![]() ![]() Living as benthic-zone animals, having to forage for food while avoiding swift predators, proved to be similar in many respects to the hominid evolutionary path which began for humans living on African savannahs. ![]() Even though octopods are almost as distanced from humans on the evolutionary tree as a species can get, their physical forms and placement in their environmental food chain led over time to similarly complex development of their brains and nervous systems. In one study, published in Nature in 2015, scientists released their findings when analyzing the octopus genome that clearly shows some astounding results of parallel evolution. Indeed, the octopus is a corollary to this. Now, self-recognition - self-awareness, even - may be due to programming in the brain. Until then, it was thought that the more “evolved” brains of great apes, cetaceans and elephants were the keys to this self-recognition. But the great apes, elephants, and cetaceans have regularly passed the mirror test…īut so has the Eurasian magpie in 2008, and then in 2015, several ant species recognized that a blue dot had been painted on their faces only when seeing themselves in a mirror. Most animals, dogs included, tend to react as though what they see is merely an “other”. If the animal recognizes that the mark is new, it is taken as proof that the animal must also recognize that what it sees in the mirror is “itself”. The “mirror test”, devised by psychologist Gordon Gallup in 1970, anesthetizes an animal, places a mark or sticker on it, and when it wakes it is placed in front of a mirror. This status is called “personhood”, and is based on decades of findings in the research of Jane Goodall, Richard Dawkins, and many others. There is another movement focusing on the great apes themselves, which aims to grant them rights on a level currently reserved for people. There is currently a movement, gathering momentum, to push for rights to be granted to non-human animals. Great apes, belonging to the Hominidae family, to which we humans also belong, include gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, and bonobos. His work helped prop up the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.Īside from cetaceans, elephants and great apes have long been subjects of study into their apparently high levels of sentience. John Lilly, a man of many interests, including the bases of human consciousness, found a great deal of inspiration in dolphins as well, devising many experiments to ascertain if dolphins could communicate with humans and vice versa. 2: aware 3: finely sensitive in perception or feeling ( Merriam-Webster)ĭr. Sentient: 1: responsive to or conscious of sense impressions: sentient beings. b: the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests) 2: mental acuteness. Intelligence: 1 a: the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations. “Sentience” is a word with seriously heavy connotations that also tend to hold different meaning to different people and under differing circumstances.
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