Insect Consciousness: The Case for and Against

In 2024 a group of philosophers and zoologists pronounced The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness. This stated:

The empirical evidence indicates at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience in all vertebrates (including reptiles, amphibians, and fishes) and many invertebrates (including, at minimum, cephalopod mollusks, decapod crustaceans, and insects).

Is this a radical expansion of our recognition of the diversity of conscious experience in the natural world? Or is it all just bollox?

Speaker: Andrew Barron

Andrew Barron is Director of The Macquarie University Minds and Intelligences Research Centre. Andrew completed his PhD in Zoology at The University of Cambridge in 1999. His lab at Macquarie University studies honey bee neurobiology, specialising on understanding the incredible intelligence of bees and how sophisticated social behaviour is possible with such a tiny brain. His research is currently supported by awards from The Ian and Shirley Norman Foundation, The Australian Research Council, Horticulture Innovation and The Templeton World Charity Foundation.