Citation

Author Website

https://www.ulethbridge.ca/artsci/neuroscience/dr-sergio-pellis

Thread

Jennifer Mather, Consciousness of octopuses—on their own terms

Abstract

Who is conscious and how do we know? Complexity in behavior and cognition is certainly a clue that cannot be ignored in identifying this trait, and as Mather’s target article shows, it is hard not to imagine consciousness arising in cephalopods. But how complex is complex? An alternative may be gleaned from the fact that all living things rely on negative feedback to navigate their worlds, and this requires all sentient beings knowing what is to be stabilized in reflection to themselves. If so, consciousness is a universal trait.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Author Biography

Sergio M. Pellis is a Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge. His primary research has been on the mechanisms and evolution of play behaviour. A key finding has been that social play refines executive function by modifying the development of the prefrontal cortex. Website

DOI

10.51291/2377-7478.1902