At the start of their research, the tropical fish reacted in much the same manner as other species had before it, by perceiving that the reflection in the mirror was a threat. However, as the days passed, the cleaner wrasse began to dance before the mirror, something that was considered highly out of the ordinary for this particular type of fish as they are generally known for being solitary.
Researchers continued their experiment with the self-awareness test by affixing bold splashes of colored gel onto eight of the cleaner wrasse to see if they would notice it in the mirror. It was discovered that seven out of eight of these tropical fish spent much longer than they normally would before the mirror looking at the gel, while some of them also appeared to attempt to take the gel off by brushing up against other objects where the gel was.
https://www.inquisitr.com/5056375/new-research-showed-a-small-tropical-fish-to-be-fully-self-aware-after-recognizing-itself-in-a-mirror/
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I suspect the mirror test is no better than the Turing test: something we came up because we have no idea how to define sapience, let alone detect it - you can make a robot that is capable to pass the mirror test, and it isn't even alive or self-conscious.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Turing test is simply for trying to create a believable P-zombie...
I think it's more interesting than that. We have to accept that we don't have a good definition of sentience and move on. Best we can do is to chip away at the problem little by little, seeing what works and what doesn't. But we haven't got one right now and probably won't anytime soon. For now, all we can do is gather clues.
ReplyDeleteThe discovery is interesting in its own right as a zoological finding. How does the little fish know what it itself looks like ? Does it have such an acute sense of its own motion/physical characteristics that it can recognise them through observation ? Why do some tiny animals have this ability but some much larger creatures don't - or is it that the test wasn't being done appropriately for them ?
As for robots, the question would be whether we could actually build one right now that works in the same way as the real thing. Since we apparently don't know how animals do it, I rather doubt it.