Mind, Animal

Abstract

Neurons and synapses in human brains do not seem to differ in any major respect from those that make up the central nervous systems of other species. Does this mean that nonhuman animals have minds, experience subjective feelings, and think about objects and events in their surroundings, even perhaps about themselves? If so, the powerful methods of comparative and experimental analysis can illuminate even such a fundamental philosophical question as the mind-body problem. If not, just how do communities of human neurons and synapses generate mental experiences while all other central nervous systems composed of such similar elements allow only mindless behavior? Any thoughts and feelings of nonhuman animals are doubtless relatively simple and limited to objects and events that are important in their lives. Although mentality presumably depends on complex patterns of interaction between large numbers of neurons, rather than on intrinsic properties of cells or synapses, this supremely difficult but basic question remains a significant challenge for the neurosciences.