The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness

On this day of July 7, 2012, a prominent international group of cognitive neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists gathered at The University of Cambridge to reassess the neurobiological substrates of conscious experience and related behaviors in human and non-human animals(...)

We declare the following: “The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.”

Source: The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
Author: Cambridge Declaration

Link: Animals are conscious and should be treated as such
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Other EVANA-articles about this topic:
Neuroscientists Declare Animals Have Consciousness (en)

Declaratie a oamenilor de stiinta de la Cambridge: animalele prezinta constiinta, ca si oamenii (ro)