Argument Against the Existence of Animal Minds

To my mind your logic makes some leaps, but I mainly take issue with your assumption that humans are the most intelligent animal. Whales and elephants are just two species that come to mind, who have the potential (in terms of neurology) to match or even exceed human intelligence. Consider that a whale's brain shows signs of being further evolved (e.g. has additional lobes), has the same "advanced" features (such as spindle neurons), can be 20x larger than the human brain, etc. Also, whales show signs of intelligence in things such as bubble net fishing, for example.

(You may have heard the tired old claim of the relationship between brain:body ratio and intelligence, but remember that this would make the hummingbird the smartest animal alive.)

I can't see how the odds against being human as opposed to being an animal depend in any way on whether animals have minds.

Reply to Efram

Efram:

This is not actually "my logic." I don't believe that animals don't have minds, I'm just curious to see how this argument can be refuted. I could have explained this a little better.

As you correctly pointed out, there are many intelligent animal species with minds capable of doing things that human minds actually can't do. We can disagree over whether this constitutes a greater "overall intelligence" than human beings, but I don't think it's relevant to the question. Even if you believe that some animal species are more intelligent than humans, we still are extremely fortunate to be more intelligent than the overwhelming majority of species.

If you don't agree that humans are superior in overall intelligence to the vast majority of animal species, for the purposes of answering this question, just assume that these other intelligent species don't exist. In other words, in a universe where whales, elephants, and other highly intelligent animals don't exist, how would you answer this question?

Reply to John

Let's forget about whether or not animals have minds for a moment. Let's ask the question if animals, and the external world, exist at all.

In other words, if we accept that we got extremely lucky in being a human rather than an animal, can we question whether animals actually exist as anything other than figments of our minds? Is it more plausible to believe that the external world doesn't exist than to believe that we got so lucky as to be a human being rather than any other type of animal?

Do you imagine it as though you were already in potential existence, so to speak, and then it was kind of like a lottery as to whether you were incarnated in an animal, or in a human, body?

Quoting jdh

Since these odds are so unbelievable, can we question whether or not animal minds even exist?

This is a non-sequitur. And you fail to define the word "mind." Many animals clearly possess cognition, as we do. But they do not possess reason, as we do.

The question about the odds that "you" could have been born some other animal rather than a human being only makes sense on the assumption that "you" refers to something other than an embodied person; an immaterial soul, maybe. If your are not distinct from the embodied form of life that you instantiate then it doesn't make sense that you could possibly have been a giraffe, a turnip or a tea pot instead of a human being.

Plants don't count but horseshoe crabs do because ...?

Wouldn't the statistics be heavily in favor of being some bacterium or virus overy any other life form?

How about we change mind to sonar. It's incredibly unlikely to be a whale or a bat. Therefore, only whales and bats exist. Or perhaps, it's incredibly unlikely to be able to use your mind to change the color of every single skin cell, therefore, only cephalopod minds exist.

Afterall, what makes the human mind more unique than that of an octopus or a bat? Just because we value abstract reasoning more than being able to see with sonar or camouflage into the background? (Would be quite useful in certain social situations come to think of it.)

There's a very wide range of abilities that we're not so great at or lack altogether. A mantis shrimp's eyes puts ours to shame, and are probably unique in their combined abilities. Maybe only mantis shrimp eyes exist?

The argument is trading on pure anthropomorphism. I doubt very much nature agrees with our exaggerated sense of self-worth, or philosophical obsessions over language and abstract thinking. The lowly horseshoe crab has been around in basically the same form for four hundred million years or so. We've been around for what? A couple hundred thousand in close to modern form? The horseshoe crab has survived all manner of cataclysms. We worry about making it out of this century.

Maybe only horseshoe crab minds exist.

Reply to Marchesk

Thanks for your interesting comments/questions, Marchesk. Let's see if we can discuss some of the points you've raised.

"Plants don't count but horseshoe crabs do because ...?"
-I think we can actually count plants too, if you like, and this shouldn't adversely affect the argument.

"Wouldn't the statistics be heavily in favor of being some bacterium or virus over any other life form?"
-If we follow the same logic that leads to the conclusion that animal minds don't exist, then yes. The question would be: can we interpret these statistics to mean that bacterium, viruses, etc. do not actually exist, such as if the external world were an illusion?

"Afterall, what makes the human mind more unique than that of an octopus or a bat? Just because we value abstract reasoning more than being able to see with sonar or camouflage into the background?"
-This is a very good point, one which I probably should have addressed preemptively. I think there are many things that make human beings more unique than any other type of life. When I say this, I don't mean that it's intrinsically better to be a human, or that humans are objectively superior to other life. All I mean to say is that we are set apart by our reasoning abilities in a way in which no other life form is distinguished by any of its unique attributes. Consider the fact that there are only human-run animal zoos, and there isn't a single human zoo operated by animals. Of all conscious creatures, I would say that humans are the most dominant. This, I would argue, is what sets us apart. If an extraterrestrial were to visit earth, I think he'd conclude that human beings are relatively "in charge." When he would return to his home planet, I think he'd first tell his fellow aliens about human civilization, and then later he'd discuss bats, whales, giraffes, poison ivy, etc. Now, you can argue that I'm looking at this from an anthropocentric perspective, and that nature disagrees with me. You might even be right, so let me change my initial question a bit. Since you aren't convinced that the human mind is more unique than that of other creatures, let's pretend that humans were more clearly different from other life. Suppose you lived in a world where there were only ten human beings including yourself, but a trillion identical creatures of another type. What would persuade you that these other creatures actually exist? Since every living creature is identical to each other, except for you and the nine other humans, we could definitely say that there is something exceptional about humans given the sheer number of the other living type of creature. Would you conclude that these other creatures don't exist, since it's enormously unlikely that you would've been a human if it were possible for you to be one of them? If not, why not?

"It's incredibly unlikely to be able to use your mind to change the color of every single skin cell, therefore, only cephalopod minds exist."
-"I think, therefore I am." I don't need to worry about whether or not only cephalopods exist, since I know that I exist. At least one human, me, must be real. However, from the perspective of the cephalopod (if these creatures were capable of philosophical thought, which they aren't), this argument would resemble the logical behind the argument I introduced in my initial question. One concern is that the cephalopod would need to assume that the ability to change the color of his skin sets him apart as a winner of a lottery among all life forms. Is there any reason for the cephalopod to be surprised by the fact that he is capable of a behavior that isn't exhibited by the vast majority of other creatures? I would say not, since countless other types of organisms feature equally remarkable yet unique abilities. Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that we grant that the cephalopod is truly the winner of this lottery, that he is actually somehow luckier or seemingly more important than human beings and all other life on earth. How do we convince him to believe that the external world is real, given that believing this would require that he believe that something extremely remarkable happened. If the cephalopod asks you if he is justified in thinking that the external world not existing is more plausible than his winning a lottery against all odds, what would you say to him to convince him otherwise?

Quoting jdh

Is the former possibility, that animals lack conscious minds,more plausible than the idea that we won a lottery with a chance of only 1 in x million?

Your friend is right. Animals do not have minds. However, I don't think her argument is particularly convincing. Yet, similar arguments are used to suggest that we are in fact simulations running on super advanced computers in the future. That argument goes, given that countless simulations of the history of the universe will be run in the distant future, it is overwhelmingly more likely that we find ourselves in one of those rather than being the original physical person.

Anyway, it is almost impossible to have a rational discussion about the existence of animal minds, because those who sentimentally anthropomorphise animals are rarely rational. So, your friend should be praised for the valiant effort to apply reason!

Reply to tom You could also make the point that those who argue against animal minds do so merely out of a desire to be superior - or even something so simple as not wanting to feel guilty every time they eat a bacon sandwich.

To get back to the original topic: As has already been pointed out, there's no real connection between all this talk of odds and lottery and disproving anything. It just leaps from one place to another without basis.

Quoting Efram

You could also make the point that those who argue against animal minds do so merely out of a desire to be superior - or even something so simple as not wanting to feel guilty every time they eat a bacon sandwich.

See what I mean? Bacon sandwich? Superiority? Classic!

Quoting Efram

To get back to the original topic: As has already been pointed out, there's no real connection between all this talk of odds and lottery and disproving anything. It just leaps from one place to another without basis.

Are you going to give the cosmologists who rely on the Copernican Principle and anthropic reasoning the bad news? Do you refute the Principle of Mediocrity?

How about the simulation-argument? http://www.simulation-argument.com/ Are you going to buy Nick Bostrom a consolation bacon sandwich?

You could ask a similar question:

Why do the only known entities that employ the Principle of Mediocrity possess human DNA, when by that principle, they are more likely to be krill?

Reply to tom I sent Nick Bostrom his consolation prize right around the time Elon Musk was the one who started getting praised as a genius for the simulation idea, despite Bostrom having been writing about it a decade or so earlier - and Bostrom himself having borrowed the idea from earlier philosophers.

Sorry to disappoint you if you thought you had blown my world wide open by mentioning this arcane philosophy that I would have surely never heard of. I have heard of it - 10 years ago - and no, I don't buy it.

Your grandiloquent speech also does nothing to fix the gaping holes in the argument detailed in the OP.

Quoting Efram

Your grandiloquent speech also does nothing to fix the gaping holes in the argument detailed in the OP.

What are the gaping holes in the Principle of Mediocrity?

This sounds very much like the argument that the universe must have been designed for humans (or, if you prefer, known terrestrial life in general) because conditions on Earth are so very suitable for us that finding ourselves on a one-in-a-million planet like this instead of an inhospitable rock is incredibly unlikely.

The fault in both is the same fallacious idea of winning the lottery. Just like there were no humans which were dropped off to a random planet and against all odds it happened to be a hospitable one, there was no "me" that was dropped off to a random material body and against all odds it happened to be a human one. In neither case did I win the lottery, because I didn't participate in one; I'm only a result of one.

This is all about the definition of mind. If you define mind in as that of a human, then, obviously, animals do not have minds. However, this is nothing unexpected.

Quoting zookeeper

This sounds very much like the argument that the universe must have been designed for humans (or, if you prefer, known terrestrial life in general) because conditions on Earth are so very suitable for us that finding ourselves on a one-in-a-million planet like this instead of an inhospitable rock is incredibly unlikely.

That is precisely the opposite argument. The Principle of Mediocrity is as far from special-case-creation as you can get!

Quoting Chany

This is all about the definition of mind. If you define mind in as that of a human, then, obviously, animals do not have minds. However, this is nothing unexpected.

If animals can create knowledge of themselves, then what is to stop them creating knowledge of anything? Animals don't create knowledge.

Reply to tom

What does that mean, particularly knowledge?

Quoting Chany

What does that mean, particularly knowledge?

A primary function of a mind is to create knowledge - each mind has to do that for itself. Animals don't create knowledge.

Reply to tom You've made two statements here. First, that minds must create knowledge. Second, that animals don't create knowledge. Can you support either of those claims?

Reply to Efram
How do you think knowledge gets into a mind? Take for example the knowledge that light is quantized. Each human (who is interested) creates that for herself. Animals cannot do anything like this. They lack the creativity which is characteristic of the presence of a mind.

Even great apes learn by behaviour parsing: they have a set of basic operations that they can copy from others in near arbitrary order. If a behaviour is outside their repertoire, they can't copy. e.g they can hold a rock in their hand, but they cannot orient it. All this is done without intentionality.

The reason most (and perhaps all) animals cannot have a mind, is that they lack the computationally universal hardware. The brains of the great apes don't appear to be that different from ours, so their lack of a mind could be for some other reason. A supercomputer doesn't have a mind, despite having impressive, computationally universal hardware.

As I have asked, if animals can create knowledge of themselves, then what prevents them from creating knowledge of anything?

You missed out the part that minds must create knowledge. Also, it might be helpful here to clarify what you mean by 'knowledge'.

Quoting jdh

As a human being, it seems like I got very lucky, when it's conceivable that I could have been a bat, cicada, giraffe, cow, rat, spider, salmon, kangaroo, etc.

False. You are required to be a human to be you. You aren't able to be anything else. That you exist as a human was 100% guaranteed, although your existence in general was not.

Quoting jdh

isn't it more likely that animal minds don't exist than that we won the lottery against all odds?

The probability that I won that lottery is 1, as it is for any lottery winner. Your 'we' is a human, and a human has - unless severely mentally impaired - almost certainly won the braininess lottery. But that's as surprising as the fact that Myrtle Krebspark of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota won the lottery, given that Myrtle Krebspark won the lottery.

Quoting tom

A primary function of a mind is to create knowledge - each mind has to do that for itself. Animals don't create knowledge.

Nah. The primary function of mind is to figure out how to survive and have (and rear in some animals) offspring. The accumulation of knowledge is a spandrel. Evolution could care less about philosophical, mathematical, or sports knowledge, for example.

Quoting andrewk

Myrtle Krebspark of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota

This must be the first mention of Myrtle Krebsbach (not Krebspark) in The Philosophy Forum. Myrtle is the wife of Florian Krebsbach. The Krebsbachs are members of Our Lady Of Perpetual Responsibility Catholic Church. Florian and his son, Carl, run Krebsbach Chevrolet in Lake wobegon.

Quoting andrewk

The probability that I won that lottery is 1, as it is for any lottery winner.

Perhaps this is a good opportunity to remind ourselves of the difference between marginal and conditional probabilities?

Quoting jdh

How can we refute the following argument against the existence of animal minds?

The argument is vulnerable on many fronts. For example:

Quoting jdh

Homo sapiens are just one of millions of extant species of conscious animals. If you rank these species in descending order of overall intelligence, human beings rank at the very top of the list--out of millions, we're number one.

It's likely that at this early stage in your argument, you've begun to conflate "consciousness" and "intelligence", as if they mean the same thing. This becomes clearer as your argument proceeds.

Quoting jdh

The odds of me being a non-human animal seemingly far outweighed my chances of being a human. Nevertheless, I am a human. Since I am a human being, I appear to have won the lottery. I get to be smarter than every other species of animal that exists.

Here you seem to imply that intelligence is the only thing that makes human birth precious; this is contestable.

Quoting jdh

Since these odds are so unbelievable, can we question whether or not animal minds even exist?

Again it seems you've slid between "being intelligent" and "having a mind".

Moreover, I'm not sure this question makes sense, or what reasoning you're attempting to express by way of it. Perhaps this analogy makes the right point:

The odds are against me, defined abstractly as "a human", being born at the time and place I was in fact born; but in fact I was born there. This bit of abstract probabilistic thinking gives no reason to doubt whether other people are born in other times and places. Suppose further, that during my lifetime per capita income is higher where I was born than it is in all other places. This is no reason to suppose that per capita income is zero everywhere else.

Applying the logic you seem to have used against the existence of animal minds to this analogical case: It seems one would argue that, since it's so unlikely that I was born in the place with the highest per capita income, the per capita income everywhere else must be zero.

Quoting jdh

If animal minds don't exist, then we didn't actually come out on top. If animal minds are not real, we did not win a contest against all odds.

By now it's quite clear that you've conflated "being intelligent" and "having a mind".

More to the point, you've conflated "being less intelligent" with "having no mind".

Suppose one human is more intelligent than most others; this doesn't entail that the less intelligent others "have no minds".

The same reasoning applies to your argument.

Quoting jdh

The important question is: isn't it more likely that animal minds don't exist than that we won the lottery against all odds?

I don't think this is the important question. The whole argument should be redesigned or discarded.

Funny argument. It's almost certainly fallacious due to a deep misunderstanding about the nature of probability, but I could easily see this as a theological position in some Borgesian treatise.

Reply to tom
Thanks for your thoughtful answer, Tom.

Would you please elaborate a bit more on why this argument isn't convincing? I agree with you that it's not convincing, but I'd like to here your reasoning.

Would you please tell me what your reason is for not thinking animal minds exist?

Reply to Michael

What if the coin lands heads a million times in a row?

Quoting jdh

Would you please elaborate a bit more on why this argument isn't convincing? I agree with you that it's not convincing, but I'd like to here your reasoning.

The probability that you were born a human and not any other animal is the same as the probability that you were born with a human mind and not an animal mind, or a human liver and not any other animals liver. I don't think you can pick some aspect of a human and argue that because it is unlikely, animals don't possess it.

Animals can't talk, but I don't see how you can infer that from the fact that you can, and that your species is relatively rare.

Animals can't create knowledge, including knowledge of themselves. This is a blessing.

Quoting jdh

Homo sapiens are just one of millions of extant species of conscious animals. If you rank these species in descending order of overall intelligence, human beings rank at the very top of the list--out of millions, we're number one. As a human being, it seems like I got very lucky, when it's conceivable that I could have been a bat, cicada, giraffe, cow, rat, spider, salmon, kangaroo, etc.

A probability model is only useful if it can be fitted to the real world. The probability of a species when a new life is actually born is not determined by a ranking system. It is determined by the species of the parents. You model is fictitious and worthless in determining the probability of your species. The fact is since both your parents were humans you had a 100% chance of being human.

You can make up fictitious probability models all day long but just thinking them up will not make them an accurate approximation of real world probability. The only way to do that is by collecting real samples.

Also, you would not rank the probability of a random life sample from Earth by intelligence, you would rank it by the proportion of human life out of all life on Earth.

I had a very long debate with my cat about this. When the stray first started to live me, he would often come to say thank you after I fed him, purring happily. For a long time I cynically thought the cat was just figuring out ways to get fed. Eventually the cat won the debate, and now I think more of my cat's mind than many human's, but then I am biased, because I got to know my cat quite well. Why? A cat's life is pretty empty, between feedings, and my cat does better with it than many people I have known. I don't expect many other people to appreciate that, but my cat would appreciate me saying it.

Reply to jdh Quoting jdh

Homo sapiens are just one of millions of extant species of conscious animals.

There are a little over ONE million species of animals -- not multiples of millions. Of that one million, there are about 5,000 mammal species. A few birds and a few mollusks seem to be fairly bright. True enough, as noted, even insects can carry out some cognition. Some insects (bumblebees) are better at it than others (house flies).

Humans, then, stand at the apex of a fairly small pyramid, not a huge one.

There are activities we do that other animals don't do, like manipulating abstract symbols with ease and facility (writing music, poetry, novels, scientific theories, love letters, bad jokes, obscene books, and speeches for Donald Trump.) Not only do we do these things, we know we do these things, which as far as we can tell, other animals don't know. Not only do we know what we do and can do, we know what we can not do. A human can not outrun a cheetah or a gazelle; a human can not dive as deep in the ocean as a whale; a human can not fly like a bird--and we know that about ourselves.

Reply to ernestm Pets really are a good opportunity to learn about animal minds, because we spend so much time with them. We can observe them in all sorts of situations. Of course, we can get carried away with over-interpretating their behavior. But then, we sometimes get carried away with over-interpreting our own and other humans behavior too.

Our pets enter into relationships with us; they learn about us--like which buttons they can push for specific responses, and they push them. A dog who wants to go out, or a cat who wants to be fed can make it very clear to us what they want.

"If We Are Not Just Animals, What Are We?" is the title of a current article in NYTimes.

Reply to jdh

I would be keen to fall back on Augustine's three necessities for being human (and therefore being superior): I exist, I'm alive, and most importantly I possess reason (and a soul!). Animals have the first two out of the three. Also, in terms of "winning the lottery" what do you believe when it comes to the soul? If you think that souls are just waiting to fill empty voids when humans conceive, then you have not won the lottery- a slot has been filled- since animals can't possess souls. Therefore you were destined to become a human and it isn't entropy.

Conclusion: I think you can have your cake and eat it too: animals don't possess minds in the degree that we do, but at the same time, it wasn't a happy accident that you took human form.

Reply to River I would have thought that to belleve in the soul is to believe it is what you are, not something you have.

I agree however that animals are not rational beings. It's surprising how many people don't accept that nowadays.

Quoting jdh

If animal minds don't exist, then we didn't actually come out on top. If animal minds are not real, we did not win a contest against all odds.

This is bizarre logic. I would've thought if animals mind don't exist then we did win the lottery - having won the prize of consciousness. Conversely, if animal minds did exist then we're no better of than animals - making humans equivalent to say, a dog or fish - we didn't win.

I am late in this topic.
To original poster: you should compare Self Sampling Assumption vs Self Indexing Assumption. Based on SSA, you can't be animal mind because of the reference class used (humans).

It raises deeper question about sampling across different classes, in that sense question is valid and I don't have an answer. But why do you think you had won the lottery? Evolution continues, there will be more intelligent post-humans

If the constituent parts of the brain that produce minds hadn't evolved in predecessor animals, we wouldn't have any brains at all.

Animals - among them humans - have varying degrees of 'mindedness'.

Reply to jdh

Your question is based on a not-valid metaphysical assumption.

Your life is a life-experience possibility-story There are infinitely-many such stories, encompassing all non-self-contradictory life stories.

Why are you in the life that you're in? (including as a member of the species that you belong to)?

Answer: Because, among the infinity of life-experience possibility-stories, there's one about the person you are.

It wasn't a random choice. This is the life-story that's about the person that you are. It would be meaningless to ask why you aren't someone else (of whatever species).

Michael Ossipoff

Quoting jdh

How can we refute the following argument against the existence of animal minds?

Well the arguments for animal mind-brains is much stronger.

First there is the evolutionary argument, that the mind-brain system must have evolved just like every other biological structure. The science of comparative neuroanatomy will be helpful to your there complete with evolutionary trees and divergence and convergent branches.

Second there is the behavioral argument as any pet owner or anyone who works with animals can attest, animals give every indication of being capable of learning, of memory, of emotions and of simple problem solving. In the case of corvids multi step problem solving, try utube or the nature channel.

Third- There is strong evidence from neuroscience of retained structures and neural circuits in the deeper brain (also found in humans) which regulate emotions and serve as pleasure reward center for the animals. For anyone truly interested in the problem see research into affective neuroscience and comparative cognition. There is evidence for seven primary process emotional networks in the subcortical regions of the brain (preserved in higher animals and humans alike) rage, fear, grief, lust, care, seeking and play. See Pankseep and AN (affective neuroscience) or comparative cognition. A particularly good review here: Jaak Panksepp, Stephen Asma, Glennon Curran, Rami Gabriel & Thomas Greif
The Philosophical Implications of Affective Neuroscience Cognitive Science Society (CogSci10) Portland, Oregon, 12 August 2010
Introduction and Discussion: Jaak Panksepp (Washington State University, Pullman, WA)
Synopsis of Affective Neuroscience — Naturalizing the Mammalian MindBy Jaak Panksepp

“ I employ the terms BrainMind and MindBrain interchangeably, depending on desired emphasis, capitalized and without a space to highlight the monistic view of the brain as a unified experience-generating organ with no Cartesian dualities that have traditionally hindered scientific understanding.” Panksepp

“Central to the affective neuroscientific epistemic approach is the recognition that the vertebrate BrainMind is an evolved organ, the only one in the body where evolutionary progressions remain engraved at neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and functional levels. The more ancient mental functions (e.g. primary-process emotions — ancestral genetic/affective ‘memories’) are lower and more medial in the brain. The higher functions (e.g. cognitive functions) are situated more rostrally and laterally. The basic learning functions are nestled in-between in various basal ganglia such as amygdala and nucleus accumbens”-Panksepp

This argument is powerful because animals with very similar cognition have, in our planet's history, far outnumbered humans (who are unique, we can surely admit). No one can know how the 'selection process' works unless they fully understand the nature of minds.

However, that selection process could conceivably be gamed regardless of our lack of understanding. Consider a simulated experience identical to your own. Regardless of whether your minds merge or remain separate, its existence means you have added to your 'observer fluid' or measure. That is, assuming all else is equal, your particular experience is now twice as likely to be selected as anyone else's. Assuming that animals have relatively low measure accounts for our apparent luck just as well as them being mindless and requires far fewer needless assumptions.

This certainly doesn't prove we're being simulated, but does possibly prove that humans are *important*, having a large share of experience. It fits a religious framework reasonably well.

This argument seems powerful at first because animals with very similar cognition have, in our planet's history, far outnumbered humans (who we can surely admit are unique). No one can know how the 'selection process' works unless they fully understand the nature of minds.

However, that selection process could conceivably be gamed regardless of our lack of understanding. Consider a simulated experience identical to your own. Regardless of whether your minds merge or remain separate, its existence means you have added to your 'observer fluid' or measure. That is, assuming all else is equal, your particular experience is now twice as likely to be selected as anyone else's. Assuming that animals have relatively low measure accounts for our apparent luck just as well as them being mindless and requires far fewer needless assumptions.

This certainly doesn't prove we're being simulated, but does possibly show that humans are *important*, having a large share of experience.

The real solution to puzzles of why you find yourself as the kind of entity you are is to arrive at the realization that there is only one subject and that this subject occupies all perspectives simultaneously. So you inevitably find yourself in all existing circumstances. You don't, in fact, find yourself being a human and not a mouse. You find yourself being both. You aren't lucky to find yourself in a universe fine-tuned for life either. You occupy them all, even the ones without biology, if such exist. That's why you find yourself here. You are everywhere.

The reason you don't know that you occupy all perspectives is simply a matter of information integration, of access. There is no information in this particular brain about being a rat. So naturally, I never talk about what it's like to be the rat using this mouth. It is similar to amnesia. An amnesiac, though they are the same subject at T1 and T2, simply doesn't have access in a brainstate at T2 to information about experiences had at T1.

This understanding solves all the puzzles about the anthropic principle, fine-tuning, identity, and so on, in one fell swoop. It is hard for people to accept though, because it is so contrary to the intuition that you are a discrete individual subject separate from all other subjects. But make no mistake. You are everyone.