The Accessibility Of Evidence For Animal Consciousness

Long before camera-enhanced observation of the natural world and its resident creatures, anyone--given that they lived near animals--with a functioning sense of sight could witness a variety of non-human creatures.  More than this, it is clear from the outward behaviors of animals as perceived by human onlookers that they appear to be conscious.  The evidence for this is largely the same as it is for other humans being conscious, despite how I can only know the existence and contents of my own mind as far as phenomenology goes.  They move their heads and limbs, react to things like noises and environmental factors, and engage in other actions that would suggest if performed by humans that they have their own interior, immaterial minds.

For all the controlled studies or technology-fortified examinations of the modern era pertaining to animal behaviors, the evidence for animal consciousness was accessible at all times that humans have lived alongside other macroscopic beings.  From ants to squids to salmon to vultures to bears, many animals regularly display external indicators that very strongly suggest, but do not logically prove, that they perceive and think.  Some cooperate with up to thousands of fellow creatures, such as bees, and others can employ color and texture mimicry to conceal themselves amidst their surroundings, like the mimic octopus--which can even imitate the waving motion of seaweed alongside matching the color and texture.

Science never epistemologically goes beyond mere perception and thus potential illusion.  It can at most provide evidence, based on fallible sensory experiences, of things that seem to be true but might not be, as it does not logically follow that what one perceives is really the case beyond one's own mind unless there is logical necessity.  However, there is evidence entirely outside the context of formally documented scientific endeavors that animals have perception and are not automatons without minds.  This evidence still hinges on sensory observation, but it does not have to be arbitrarily elaborate, prolonged, or socially conducted.  Anyone who has seen any insect, dog, bird, or any other non-human organism perform actions, particularly reactive ones, can avoid assumptions and realize that while it is possible for these behaviors to be illusory when it comes to pointing towards animal consciousness, it truly seems otherwise.

The unknowable nature of whether one's sensory perceptions correspond to something real in the external world of matter (with one category of exceptions [1]) does not dispel this evidence.  Other than something like organized human speech, there is often the same amount of evidence for animals being conscious as there is for other people being conscious.  Can one know from another person speaking or eating or walking really has mental awareness?  No, one cannot know given human limitations if other minds of any kind actually exist, yet they absolutely seem to.  This is not so simply for humans.  A plethora of animals, which do appear to have either a lesser mental of physical status than that of people, nonetheless by all appearances likely are animated by genuine consciousness just as I am.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/dreams-and-consciousness.html