Bumblebee experiment raises question of insect consciousness

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Psychologist Susan Blackmore once asked neuroscientist Christof Koch if his research on consciousness had changed him in any way, and Koch promptly responded: “Well, I don't step on any bugs anymore.” That was 15 years ago, and I remember my perplexity when reading it in Blackmore's book Conversations in consciousness (conversations on consciousness, Oxford University Press, 2006). In his studies of human and primate consciousness, which began with Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the double helix of DNA and the genetic code, Koch perceived that being conscious depends at each moment on neural circuits so concise that they could very well fit in the brain of an insect. Read on Subject the state of the matter on the Koch dilemma: Should we step on bugs? Or more generally: To what extent is human consciousness human?

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