in the ocean as a whale; a human can not fly like a bird--and we know that about ourselves.

Pets really are a good opportunity to learn about animal minds, because we spend so much time with them. We can observe them in all sorts of situations. Of course, we can get carried away with over-interpretating their behavior. But then, we sometimes get carried away with over-interpreting our own and other humans behavior too.

Our pets enter into relationships with us; they learn about us--like which buttons they can push for specific responses, and they push them. A dog who wants to go out, or a cat who wants to be fed can make it very clear to us what they want.

"If We Are Not Just Animals, What Are We?" is the title of a current article in NYTimes.

I would be keen to fall back on Augustine's three necessities for being human (and therefore being superior): I exist, I'm alive, and most importantly I possess reason (and a soul!). Animals have the first two out of the three. Also, in terms of "winning the lottery" what do you believe when it comes to the soul? If you think that souls are just waiting to fill empty voids when humans conceive, then you have not won the lottery- a slot has been filled- since animals can't possess souls. Therefore you were destined to become a human and it isn't entropy.

Conclusion: I think you can have your cake and eat it too: animals don't possess minds in the degree that we do, but at the same time, it wasn't a happy accident that you took human form.

I would have thought that to belleve in the soul is to believe it is what you are, not something you have.

I agree however that animals are not rational beings. It's surprising how many people don't accept that nowadays.

If animal minds don't exist, then we didn't actually come out on top. If animal minds are not real, we did not win a contest against all odds. — jdh

This is bizarre logic. I would've thought if animals mind don't exist then we did win the lottery - having won the prize of consciousness. Conversely, if animal minds did exist then we're no better of than animals - making humans equivalent to say, a dog or fish - we didn't win.

I am late in this topic.
To original poster: you should compare Self Sampling Assumption vs Self Indexing Assumption. Based on SSA, you can't be animal mind because of the reference class used (humans).

It raises deeper question about sampling across different classes, in that sense question is valid and I don't have an answer. But why do you think you had won the lottery? Evolution continues, there will be more intelligent post-humans

If the constituent parts of the brain that produce minds hadn't evolved in predecessor animals, we wouldn't have any brains at all.

Animals - among them humans - have varying degrees of 'mindedness'.

Your question is based on a not-valid metaphysical assumption.

Your life is a life-experience possibility-story There are infinitely-many such stories, encompassing all non-self-contradictory life stories.

Why are you in the life that you're in? (including as a member of the species that you belong to)?

Answer: Because, among the infinity of life-experience possibility-stories, there's one about the person you are.

It wasn't a random choice. This is the life-story that's about the person that you are. It would be meaningless to ask why you aren't someone else (of whatever species).

Michael Ossipoff

How can we refute the following argument against the existence of animal minds? — jdh

Well the arguments for animal mind-brains is much stronger.

First there is the evolutionary argument, that the mind-brain system must have evolved just like every other biological structure. The science of comparative neuroanatomy will be helpful to your there complete with evolutionary trees and divergence and convergent branches.

Second there is the behavioral argument as any pet owner or anyone who works with animals can attest, animals give every indication of being capable of learning, of memory, of emotions and of simple problem solving. In the case of corvids multi step problem solving, try utube or the nature channel.

Third- There is strong evidence from neuroscience of retained structures and neural circuits in the deeper brain (also found in humans) which regulate emotions and serve as pleasure reward center for the animals. For anyone truly interested in the problem see research into affective neuroscience and comparative cognition. There is evidence for seven primary process emotional networks in the subcortical regions of the brain (preserved in higher animals and humans alike) rage, fear, grief, lust, care, seeking and play. See Pankseep and AN (affective neuroscience) or comparative cognition. A particularly good review here: Jaak Panksepp, Stephen Asma, Glennon Curran, Rami Gabriel & Thomas Greif
The Philosophical Implications of Affective Neuroscience Cognitive Science Society (CogSci10) Portland, Oregon, 12 August 2010
Introduction and Discussion: Jaak Panksepp (Washington State University, Pullman, WA)
Synopsis of Affective Neuroscience — Naturalizing the Mammalian MindBy Jaak Panksepp

“ I employ the terms BrainMind and MindBrain interchangeably, depending on desired emphasis, capitalized and without a space to highlight the monistic view of the brain as a unified experience-generating organ with no Cartesian dualities that have traditionally hindered scientific understanding.” Panksepp

“Central to the affective neuroscientific epistemic approach is the recognition that the vertebrate BrainMind is an evolved organ, the only one in the body where evolutionary progressions remain engraved at neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and functional levels. The more ancient mental functions (e.g. primary-process emotions — ancestral genetic/affective ‘memories’) are lower and more medial in the brain. The higher functions (e.g. cognitive functions) are situated more rostrally and laterally. The basic learning functions are nestled in-between in various basal ganglia such as amygdala and nucleus accumbens”-Panksepp

This argument is powerful because animals with very similar cognition have, in our planet's history, far outnumbered humans (who are unique, we can surely admit). No one can know how the 'selection process' works unless they fully understand the nature of minds.

However, that selection process could conceivably be gamed regardless of our lack of understanding. Consider a simulated experience identical to your own. Regardless of whether your minds merge or remain separate, its existence means you have added to your 'observer fluid' or measure. That is, assuming all else is equal, your particular experience is now twice as likely to be selected as anyone else's. Assuming that animals have relatively low measure accounts for our apparent luck just as well as them being mindless and requires far fewer needless assumptions.

This certainly doesn't prove we're being simulated, but does possibly prove that humans are *important*, having a large share of experience. It fits a religious framework reasonably well.

This argument seems powerful at first because animals with very similar cognition have, in our planet's history, far outnumbered humans (who we can surely admit are unique). No one can know how the 'selection process' works unless they fully understand the nature of minds.

However, that selection process could conceivably be gamed regardless of our lack of understanding. Consider a simulated experience identical to your own. Regardless of whether your minds merge or remain separate, its existence means you have added to your 'observer fluid' or measure. That is, assuming all else is equal, your particular experience is now twice as likely to be selected as anyone else's. Assuming that animals have relatively low measure accounts for our apparent luck just as well as them being mindless and requires far fewer needless assumptions.

This certainly doesn't prove we're being simulated, but does possibly show that humans are *important*, having a large share of experience.

The real solution to puzzles of why you find yourself as the kind of entity you are is to arrive at the realization that there is only one subject and that this subject occupies all perspectives simultaneously. So you inevitably find yourself in all existing circumstances. You don't, in fact, find yourself being a human and not a mouse. You find yourself being both. You aren't lucky to find yourself in a universe fine-tuned for life either. You occupy them all, even the ones without biology, if such exist. That's why you find yourself here. You are everywhere.

The reason you don't know that you occupy all perspectives is simply a matter of information integration, of access. There is no information in this particular brain about being a rat. So naturally, I never talk about what it's like to be the rat using this mouth. It is similar to amnesia. An amnesiac, though they are the same subject at T1 and T2, simply doesn't have access in a brainstate at T2 to information about experiences had at T1.

This understanding solves all the puzzles about the anthropic principle, fine-tuning, identity, and so on, in one fell swoop. It is hard for people to accept though, because it is so contrary to the intuition that you are a discrete individual subject separate from all other subjects. But make no mistake. You are everyone.