Do cockroaches have a form of consciousness? – Brandon Keim – Aeon.
An interesting essay exploring to what degree roaches, worms, and bees have consciousness . I have to admit that, from the time I first heard about cyborg cockroaches, I’ve found it a disturbing concept, despite the fact that I usually don’t hesitate to kill a roach if it has the misfortune to get into my house.
Anyway, if you enjoyed my post the other day on consciousness, you’ll probably enjoy Keim’s piece.
Related articles
- Do You, For One, Welcome These New Cyborg Cockroach Minions? (pascophronesis.wordpress.com)
- Cyborg Cockroaches At The Center Of Ethics Debate (detroit.cbslocal.com)
- New software could allow cyborg insects to map buildings: (internationalnewskiduniya.wordpress.com)
SelfAwarePatterns 
I think I’m finding that at least for myself *consciousness* is something of a loaded term, so I think it can be said that all organisms possess a level of awareness sufficient to effectively cope with their environment.
“… all animate life, from the single-cell amoeba upward, is equipped with at least some basic form of approach-avoidance mechanism that produces or regulates movement toward potentially beneficial stimuli and away from potentially harmful stimuli.”
‘Handbook of Approach and Avoidance Motivation’, Elliot(editor) 2008
I agree with your assessment as I feel living organisms should not be used to provide us entertainment, and though I usually dispatch flies and mosquitoes with extreme prejudice(most if not all others are captured and returned from whence they came), but occasionally I’ll catch a fly, take it outside, and toss it into a spider web and observe.
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I wondered how your naturalist instincts would react to my statement about killing roaches. Many insects, if I can, I’ll scoot out of the house rather than kill. The exceptions being the ones I have trouble getting past my disgust reflex on, and anything that has a nasty bite or sting.
BTW, I have a follow up consciousness post scheduled to go up tomorrow morning, somewhat based on the discussions we’ve had since the first one.
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I can’t recall ever finding anything too disgusting here, or maybe my tolerance is unnaturally high(very possible) – mostly flies that I usually do a Zen kind of thing on where my hand hovers ever closer over it and I imagine the energy building until BAM! I release it, and it’s all over for the fly(usually). Others are spiders, crane flies, and the occasional beetle – they get relocated. Do you have any interesting intruders down your way?
“follow up consciousness post” – I’ll be submitting my Tylenol expenses for reimbursement soon – seriously, I’ll look forward to it as I’m still sorting it out a bit. I’m leaving to my unconscious to sort out – it’s been somewhat idle lately 🙂
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In the way of intruders, it’s mostly spiders, lizards, moths, dirt daubers, and the occasional wasp. I have multiple friends who have found snakes in their houses before though.
I used to have an empty lot by my house which resulted in a couple of mice getting in. The first had the misfortune to crawl into the washing machine and was drowned, (do you know that picking up a dead mouse can cause it to squeak when the air is squeezed from it’s lungs? — I didn’t!). The second led to an extended hunt that eventually ended with it caught in a mouse trap, and me having to euthanize it.
LOLS on Tylenol. I sympathize, particularly since I tend to think much writing on consciousness is overly complex in avoidance of biting key bullets. (Of course, they’d probably say I was oversimplifying.)
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No lizards here 😦 hmm … dead mice squeak, didn’t know that.
“oversimplifying” – not possible in most cases IMO. I think one of H sapiens most prominent failings is overcomplicating anything and everything just because we have big brains and can!
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