What It's Like To Be A Dog

The neuroscience that shows us what it's like to be a dog.

The neuroscientist’s latest book, What It’s Like to Be a Dog, won a Smithsonian Best Science Book prize in 2017 and was just released in paperback last month. The title is a reference to philosopher Thomas Nagel’s influential 1974 essay “What Is It Like To Be a Bat?” (pdf). Nagel argued that even with huge advances in neuroscience, humans would never understand the subjective experience of animals, using bats as an example, because we’re just too different—we don’t use sonar or fly.

Berns disagrees. He believes that we can understand how animals experience the world and start to make sense of their inner lives—and that we have more in common with our pets and livestock and the creatures of the sea than perhaps we’d like to imagine. After all, if we start to acknowledge that other living things have a rich emotional existence not too different from our own, we will be forced to question how we treat them, and perhaps change our behaviors as well.

On the one hand, I agree with some of Berns' basic contentions that animals deserve better care, and that the distinction between us and them isn't so stark. But I don't know that this entirely refutes Nagel either; that a dog or a bat or a dolphin also experience joy doesn't necessarily mean their experience of it is the same as ours, or that we could understand that difference.

The neuroscience that shows us what it's like to be a dog.



On the one hand, I agree with some of Berns' basic contentions that animals deserve better care, and that the distinction between us and them isn't so stark. But I don't know that this entirely refutes Nagel either; that a dog or a bat or a dolphin also experience joy doesn't necessarily mean their experience of it is the same as ours, or that we could understand that difference.

Exactly. It seems to be missing Nagel's point which, unless I have it wrong, is that we can't possibly share their subjective experience. Moreover, I can't share yours and we are both human. We can agree on a description which, of course, is more than we can do with a bat or a dog but we can't know how another person feels about something. That's why we have professionals who are trained to interpret clues and ask probing questions in order to improve that understanding.

Somewhat related is this article:

Do Octopuses Have Souls? (On The Nature Of Animal Consciousness)

Sy Montgomery, in her Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness, says it like this about octopus intelligence:

"We split from our common ancestor with the octopus half a billion years ago. And yet, you can make friends with an octopus."

"This long-tailed macaque was photographed tenderly holding a white-and-ginger kitten, which was only about 7 weeks old, in her arms as if it was her own baby. According to the photographer, the pet monkey cared for the feral kitten — grooming it and ensuring it was safe from harm — on the edge of a small river in the village of Lingsar, Lombok, Indonesia."