Subjective experience in insects: Definitions and other difficulties
Animal Sentience August 24, 2016 Shelley Adamo
Whether insects can have subjective experiences depends on how subjective experience is defined. The definition used by Klein & Barron (2016) is unusually liberal and could be used to argue that some modern robots have subjective experiences. From an evolutionary perspective, the additional neurons needed for subjective experiences are proportionately more expensive for insects than for mammals because of the small size of the insect brain, which could weaken selection for such traits. It may be premature to assume that small neuronal number is unimportant in determining the capacity for consciousness.