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Comment by superkuh | Hacker News Reader

Another problem is when people argue based off words rather than knowledge of the subject.

The differences between the meager number of neurons and simple layout in a lobster and the extremely large and complex nervous system of an octopus are in no way comparable to the differences in nervous system complexity between a human and a bird. A lobster literally can be understood. It's nervous system is that simple, only ~100,000 neurons in small groups (less than a fruit fly!). There is very little mystery in it's operation. It is feasibly enumberable, developmentally predictable, and it's parts are knowable in function. It is not conscious like a mammal, bird, or octopus is conscious.

Bird and human brains are of a similar order of complexity. Complex enough we can't even begin to hope to understand the functioning yet.

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> It is not conscious like a mammal, bird, or octopus is conscious.

I do not see how you could know this, because consciousness and how it forms is exceptionally poorly understood. If in the past two years major breakthroughs have happened on this subject I would love to read about it. Perhaps you can point me in the right direction.

You don't need anything discovered in the last 40 years to be able to state that lobsters are not sentient. But, Rodolfo R Llinás' "I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self" is a really great book that explores the underpinings of sentience from single neurons on up. The tldr; is that the structures which seem to be necessary (if not sufficient) for consciousness in mammals (like 30-40 Hz thalamo-cortical loops) do not and cannot exist in the structures provided by the lobster nervous system. Do lobsters have some seperate, unrelated implementation of sentience? There's no behavioral evidence to support it. They're just big insects. I think anyone claiming that 100k neurons can support sentience needs to be providing the proof, not me providing the context and evidence for why not.

Normally I would defer to your superior knowledge, but sadly I have done some amount of relevant university-level study of this subject with teachers that were experts in the field. They have always maintained that theories about how sapience develops and exists are just that: Theories. There is no solid proof of anything.

Since your response leans on "seems" and then deflecting to saying that the opposite of your claim should be proven (even though both are equally unknowable), I'm going to assume you don't have solid evidence one way or the other about it either.

What proof do you have that enumeration of function is equivalent to understanding? If I encounter a building-size device filled with large cogs and two stones, I can’t immediately tell from looking at it whether its purpose is to grind apples or wheat. So I’m not sure you can say that an animal is or isn’t sentient based on the organization of its cells.

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