Explained: Inside the minds of bees, and what we can learn from their intelligence | Explained News,The Indian Express
Bees possess not only a remarkable level of cognitive intelligence, but also a high degree sentience or “consciousness”, which make them thinking and feeling beings.
How intelligent are various life forms compared to humans? Studies over the years have revealed a surprising depth of intelligence in several life forms and have questioned the unipolar definitions of intelligence, with Homo sapiens placed at the top. Elephants, it was found, can remember and revere their deceased, rats were trained to detect explosives in war zones, and dolphins are capable of mimicking human names.
In a recent addition to research on animal intelligence and consciousness, Lars Chittka, a professor of sensory and behavioural ecology at Queen Mary University of London, finds in his latest book – The Mind of the Bee — that bees possess not only a remarkable level of cognitive intelligence, but also a high degree sentience or “consciousness”, which make them thinking and feeling beings.
What is animal intelligence and consciousness?
Consciousness has been understood as a concept different from ordinary brain-intelligence (which commonly is known to include the cognitive ability of thinking and reasoning). It includes the ability to be “sentient” and experience feelings and emotions. The ambit and nuance of “consciousness”, especially human consciousness, has been the subject matter of debate in philosophy and neuroscience. It is thought to encapsulate a sophistical level of self-awareness and imagination — feelings and emotions that allow us to perceive ourselves, while simultaneously interacting with the world around us.
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