The hidden world of animal consciousness - with David Peña-Guzmán

Are humans the only dreamers on Earth? Dreams provide an invaluable window into the cognitive and emotional lives of nonhuman animals, giving us access to a seemingly inaccessible realm of human experience. From suggestions that many animals run 'reality simulations' while asleep to the profound implications for contemporary debates about animal cognition, ethics, and rights.

In this talk, discover a convincing case for animals as conscious beings and examine the thorny scientific, philosophical and ethical questions it raises.

This livestream was recorded on 28 July 2022.

David Peña-Guzmán received his PhD in Philosophy from Emory University in 2015. His dissertation, 'The rational turn in continental philosophy: Bachelard, Canguilhem, Foucault', is an interrogation of the school of historical epistemology that appeared in France sometime between the 1920s and the 1950s.

David works on historical epistemology, animal studies, phenomenology, feminist theory, bioethics, and critical social theory. His work has appeared in journals such as 'Foucault Studies', 'The Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy', and 'Hypatia'. Before joining the faculty at San Francisco State University in 2017, Dr Peña-Guzmán was a postdoc at the Centre for Evolutionary Ecology and Ethical Conservation (CEEEC) in Ontario, Canada and at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics in Baltimore, MD.

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[jasonshapiro]

We have to start treating animals (humans included) way more better! We all dream, feel pleasure and pain, and have a will to survive. Its not a complicated concept

[Ostinat]

This has got to be one of the most fascinating RI lectures I've seen. Just the idea that animals with nervous systems that are nothing like ours might be having the same experiences raises so many questions - if you aren't blown away by the idea that bugs might have dreams too then I dunno what to say. I also really loved how the science was used in service of getting the audience to examine their own thinking and the assumptions they might be making about the world rather than just saying "hey animals dream too, isn't nature cool and beautiful?" and leaving it at that.

[dang]

I have video of our cat Simon, sleeping and drinking water from the air. Tongue way out.
He did it for two days while he healed from being lost/heartbroken in our Sonoran Desert neighborhood for 2.5 weeks. When he finally showed up, as emaciated skin on bones, we nursed him to health on butter. Our neighbor offered him food and water... but it appears he went hunting for us while we were on vacation. He only dreamed about that water for those two days and never again.

[johncarter]

If you have had a close relationship with a Dog you know this, they have intense dreams REM, vocalizing while asleep, leg muscles twitching in walking, running sequence and incorporating senoyy perceptions from events happening around them in deep sleep...

[pufaxx]

60 Seconds (maximum) after I go to bed my cat jumps on my pillow, lets herself fall aside, searches my hand with her feet - because she likes me holding one of her feet in my hand - and that's the way we usually sleep. Sometimes she's falling asleep earlier than me ... moving around as if she's chasing something, sometimes as if she's hiding ... pretty sure she's dreaming intensely in these moments.

[intothevoid]

You know, I remember a line from a cartoon that goes something like this: "What if it is a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?" (related to global warming).
I think the need for scientific prove if animals are indeed conscious or dream or feel or have a memory, should not let us decide how we treat other beings, but the realization that the only difference between humans and other animals is in their complexity and not in their value, whatever that would be based on.
We owe them. We are the only species that could be removed from this planet without and native consequences for the rest of the ecosystem whatsoever.

[slothsarecool]

Anyone with a pet could tell you that animals dream haha, funny that people really think humans are so unique, but it’s interesting to hear the research behind it

[numericalcode]

Love Dr Pena-Guzman’s podcast! Looking forward to reading this book.

[realLsf]

@David Peña-Guzmán - Great lecture, thank you. I'll read your book. My only question is, are you a vegan?

[stoicsveganage]

And yet we still subject animals to atrocities, pain, miserable needless sufferings, , , for a meal.
Take animals off your plates.

[kattentissari]

Perhaps only humans baffled by their dreams. Our level of intelligence means complex sub- and unconscious processes aswell. Maybe animals is in natural relation to the experience of d reaming. To us the function is too developed for us to grasp totally.
No matter what unique qualities we possess it don't elevate us above any other existence, but to ourselves. It don't automatically mean we have more value to anyone else but to ourselves. Have to learn some humility. It effects how we relate to anything or anyone.

[katarinajanoskova]

Loove David! Great talk. If you don't follow Overthink- the podcast, you are missing out!

[RichardGoldwaterMD]

Identifying desire with the future is a brilliant idea unifying affect and cognition. Freud would have something to say about desire as a restoration of the past. Have you seen My Octopus Teacher? 0:28

[voodoojedizin]

Is this guy looking for more grant money? Or is he trying to sell his book?
You would think these science guys have never owned a pet! I have observed my cats, dogs the deer in my yard, and many other animals dreaming.
Every creature with a brain dreams. You don't need to dissect them, or test them in some way, just watch, it is all that's required.

[_SamC_]

Watched this lecture while under the influence of ALd-52 (LSD)

Incredible stuff, absolutely fascinating

[WildBillCox]

A few personal observations, if you don't mind.
My dreams take place in exoteric, constructed, surroundings, among people I have never met. At times it seems that I am viewing a parallel universe through the eyes of one of its inhabitants.
My nightmares are wonderfully entertaining. Seldom do I encounter cognates with, or recaps of, my daily or life experience. I literally can't wait to get back to a nightmare. I consider nightmares to be my subconscious experimenting with motivational tools for my waking hours. Biochemical entertainment that creates its own reality.
In fact, my mind has apparently constructed an alternate reality for my dreaming self to wander. No reward dreams. No punishment dreams. No direct recollections of experience.
As a poet I am concerned with constructs of logic, of emotion, of both standing back and investing myself into the lives of others.
My intelligence is an amalgam of several streams of consciousness; in that context my dreams are exactly what I expect: unfiltered stream of consciousness experiences.
Now for a curve ball.
My definition of personality: Personality is the scar tissue that grows over trauma. Trauma and our reaction to or recovery from it defines us as individuals.
Dreams seen from this perspective are reaction to - or iterpolation during - the body's natural coherent cognitive filing system indexed over its incoherent emotional response. We tune into the same show, so to speak, but our receivers and rectifiers are differently adjusted due to residual reaction to past trauma.

[kencory]

(I've never been able to say this:) Voltaire is wrong when he says we don't have control of our dreams. Take a look for "Studies in Dreams" by Mary Lucy Story-Maskelyne 1851-1961 and the many studies of lucid dreaming that arrived late-ish in the past century.

[curiosidadesdemusica]

Hello, my name is Julio. I would like to translate your YouTube videos into Spanish. I think there are many people who would like to see your videos translated into Spanish. What do you think?

[stefan_popp]

Why is there a chapter called "Zebrafish" when he's still talking about the cuttlefish?

[richardhooper]

All life forms on our planet and that ever have been on our planet are/were formed from the original Cell that was proto -life. That cell required three processes to be regarded as "living":- the initial forms of consciousness, self-awareness and bio electronics; over the billions of years all life forms developed differing types of physical and metaphysical behaviour that best suited their development. No matter what our differences all of earth's life forms are related.