Clearsky

Thanks, Reg! (Had device probs)

I’m personally not ready to completely define “consciousness”, or for that matter not even “intelligence”. I’m more comfortable breaking them down into components, most of which we can agree on. Also, like @TomS, I’ll avoid the word “purpose” just like Reg cautions against use of the word “forward” in the context of evolution; i.e. maybe I’m just…[Read more]

I strongly suspect that the rushed breeding of those foxes have detrimental effects, e.g. like disease effects we see in highly bred dogs (and cats, I’m betting). It is appropo to point out how breeding can affect (to varying extents) personality, and probably other aspects of consciousness. I remember reading a few years ago that some genes t…[Read more]

I think there are a lot of good points here.
_Robert_ wrote:

Have we even been subjected to natural selection for the past hundreds of thousands of years? Before laser surgery I was blind to anything beyond three feet away.

I think we’re going mostly backwards, with medicine usurping “natural” (i.e. pre sapiens evo/cultural explosion) selective…[Read more]

I, too, think the author doesn’t have a complete understanding of his proposal(s), but as you point out Davis, the meta-conciousness construct is useful to consider when describing consciousness. I think we still need more depth in understanding various types of self-awareness, e.g. more than just being able to recognize ourselves in the mirror,…[Read more]

Consciousness Goes Deeper Than You Think
Awareness can be part of it, but it’s much more than that

An article on the neuroscience of infant consciousness, which attracted some interest a few years ago, asked: “When does your baby become conscious?” The premise, of course, was that babies aren’t born conscious but, instead, develop conscio…[Read more]