* Soul of the chicken * and: OH WOW! I never thought about that before. in Just Stuff

Long ago in the east, a teacher, famous for deep wisdom and having a kind
heart, gave two chickens, one each, to two students, and said, “Take your
chicken where no one will see, and kill it for tonight’s dinner.” The first
student knew of a secluded area behind a building. He took the chicken
there and killed it. The second student was gone for hours. The whole
community got alarmed, for this student was thought to be the teacher’s most
dedicated learner. Finally, the student returned with the chicken still
alive. He came to the teacher and said, “Everywhere I go, the chicken
sees.”

Ask yourself:

Do I think that consciousness is different for animals than for humans?
When I have an awareness of an emotion is my perception of that emotion
somehow “more refined”, “better”, or “more subtle?” Am I better at being
aware of fear and desires than animals, or, instead, do I just have
different kinds, or more abstractly complex fears and desires?

Do I think that a chicken actually has consciousness? How smart does an
animal have to be before it is “someone?” Do I think that ANY animal has
consciousness to a significant degree? How do I explain the expressions on
the faces of dogs and monkeys or the body language of cats?

If an animal has a language for emotional expression, does that affect
whether I grant “consciousness status” to an animal?

Is ANY consciousness so precious that I do not want to destroy a “vessel”
of it? Or, do I think that there has to be a certain amount of
consciousness present before I start to “think twice about killing an
animal?” What is the difference between swatting a mosquito and drowning a
porpoise in a tuna net?

How much consciousness do I think an entity has to have before it is alive?
Aware? Has a soul?

Can I increase consciousness? If a fantastic physician time-travels back
from the year 2999 to today and magically treats me with “medicines” that
increase my senses a thousand fold, so that I had eyesight better than an
eagle, hearing better than a bat, a sense of taste better than a thousand
French chefs, a more sensitive nose than a bloodhound, and a sense of touch
better than a pickpocket, would I be more conscious or would I just have
more data to be conscious of while I was using the same awareness I
presently have?

If they ever build a perfect robot that looks human, acts human, and can
fool other humans that it is human, would the robot be conscious?

Regards,
Rick Ogden

Last updated July 20, 2015