Tiny fish found to have sophisticated self-awareness only ever seen in some humans

_number8_@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 185 points –
Tiny fish found to have sophisticated self-awareness only ever seen in some humans
independent.co.uk
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all animals are waaay more aware than we realize (or can bear to realize), but it's going to take forever to officially prove because we have to start from the place of them needing to prove that they:

may also have an internal awareness of their own bodies

I fully agree with you. We try to prove animals have deep self awareness by human standards. The thing is that animals don't think like humans do, so it's difficult to prove it but I'm very sure most of them are self-aware

When my cat looks at her reflection and makes noises at the "other cat" on the other side if the mirror, I'm pretty sure she's not aware of how she looks like

But my cat completely ignores his reflection, but would never ignore another cat

Cats rely more on their acute hearing to be aware of who is in the room. I'm sure if you play a cat video on TV it will get a reaction

That isn't true for all cats though, many are fully aware they're seeing themselves. As with humans, individuals of any other species have different levels of intelligence.

This is gonna be unpopular but it's kinda hard to hop on that train when most animals fight their own reflection in a mirror. It's even like half and half for dogs

Edit: I love dogs and animals, I just think we should be realistic and not go too crazy on the subject from our natural love of them

My friend's dog was extremely self aware, more than most dogs I would say (not an expert), but would still try and eat its own poop.

FYI for anyone else who has this issue, I changed my previous pups food and he stopped trying to eat his poo so maybe it was a slight nutritional imbalance or something.

to be fair, mirrors are pretty crazy and don't typically appear as clearly in nature with the exception of water.

Whether a dog recognizes its reflection or not doesn't really rule out that they're not self aware

My dog is very aware that if his self isn't given belly scratches by me at any given time, he has to start scratching at me with his paw until I do.

He's gotten me in the eye like three times. Little bastard. He's lucky he's so cute.

all animals are waaay more aware than we realize

All animals? That's a very big claim, do you have any supporting evidence?