You bring up some great points! Indeed it is very difficult to determine scientifically what kinds of reasoning occurs within animals’ experiences and behaviours. My post was more to clarify the classic distinction between sentience and sapience going with the assumption that dogs aren’t sapient. But as you indicate, it’s absolutely an ongoing question we’re actively interrogating. Sure, sapience is a bit of a floppy term, but we can choose more operational definitions around meta-cognition and the like. I leave it to the experts to refine terms and conduct research. We have very strong collective evidence that animals are sentient and very weak evidence (so far) to indicate sapience (however you define it). Epistemologically, we are limited in that we can only ever approach this question from the human perspective.
Your dog may well ponder their life as a dog, but the evidence for it is nil. So scientifically we cannot conclude it and assume the null hypothesis of non-sapience.
Philosophically we can consider how we approach the possibility of it though. Metaphysically, we can consider whether dogs’ consciousness resemble humans re: perception, free will, or self. Ethically, we can consider if it’s better to treat them as if they are sapient or not, I can imagine arguments either way. And an example of where we would is with humans who are extremely cognitively impaired.
Emotionally, we can also decide for ourselves what is the appropriately meaningful relationship we have with our pets in how we relate to them.
It seems weird to me that the null-hypothesis there should be that dogs are non-sapient. It seems to be common for scientists to default on non-existence until evidence of existence is found. But in some situations existence and non-existence should have equivalent weights. In the field of mathematics, the existence of a thing can be logically equivalent to the non-existence of another thing, and we dont know which of the two exists, but we cant default to assuming neither of the two. Science is a bit different from pure mathematics though, but im not sure in what ways.
You are right to think through this question, and as you imply, there are different forms of knowledge, i.e. epistemologies. Science geneologically derives from empiricism, the epistemological idea that true knowledge comes from sensory experience and observation–philosophy has moved on from this idea. But accepting empirocism, the default is necessarily no knowledge, as absence of knowledge precedes knowledge from observation. Science applies empirical methods and deductive/inductive reasoning to generate new knowledge; while you may reason a theory, that theory must ultimately be tested against observation. So empirically, we cannot conclude/know sapience exists somewhere without observing it. Now the idea of “null hypothesis” can be thought of as a formalization of this. It comes from statistics in the 1920s when they were trying to determine a relationship between two data sets. As per empiricism, the null hypothesis is always that there is no relationship and therefore observations are due to random chance. And the purpose of the tests are to see if this null hypothesis should be rejected/disproven.
Another dated, but still helpful approach to thinking of the scientific question is Karl Popper’s falsifiability. It is possible to falsify the theory that “dogs cannot possess sapience by” observing one instance (not due to random chance) of sapience in a dog. However you cannot falsify the theory that “dogs can possess sapience” unless you can observe all dogs throughout space and time and show they don’t possess sapience.
But that’s kind of my point - we do have evidence. As much as we have for humans, at least
Koko the gorilla is what made me start to question all of this back in grade school. This gorilla learns sign language, and is shown picture books with cats. She asks for a cat for Christmas, despite never having actually seen one. They give her a toy one and she gets angry.
Months later, they bring in kittens. She picks the tailless tabby and names it “all ball”. It was her pet all its life, she would take care of it and even told the keepers it had ear mites
On a foggy December morning, one of the assistants told me that Ball had been hit by a car. He had died instantly.
I was shocked and unprepared. I didn’t realize how attached I had grown to Ball, and I had no idea how the news would affect Koko. The kitten meant so much to her. He was Koko’sbaby.
I went to Koko at once. I told her that Ball had been hit by a car; she would not see him again.
Koko did not respond. I thought she didn’t understand, so I left the trailer.
Ten minutes later, I heard Koko cry. It washer distress call—a loud, long series of high-pitched hoots.
I cried, too.
Three days later, Koko and I had a conversation about Ball.
“Do you want to talk about your kitty?” Iasked.
“Cry,” Koko signed.“
Can you tell me more about it?” I asked.
“Blind,” she signed.
“We don’t see him anymore, do we?
What happened to your kitty?” I asked.
“Sleep cat,” Koko signed.
A few weeks later, Koko saw a picture of a gray tabby who looked very much like Ball. She pointed to the picture and signed, “Cry, sad, frown.”
Koko described herself as “fine gorilla person”, she painted and joked and understood mortality.
Why is Koko special? Because she was interested in communicating, and so was her keeper. That was decades ago… Back when we rarely accepted animals were even sentient, let alone sapient
I’ve watched a video where a dog described it’s dreams, and one where a cat lied and negotiated for a treat before being convinced over the course of minutes to willingly take it’s medicine to make the “hurt go bye”.
My childhood dog was well behaved, so we’d let him in or out when he scratched on the door. We stopped paying attention… We only caught him exploring the suburbs when a neighbor called us. One day we were driving and saw him miles from home, so we followed… He kept to the sidewalks, avoided people, and looked before crossing the street. So we let him have his secret life, and he never got into any trouble… We wouldn’t have known otherwise, because he timed his adventures well
My mom’s dog used to watch dog shows, and smiled wide when I put a medal around her neck jokingly… Not when I put my keys around her neck, just the medal - I did ABACAB testing, just the medal got that reaction.
You can explain away all these things, or you can entertain the idea. Maybe Koko was the exception or my mom’s dog just thought the medal was pretty, or maybe she dreamed of winning a dog show.
We can’t even philosophically nail down sapience, and yet we don’t have a second Koko… Because we barely try to meet them where they are, and dismiss every success as an anomaly
The evidence is everywhere, we just seem to ignore it
Koko is a great example!
I should clarify that when I say evidence, I mean the collected body of scientific evidence, of which Koko would be one data point.
I will also clarify that I was talking about weak evidence for sapience in dogs, not animals in general. Different species are different. We have much more evidence for sapience in animals such as simians like gorillas, as well as dolphins. Just because gorillas are sapient doesn’t mean Koalas are likely to be. But heck Cows may well be more intelligent and closer to sapience than dogs.
None of this is to put a downer on how folks may perceive dogs and it certainly doesn’t shut the door on their possible sapience. I project all of the sapience into my dog. I just think it’s important to understand and acknowledge where scientific knowledge is at as we rely heavily on it for policy, if not individual beliefs.
You bring up some great points! Indeed it is very difficult to determine scientifically what kinds of reasoning occurs within animals’ experiences and behaviours. My post was more to clarify the classic distinction between sentience and sapience going with the assumption that dogs aren’t sapient. But as you indicate, it’s absolutely an ongoing question we’re actively interrogating. Sure, sapience is a bit of a floppy term, but we can choose more operational definitions around meta-cognition and the like. I leave it to the experts to refine terms and conduct research. We have very strong collective evidence that animals are sentient and very weak evidence (so far) to indicate sapience (however you define it). Epistemologically, we are limited in that we can only ever approach this question from the human perspective.
Your dog may well ponder their life as a dog, but the evidence for it is nil. So scientifically we cannot conclude it and assume the null hypothesis of non-sapience.
Philosophically we can consider how we approach the possibility of it though. Metaphysically, we can consider whether dogs’ consciousness resemble humans re: perception, free will, or self. Ethically, we can consider if it’s better to treat them as if they are sapient or not, I can imagine arguments either way. And an example of where we would is with humans who are extremely cognitively impaired.
Emotionally, we can also decide for ourselves what is the appropriately meaningful relationship we have with our pets in how we relate to them.
It seems weird to me that the null-hypothesis there should be that dogs are non-sapient. It seems to be common for scientists to default on non-existence until evidence of existence is found. But in some situations existence and non-existence should have equivalent weights. In the field of mathematics, the existence of a thing can be logically equivalent to the non-existence of another thing, and we dont know which of the two exists, but we cant default to assuming neither of the two. Science is a bit different from pure mathematics though, but im not sure in what ways.
You are right to think through this question, and as you imply, there are different forms of knowledge, i.e. epistemologies. Science geneologically derives from empiricism, the epistemological idea that true knowledge comes from sensory experience and observation–philosophy has moved on from this idea. But accepting empirocism, the default is necessarily no knowledge, as absence of knowledge precedes knowledge from observation. Science applies empirical methods and deductive/inductive reasoning to generate new knowledge; while you may reason a theory, that theory must ultimately be tested against observation. So empirically, we cannot conclude/know sapience exists somewhere without observing it. Now the idea of “null hypothesis” can be thought of as a formalization of this. It comes from statistics in the 1920s when they were trying to determine a relationship between two data sets. As per empiricism, the null hypothesis is always that there is no relationship and therefore observations are due to random chance. And the purpose of the tests are to see if this null hypothesis should be rejected/disproven.
Another dated, but still helpful approach to thinking of the scientific question is Karl Popper’s falsifiability. It is possible to falsify the theory that “dogs cannot possess sapience by” observing one instance (not due to random chance) of sapience in a dog. However you cannot falsify the theory that “dogs can possess sapience” unless you can observe all dogs throughout space and time and show they don’t possess sapience.
But that’s kind of my point - we do have evidence. As much as we have for humans, at least
Koko the gorilla is what made me start to question all of this back in grade school. This gorilla learns sign language, and is shown picture books with cats. She asks for a cat for Christmas, despite never having actually seen one. They give her a toy one and she gets angry.
Months later, they bring in kittens. She picks the tailless tabby and names it “all ball”. It was her pet all its life, she would take care of it and even told the keepers it had ear mites
Koko described herself as “fine gorilla person”, she painted and joked and understood mortality.
Why is Koko special? Because she was interested in communicating, and so was her keeper. That was decades ago… Back when we rarely accepted animals were even sentient, let alone sapient
I’ve watched a video where a dog described it’s dreams, and one where a cat lied and negotiated for a treat before being convinced over the course of minutes to willingly take it’s medicine to make the “hurt go bye”.
My childhood dog was well behaved, so we’d let him in or out when he scratched on the door. We stopped paying attention… We only caught him exploring the suburbs when a neighbor called us. One day we were driving and saw him miles from home, so we followed… He kept to the sidewalks, avoided people, and looked before crossing the street. So we let him have his secret life, and he never got into any trouble… We wouldn’t have known otherwise, because he timed his adventures well
My mom’s dog used to watch dog shows, and smiled wide when I put a medal around her neck jokingly… Not when I put my keys around her neck, just the medal - I did ABACAB testing, just the medal got that reaction.
You can explain away all these things, or you can entertain the idea. Maybe Koko was the exception or my mom’s dog just thought the medal was pretty, or maybe she dreamed of winning a dog show.
We can’t even philosophically nail down sapience, and yet we don’t have a second Koko… Because we barely try to meet them where they are, and dismiss every success as an anomaly
The evidence is everywhere, we just seem to ignore it
Koko is a great example! I should clarify that when I say evidence, I mean the collected body of scientific evidence, of which Koko would be one data point. I will also clarify that I was talking about weak evidence for sapience in dogs, not animals in general. Different species are different. We have much more evidence for sapience in animals such as simians like gorillas, as well as dolphins. Just because gorillas are sapient doesn’t mean Koalas are likely to be. But heck Cows may well be more intelligent and closer to sapience than dogs.
None of this is to put a downer on how folks may perceive dogs and it certainly doesn’t shut the door on their possible sapience. I project all of the sapience into my dog. I just think it’s important to understand and acknowledge where scientific knowledge is at as we rely heavily on it for policy, if not individual beliefs.