Citation
Velmans, Max (2016) How could consciousness emerge from adaptive functioning?. Animal Sentience 11(6)
Commentary Type
Invited Commentary
Thread
Arthur S. Reber, Caterpillars, consciousness and the origins of mind
Abstract
The sudden appearance of consciousness that Reber posits in creatures with flexible cell walls and motility rather than non-flexible cells walls and no motility involves an evolutionary discontinuity. This kind of “miracle” is required by all “discontinuity” theories of consciousness. To avoid miraculous emergence, one may need to consider continuity theories, which accept that different forms of consciousness and material functioning co-evolve but assume the existence of consciousness to be primal in the way that matter and energy are assumed to be primal in physics.
DOI
10.51291/2377-7478.1160
Included in
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