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Comment by ridgeguy | Hacker News Reader

I think it does. The study authors present evidence that fish, as measured by a stress hyperthermia response, respond in a manner consistent with an emotional response.

As a recanted neurobiologist, I find that surprising and I'm willing to go along with the headline. It would be even more surprising (to me, at least) to find that something as fundamental as emotional response were not to be found in more primitive branches of the phylogenetic tree.

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I don't buy it. If I attach a switch to an incandescent light bulb, then the bulb will get hot if I press the switch. If I press the switch enough, the light bulb will burn out. But it would not be accurate to say that the light bulb "died of stress" or that this was evidence that the light bulb could "feel" anything. It certainly doesn't prove the light bulb is conscious.

Humans try so hard to believe consciousnesse is boolean, like "humans have it" and "every other living thing does not" is almost funny. I have news for nerds,, conciseness is a float, imprecition and all.

So cannibalism and eating dolphins is way more closer than the average human is comfortable with, so people like to err on the lest uncomfortable side.

While true that doesn't progress the discussion. The question is whether this evidence suggests the floating point number assigned to fish should be higher. That a lightbulb at ~0.0 consciousness could perform similarly is a good reason to give little weight to this study. What's the counterargument?

Is there no C line in the animal kingdom? If so we're saying spiders and cockroaches are conscious? Surely there's a distinction, and nobody really doubts elephants, dolphins and great apes, but we can clearly see the difference in quality of C. So if there is some kind of line or distinction within the animal kingdom, where would it be? Are insects the end of mechanical behavior? Or could that line extend to small fish and crustaceans? I think the article is using the word "feeling" a little too freely here. By the same measure, There could be an experiment suggesting cockroaches get stressed, and if so, would we be so quick to say they have feelings?

The problem is that consciousness is such a loaded concept. It can mean higher-order thought, self-awareness, ability to feel emotions, the phenomenon of subjective experience itself, and more. I find that most conversations about it involve lots of talking past each other.

They have not demonstrated that stress hyperthermia = feelings.

Just that stress = hyperthermia in a fish.

It's a result, but it's not the result in the HN title. Which is not in the article BTW.

But according to the article stress hyperthemia is one trait used to identify consciousness. Is consciousness the same as "having feelings"?

>One particular trait used to identify consciousness, which was previously thought to be absent in fish, is the capacity for stress-induced hyperthermia or “emotional fever”. This is a physical reaction similar to a fever caused by infection, but in this case the trigger is a stressful situation. Basically, the body gets warmer in response to stress.

I googled stress-induced hyperthermia and got very little.

That would imply that if it's a marker for consciousness it's not a well accepted one. Maybe it's one marker among many, but certainly not enough to support the HN title "Fish have feeling".

And simply on a logical level I'm not seeing the connection between stress causing heat, and consciousness.

Animals obviously can get stressed, and animals obviously can have a fever. I'm not seeing why consciousness is necessary to link the two.

Do it using scholar.google.com and you will get quite a bit of primary research regarding it.

I did. I found lots of research, very little of it having anything to do with consciousness (or the lack thereof).

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