Citation
Lane, Willa M.; Ajuwon, Victor; and Clayton, Nicola S. (2025) Cephalopod consciousness on “their own terms”: Who are “they”?. Animal Sentience 37(6)
Thread
Jennifer Mather, Consciousness of octopuses—on their own terms
Abstract
Mather’s call to consider cephalopods’ consciousness “on their own terms” raises the question of the extent to which cephalopods can be considered a homogenous group. While coloeoid cephalopods share traits that strongly distinguish them from other molluscs and invertebrates, they show vast ecological and morphological diversity, with implications for the design of empirical investigations of consciousness. Extending Mather’s argument, we apply Birch et al.’s (2020) five-dimensional model to compare octopus, cuttlefish, squid, and nautilus. This comparison shows that even within a graded rather than categorical framework, putative consciousness profiles depend on which taxa are included in discussions of “cephalopod consciousness.” The resulting uncertainty highlights that choosing a taxonomic level for discussing animal consciousness remains a central conceptual challenge.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic License
DOI
10.51291/2377-7478.1910
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