The problem of consciousness can be formulated as follows: how is it that, from a purely material basis (a brain or a centralized nervous system), consciousness emerges? This is what the problem of consciousness really boils down to. Answering this requires answering the question, what structures must be present in an organism and how would they function for consciousness to be possible? In other words, of all the different ways that the bodies of animals are arranged, which ones contain structures and arrangements that give rise to consciousness? There is no reason to suppose that only a human-like central nervous system will give rise to consciousness, and a great deal of evidence that very different types of animals are conscious. An example is bird brains, which have many structural similarities to mammalian brains, but different arrangements of neurons. Yet their brain circuits seem to be wired in a different way that creates a similar effect in terms of consciousness and cognition. An octopus is an invertebrate with a very different type of nervous system. But an octopus exhibits behavior and responds to her environment like a conscious being.
Recent Posts
- Some problems of the very intuitive evolutionary emergentist paradigm trying to explain consciousness from neurons
- Only mammals and birds are sentient, according to Nick Humphrey
- Consciousness baffles me, but not the Hard Problem
- LLM, DL and generative AI to represent metaphysical hypotheses and theories.
- Decapitation in Rats: Latency to Unconsciousness and the ‘Wave of Death’
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