Are You Conscious in Animals?

Dr. Bryce Huebner is the Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University, where he conducts research connecting philosophy of mind, cognitive science, biology, and moral psychology.

In this episode we talk broadly about what it means to be conscious, and how cognition and emotion are governed by bodily processes. Bryce and I discuss how philosophy of mind ought to be informed by the biological limitations that give rise to complex thought, how much of our thought and behavior revolves around maintaining homeostasis and satisfying conflicting motivations, and how both nature and nurture give rise to individual differences in these processes. We also talk about the possibility for artificial intelligence and consciousness in non-human animals, and discuss the relationships between consciousness, life, and functionalism. Lastly, we discuss the concept of distributed cognition in Bryce’s book Macrocognition, and how this relates to moral psychology.