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Science of consciousness :: Consciousness and biology

• Evolution of consciousness [31]
• Animal consciousness [20]
• Animal self-consciousness [8]
• Consciousness and biology, misc [3]

Evolution of consciousness

See also: The function of consciousness, Development of consciousness, Animal consciousness, Animal self-consciousness, Evolution of cognition.

• Michael Arbib (2001). Co-evolution of human consciousness and language.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.annalsnyas.org/cgi/content/abstract/929/1/195
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2001.tb05717.x
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11349426&dopt=Citation
  
• James Mark Baldwin (1896). Consciousness and evolution.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://members.aol.com/jorolat/baldwinref3.html
  
• Jesse Bering & Todd Shackelford (2004). The causal role of consciousness: A conceptual addendum to human evolutionary psychology.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.uic.edu/classes/psych/Health/Readings/Bering, Consciousness in evolution, RevGenPsy, 2004.pdf
  
• Bruce Bridgeman (1992). On the evolution of consciousness and language.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Psychology can be based on plans, internally held images of achievement that organize the stimulus-response links of traditional psychology. The hierarchical structure of plans must be produced, held, assigned priorities, and monitored. Consciousness is the operation of the plan-executing mechanism, enabling behavior to be driven by plans rather than immediate environmental contingencies. The mechanism unpacks a single internally held idea into a series of actions. New in this paper is the proposal that language uses this mechanism for communication, unpacking an idea into a series of articulatory acts. Language comprehension uses the plan-monitoring mechanism to pack a series of linguistic events into an idea. Recursive processing results from monitoring one's own speech. Neurophysiologically, the planning mechanism is identified with higher-order motor control
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://psycprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000239/
  http://psycprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000239/01/psyc.92.3.15.consciousness.1.bridgeman.xml
  http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/cgi/psyc/newpsy?3.15
  
• Selmer Bringsjord & Ron Noel (2002). Why did evolution engineer consciousness?   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.rpi.edu/~brings/EVOL/evol7.ps
  
• Peter Carruthers (2000). The evolution of consciousness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: How might consciousness have evolved? Unfortunately for the prospects of providing a convincing answer to this question, there is no agreed account of what consciousness is. So any attempt at an answer will have to fragment along a number of different lines of enquiry. More fortunately, perhaps, there is general agreement that a number of distinct notions of consciousness need to be distinguished from one another; and there is also broad agreement as to which of these is particularly problematic - namely phenomenal consciousness, or the kind of conscious mental state which it is like something to have, which has a distinctive subjective feel or phenomenology (henceforward referred to as p-consciousness). I shall survey the prospects for an evolutionary explanation of p-consciousness, on a variety of competing accounts of its nature. My goal is to use evolutionary considerations to adjudicate between some of those accounts
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/1205/0/Concevol.htm
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001205/
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:1205
  http://www.philosophy.umd.edu/Faculty/pcarruthers/Evolution-of-consciousness.htm
  
• R. W. Coan (1989). Alternative views on the evolution of consciousness.   (More)
• Rodney Cotterill (2000). Did consciousness evolve from self-paced probing of the environment, and not from reflexes?   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=271141&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/N5358X360G20T6W9.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/bram/2000/00000001/00000002/00271141
  
• Matthew Donald (1995). The neurobiology of human consciousness: An evolutionary approach.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7501131&dopt=Citation
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/00283932/1995/00000033/00000009/art00050
  
• Joseph Earley (2002). The social evolution of consciousness.   (More)
• John Eccles (1992). Evolution of consciousness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1992PNAS...89.7320E
  http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=49701&tools=bot
  http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=49701
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-8424(19920815)89:16<7320:EOC>2.0.CO;2-I
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1502142&dopt=Citation
  
• C. Grace & James Moreland (2002). Intelligent design psychology and evolutionary psychology on consciousness: Turning water into wine.   (More)
• Stuart Hameroff (1998). Did consciousness cause the cambrian evolutionary explosion?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: When and where did consciousness emerge in the course of evolution? Did it happen as recently as the past million years, for example concomitant with language or tool making in humans or primates? Or did consciousness arrive somewhat earlier, with the advent of mammalian neocortex 200 million years ago (Eccles, 1992)? At the other extreme, is primitive consciousness a property of even simple unicellular organisms of several billion years ago (e.g. as suggested by Margulis and Sagan, 1995)? Or did consciousness appear at some intermediate point, and if so, where and why? Whenever it first occurred, did consciousness alter the course of evolution?
• Stevan Harnad (2002). Turing indistinguishability and the blind watchmaker.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Many special problems crop up when evolutionary theory turns, quite naturally, to the question of the adaptive value and causal role of consciousness in human and nonhuman organisms. One problem is that -- unless we are to be dualists, treating it as an independent nonphysical force -- consciousness could not have had an independent adaptive function of its own, over and above whatever behavioral and physiological functions it "supervenes" on, because evolution is completely blind to the difference between a conscious organism and a functionally equivalent (Turing Indistinguishable) nonconscious "Zombie" organism: In other words, the Blind Watchmaker, a functionalist if ever there was one, is no more a mind reader than we are. Hence Turing-Indistinguishability = Darwin-Indistinguishability. It by no means follows from this, however, that human behavior is therefore to be explained only by the push-pull dynamics of Zombie determinism, as dictated by calculations of "inclusive fitness" and "evolutionarily stable strategies." We are conscious, and, more important, that consciousness is piggy-backing somehow on the vast complex of unobservable internal activity -- call it "cognition" -- that is really responsible for generating all of our behavioral capacities. Hence, except in the palpable presence of the irrational (e.g., our sexual urges) where distal Darwinian factors still have some proximal sway, it is as sensible to seek a Darwinian rather than a cognitive explanation for most of our current behavior as it is to seek a cosmological rather than an engineering explanation of an automobile's behavior. Let evolutionary theory explain what shaped our cognitive capacity (Steklis & Harnad 1976; Harnad 1996, but let cognitive theory explain our resulting behavior
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00002617/01/harnad98.turing.evol.html
  http://eprints.resist.ecs.soton.ac.uk/7713/
  http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/2617/
  http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/7713/01/harnad98.turing.evol.html
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001615/00/harnad98.turing.evol.html
  http://eprints.resist.ecs.soton.ac.uk/2617/
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:1615
  http://cogprints.org/1615/
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk:7713
  http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/16/15/
  http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00007713/
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001615/
  http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad98.turing.evol.html
  http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/%7Eharnad/Papers/Harnad/harnad98.turing.evol.html
  
• Irene Harvey (2002). Evolving robot consciousness: The easy problems and the rest.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/31575.html
  http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/inmanh/consc.pdf
  http://www.cogs.sussex.ac.uk/ccnr/Papers/Downloads/Harvey_EvolCons1997.ps
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/138592.html
  http://www.cogs.sussex.ac.uk/ccnr/Papers/Downloads/Harvey_EvolCons1997.ps.gz
  
• James Hopkins (2000). Evolution, Consciousness, and the Internality of the Mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The problem of consciousness seems to arise from experience itself. As we shall consider in more detail below, we are strongly disposed to contrast conscious experience with the physical states or events by which we take it to be realized. This contrast gives rise to dualism and other problems of mind and body. In this chapter I argue that these problems can usefully be considered in the perspective of evolution
• Steven Horst (2002). Evolutionary explanation and consciousness.   (More)
• Nicholas Humphrey (1982). Consciousness: A just-so story.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001784/00/JustSoStory.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/1784/00/JustSoStory.pdf
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:1784
  http://www.humphrey.org.uk/papers/1982JustSoStory.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/1784/0/JustSoStory.pdf
  
• Nicholas Humphrey (2006). Consciousness: The Achilles heel of darwinism? Thank God, not quite.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: William Paley in his famous statement in 1800 of the Argument from Design, imagined that he found a watch lying on a heath and set to wondering how it came to be there. “The inference is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker: that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which
• George Trumbull Ladd (1896). Consciousness and evolution.   (More)
• Fiona Macpherson (2002). The power of natural selection.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Some naturalistic theories of consciousness give an essential role to teleology.1 This teleology is said to arise due to natural selection. Thus it is claimed that only certain states, namely, those that have been selected for by evolutionary pro- cesses because they contribute to (or once contributed to) an organism’s fitness, are conscious states. These theories look as if they are assigning a creative role to natural selection. If a state is conscious only if it has been selected for, then selec- tion appears to be able to create a new feature of states, namely, their conscious nature. Yet, intuitively, natural selection cannot create anything. Natural selec- tion chooses certain features that already exist and makes them more (or less) prevalent in a population, but it cannot bring features into existence itself. Natu- ral selection can select for conscious states, but it cannot create them. This con- clusion has recently been argued for by Steven Horst (1999). If it is right, then teleological theories of conscious states should be rejected. A state cannot become a conscious experience in virtue of having been selected for by evolu- tionary process
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2002/00000009/00000008/1296
  http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_21948_en.pdf
  
• L. Margulis (2001). The conscious cell.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.annalsonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/929/1/55
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11349430&dopt=Citation
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2001.tb05707.x
  
• Christophe Menant (online). Evolution and mirror neurons. An introduction to the nature of self-consciousness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Self-consciousness is a product of evolution. Few people today disagree with the evolutionary history of humans. But the nature of self-consciousness is still to be explained, and the story of evolution has rarely been used as a framework for studies on consciousness during the 20th century. This last point may be due to the fact that modern study of consciousness came up at a time where dominant philosophical movements were not in favor of evolutionist theories (Cunningham 1996). Research on consciousness based on Phenomenology or on Analytic Philosophy has been mostly taking the characteristics of humans as starting points. Relatively little has been done with bottom-up approaches, using performances of animals as a simpler starting point to understand the generation of consciousness through evolution. But this status may be changing, thanks to new tools coming from recent discoveries in neurology. The discovery of mirror neurons about ten years ago (Gallese et al. 1996, Rizzolatti et al. 1996) has allowed the built up of new conceptual tools for the understanding of intersubjectivity within humans and non human primates (Gallese 2001, Hurley 2005). Studies in these fields are still in progress, with discussions on the level of applicability of this natural intersubjectivity to non human primates (Decety and Chaminade 2003). We think that these subject/conspecific mental relations made possible by mirror neurons can open new paths for the understanding of the nature of self-consciousness via an evolutionist bottom-up approach. We propose here a scenario for the build up of self-consciousness through evolution by a specific analysis of two steps of evolution: first step from simple living elements to non human primates comparable to chimpanzees, and second step from these non human primates to humans. We identify these two steps as representing the evolution from basic animal awareness to body self-awareness, and from body self-awareness to self-consciousness. (we consider that today non human primates are comparable to what were pre-human primates). We position body self-awareness as corresponding to the performance of mirror self recognition as identified with chimpanzees and orangutans (Gallup). We propose to detail and understand the content of this body self-awareness through a specific evolutionist build up process using the performances of mirror neurons and group life. We address the evolutionary step from body self-awareness to self-consciousness by complementing the recently proposed approach where self-consciousness is presented as a by-product of body self-awareness amplification via a positive feedback loop resulting of anxiety limitation (Menant 2004). The scenario introduced here for the build up of self-consciousness through evolution leaves open the question about the nature of phenomenal-consciousness (Block 2002). We plan to address this question later on with the help of the scenario made available here
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/4533/
  
• Christophe Menant (ms). Evolution of representations. From basic life to self-representation and self-consciousness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The notion of representation is at the foundation of cognitive sciences and is used in theories of mind and consciousness. Other notions like ‘embodiment’, 'intentionality‘, 'guidance theory' or ‘biosemantics’ have been associated to the notion of representation to introduce its functional aspect. We would like to propose here that a conception of 'usage related' representation eases its positioning in an evolutionary context, and opens new areas of investigation toward self-representation and self-consciousness. The subject is presented in five parts:Following an overall presentation, the first part introduces a usage related representation as being an information managed by a system submitted to a constraint that has to be satisfied. We consider that such a system can generate a meaningful information by comparing its constraint to a received information (Menant 2003). We define a representation as being made of the received information and of the meaningful information. Such approach allows groundings in and out for the representation relatively to the system. The second part introduces the two types of representations we want to focus on for living organisms: representations of conspecifics and auto-representation, the latter being defined without using a notion of self-representation. Both types of representations have existed for our pre-human ancestors which can be compared to today great apes.In the third part, we use the performance of intersubjectivity as identified in group life with the presence of mirror neurons in the organisms. Mirror neurons have been discovered in the 90‘s (Rizzolatti & al.1996, Gallese & al.1996). The level of intersubjectivity that can be attributed to non human primates as related to mirror neurons is currently a subject of debate (Decety 2003). We consider that a limited intersubjectivity between pre-human primates made possible a merger of both types of representations. The fourth part proposes that such a merger of representations feeds the auto-representation with the meanings associated to the representations of conspecifics, namely the meanings associated to an entity perceived as existing in the environment. We propose that auto-representation carrying these new meanings makes up the first elements of self-representation. Intersubjectivity has allowed auto-representation to evolve into self-representation, avoiding the homunculus risk. The fifth part is a continuation to other presentations (Menant 2004, 2005) about possible evolution of self-representation into self-consciousness. We propose that identification with suffering or endangered conspecifics has increased anxiety, and that the tools used to limit this anxiety (development of empathy, imitation, language and group life) have provided a positive feedback on intersubjectivity and created an evolutionary engine for the organism. Other outcomes have also been possible. Such approach roots consciousness in emotions. The evolutionary scenario proposed here does not introduce explicitly the question of phenomenal consciousness (Block 1995). This question is to be addressed later with the help of this scenario.The conclusion lists the points introduced here with their possible continuations
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/4843/1/Menant_TSC_2006_Poster.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/4843/
  
• Shaun Nichols & Todd Grantham (2000). Adaptive complexity and phenomenal consciousness.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(200012)67:4<648:ACAPC>2.0.CO;2-3
  http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/392859
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(200012)67:4<648:ACAPC>2.0.CO;2-3
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/188711.pdf
  
• Maria Pachalska (2006). The psychology of art and the evolution of the conscious brain.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.jonmd.com/pt/re/jnmd/abstract.00005053-200608000-00014.htm
  
• Mark Pharoah (ms). Looking to systems theory for a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience and evolutionary foundations for H.O.T.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper details an evolving dynamic systems hierarchy and explores its relationship with conceptual, evolutionary, physiological, and behavioural characteristics that include phenomenal experience. In doing this, the paper demonstrates an example of a type-C physicalist's reductive explanation of phenomenal experience that is coherent with stipulated philosophical criteria and theories. By providing a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience, the paper provides insights toward explaining many unique human characteristics. These include, creativity, the origins of language as distinct from animal communication, the evolution of morality, and the dynamics behind bias and prejudice. Furthermore, the reductive explanation provides foundations for artificial consciousness applications.
• Thomas Polger (2007). Rethinking the evolution of consciousness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Suppose that consciousness is a natural feature of biological organisms, and that it is a capacity or property or process that resides in a single organ. In that case there is a straightforward question about the consciousness organ, namely: How did the consciousness organ come to be formed and why is its presence maintained in those organisms that have it? Of course answering this question might be rather difficult, particularly if the consciousness organ is made of soft tissue that leaves at best indirect fossil records, or if it has been fixed in the populations for such a long time that there are few available examples of organisms that lack the consciousness organ on which to conduct comparative experiments. No doubt there are other confounding practical obstacles as well. But these are just the complications that face biologists and natural historians on a regular basis, and they do not reflect any special problems about the study of consciousness. This is just to say that if consciousness is a natural feature of biological organisms then its origins and history can be studied in the same manner as other features of the biological world. It’s a hard business, but biologists are pretty good at it
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://oz.uc.edu/~polgertw/Polger-Rethinking.pdf
  http://homepages.uc.edu/~polgertw/Polger-Rethinking.pdf
  http://oz.uc.edu/~polgertw/Polger-SSPP1997.pdf
  
• Aaron Sloman (ms). The evolution of what?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: There is now a huge amount of interest in consciousness among scientists as well as philosophers, yet there is so much confusion and ambiguity in the claims and counter-claims that it is hard to tell whether any progress is being made. This ``position paper'' suggests that we can make progress by temporarily putting to one side questions about what consciousness is or which animals or machines have it or how it evolved. Instead we should focus on questions about the sorts of architectures that are possible for behaving systems and ask what sorts of capabilities, states and processes, might be supported by different sorts of architectures. We can then ask which organisms and machines have which sorts of architectures. This combines the standpoint of philosopher, biologist and engineer. If we can find a general theory of the variety of possible architectures (a characterisation of ``design space'') and the variety of environments, tasks and roles to which such architectures are well suited (a characterisation of ``niche space'') we may be able to use such a theory as a basis for formulating new more precisely defined concepts with which to articulate less ambiguous questions about the space of possible minds. For instance our initially ill-defined concept (``consciousness'') might split into a collection of more precisely defined concepts which can be used to ask unambiguous questions with definite answers. As a first step this paper explores a collection of conjectures regarding architectures and their evolution. In particular we explore architectures involving a combination of coexisting architectural levels including: (a) reactive mechanisms which evolved very early, (b) deliberative mechanisms which evolved later in response to pressures on information processing resources and (c) meta-management mechanisms that can explicitly inspect evaluate and modify some of the contents of various internal information structures. It is conjectured that in response to the needs of these layers, perceptual and action subsystems also developed layers, and also that an ``alarm'' system which initially existed only within the reactive layer may have become increasingly sophisticated and extensive as its inputs and outputs were linked to the newer layers. Processes involving the meta-management layer in the architecture could explain the origin of the notion of ``qualia''. Processes involving the ``alarm'' mechanism and mechanisms concerned with resource limits in the second and third layers gives us an explanation of three main forms of emotion, helping to account for some of the ambiguities which have bedevilled the study of emotion. Further theoretical and practical benefits may come from further work based on this design-based approach to consciousness. A deeper longer term implication is the possibility of a new science investigating laws governing possible trajectories in design space and niche space, as these form parts of high order feedback loops in the
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:695
  http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/Sloman.consciousness.evolution.ps.gz
  http://cogprints.org/695/0/Sloman.consciousness.evolution.ps
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000695/
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000695/00/Sloman.consciousness.evolution.ps
  http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/cogaff/Sloman.consciousness.evolution.pdf
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/82769.html
  
• John Stewart (ms). The future evolution of consciousness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: ABSTRACT. What potential exists for improvements in the functioning of consciousness? The paper addresses this issue using global workspace theory. According to this model, the prime function of consciousness is to develop novel adaptive responses. Consciousness does this by putting together new combinations of knowledge, skills and other disparate resources that are recruited from throughout the brain. The paper's search for potential improvements in the functioning of consciousness draws on studies of the shift during human development from the use of implicit knowledge to the use of explicit (declarative) knowledge. These studies show that the ability of consciousness to adapt a particular domain improves significantly as the transition to the use of declarative knowledge occurs in that domain. However, this potential for consciousness to enhance adaptability has not yet been realised to any extent in relation to consciousness itself. The paper assesses the potential for adaptability to be improved by the conscious adaptation of key processes that constitute consciousness. A number of sources (including the practices of religious and contemplative traditions) are drawn on to investigate how this potential might be realised
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/5270/
  http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ECCO/ECCO-papers/Stewart-Consciousness.pdf
  http://cogprints.org/5270/01/Consciousness-Evolution.pdf
  
• Rodrick Wallace & Robert Wallace (ms). Darwin's Rainbow: Evolutionary radiation and the spectrum of consciousness.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Evolution is littered with paraphyletic convergences: many roads lead to functional Romes. We propose here another example - an equivalence class structure factoring the broad realm of possible realizations of the Baars Global Workspace consciousness model. The construction suggests many different physiological systems can support rapidly shifting, sometimes highly tunable, temporary assemblages of interacting unconscious cognitive modules. The discovery implies various animal taxa exhibiting behaviors we broadly recognize as conscious are, in fact, simply expressing different forms of the same underlying phenomenon. Mathematically, we find much slower, and even multiple simultaneous, versions of the basic structure can operate over very long timescales, a kind of paraconsciousness often ascribed to group phenomena. The variety of possibilities, a veritable rainbow, suggests minds today may be only a small surviving fraction of ancient evolutionary radiations - bush phylogenies of consciousness and paraconsciousness. Under this scenario, the resulting diversity was subsequently pruned by selection and chance extinction. Though few traces of the radiation may be found in the direct fossil record, exaptations and vestiges are scattered across the living mind. Humans, for instance, display an uncommonly profound synergism between individual consciousness and their embedding cultural heritages, enabling efficient Lamarkian adaptation
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.org/5170/
  

Animal consciousness

See also: Development of consciousness, Animal cognition, The problem of other minds.

• Colin Allen (online). Animal consciousness.   (More)
• Bernard Baars (2001). There are no known differences in brain mechanisms of consciousness between humans and other mammals.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:912
  http://cogprints.org/912/
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ufaw/aw/2001/00000010/A00101s1/art00004
  
• Marc Bekoff (2003). Considering animals--not higher primates.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1467-9744.00497/abs/
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/zygo/2003/00000038/00000002/art00003
  
• Peter Carruthers (1998). Animal subjectivity.   (More)
• Peter Carruthers (2004). On being simple minded.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy.umd.edu/Faculty/pcarruthers/Simple-minds.pdf
  
• Peter Carruthers (2005). Reply to Shriver and Allen.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Shriver and Allen (this volume, this journal; hereafter S&A) make three unconnected criticisms of my views concerning phenomenal consciousness and the question of animal consciousness. First, they claim that my dispositional higher-order thought theory of consciousness has much greater significance for ethics than I recognize. Second, they claim that, in the course of attempting to motivate that theory, I have presented inadequate criticisms of first-order theories (according to which phenomenal consciousness may well be rampant in the animal world). And third, they claim that my argument that the question of animal consciousness might not matter a great deal for comparative psychology may prove too much, showing that such consciousness is genuinely epiphenomenal in ourselves, and undermining some of my own evolutionary arguments in support of higher-order theories. I shall focus mostly on the second and third criticisms. But I begin with a few remarks about the first
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/M35436578J312330.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a713997461~fulltext=713240930
  
• Peter Carruthers (1999). Sympathy and subjectivity.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy.umd.edu/Faculty/pcarruthers/Sympathy-and-subjectivity.htm
  http://cogprints.org/1204/00/Sympathy.htm
  http://cogprints.org/1204/0/Sympathy.htm
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001204/00/Sympathy.htm
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:1204
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00001204/
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/739206594.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a739206594~fulltext=713240930
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/L5NMKL7173R01474.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/ajphil/1999/00000077/00000004/art00006
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/tajp/1999/00000077/00000004/art00006
  
• Peter Carruthers (2004). Suffering without subjectivity.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   This paper argues that it is possible for suffering to occur in the absence of phenomenal consciousness – in the absence of a certain sort of experiential subjectivity, that is. (Phenomenal consciousness is the property that some mental states possess, when it is like something to undergo them, or when they have subjective feels, or possess qualia.) So even if theories of phenomenal consciousness that would withhold such consciousness from most species of non-human animal are correct, this neednt mean that those animals dont suffer, and arent appropriate objects of sympathy and concern
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy.umd.edu/Faculty/pcarruthers/Suffering-without-subjectivity.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/N86460655366N887.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5383635&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/n86460655366n887/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/phil/2004/00000121/00000002/00003635
  
• Peter Carruthers (2005). Why the question of animal consciousness might not matter very much.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: According to higher-order thought accounts of phenomenal consciousness it is unlikely that many non-human animals undergo phenomenally conscious experiences. Many people believe that this result would have deep and far-reaching consequences. More specifically, they believe that the absence of phenomenal consciousness from the rest of the animal kingdom must mark a radical and theoretically significant divide between ourselves and other animals, with important implications for comparative psychology. I shall argue that this belief is mistaken. Since phenomenal consciousness might be almost epiphenomenal in its functioning within human cognition, its absence in animals may signify only relatively trivial differences in cognitive architecture. Our temptation to think otherwise arises partly as a side-effect of imaginative identification with animal experiences, and partly from mistaken beliefs concerning the aspects of common-sense psychology that carry the main explanatory burden, whether applied to humans or to non-human animals
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://eprints.assc.caltech.edu/archive/00000151/
  http://eprints.assc.caltech.edu/151/01/Animal_consciousness_might_not_matter.pdf
  http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~joordens/psyd58/Carruthers(2005).pdf
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/R55R2K53440520Q1.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/./ftinterface~content=a713997465~fulltext=713240930
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cphp/2005/00000018/00000001/art00005
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/oso/1055408/2005/00000001/00000001/art00011
  
• K. P. Chandroo, S. Yue & R. D. Moccia (2004). An evaluation of current perspectives on consciousness and pain in fishes.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.cababstractsplus.org/google/abstract.asp?AcNo=20043212311
  http://www.aquanet.ca/English/research/fish/rm-perspective.pdf
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-2679.2004.00163.x
  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/j.1467-2679.2004.00163.x/pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bsc/faf/2004/00000005/00000004/art00002
  
• J. H. Crook (1983). On attributing consciousness to animals.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v303/n5912/abs/303011a0.html
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=6843653&dopt=Citation
  
• Daniel Dennett (1995). Animal consciousness: What matters and why?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: But perhaps we really don't want to know the answers to these questions. We should not despise the desire to be kept in ignorance--aren't there many facts about yourself and your loved ones that you would wisely choose not to know? Speaking for myself, I am sure that I would go to some lengths to prevent myself from learning all the secrets of those around me--whom they found disgusting, whom they secretly adored, what crimes and follies they had committed, or thought I had committed! Learning all these facts would destroy my composure, cripple my attitude towards those around me. Perhaps learning too much about our animal cousins would have a similarly poisonous effect on our relations with them. But if so, then let's make a frank declaration to that effect and drop the topic, instead of pursuing any further the pathetic course many are now embarked upon
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&se=gglsc&d=77028688
  http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&se=gglsc&d=95734190
  
• D. B. Edelman, Bernard Baars & Anil Seth (2005). Identifying hallmarks of consciousness in non-mammalian species.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://eugen.leitl.org/EdelmanBaarsSeth.pdf
  http://www.nsi.edu/users/seth/Papers/HallmarksWeb.pdf
  http://www.nsi.edu/users/seth/Papers/EdelmanBaarsSeth.pdf
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15766896&dopt=Citation
  
• Robert Hanna (ms). What is it like to be a bat in pain? Kinds of animal minds and the moral comparison principle.   (More)
• Lisa Kretz (2004). Peter Carruthers and brute experience: Descartes revisited.   (More)
• M. Mendl & E. S. Paul (2004). Consciousness, emotion and animal welfare: Insights from cognitive science.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ufaw/aw/2004/00000013/A00101s1/art00004
  
• J. D. Rose (2002). The neurobehavioral nature of fishes and the question of awareness and pain.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.agfisch.ch/doku/rose.pdf
  http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/Zoology/faculty/rose/Rose Rev Fish Sci.pdf
  http://www.animal-health-online.de/drms/rosefish.pdf
  http://www.informaworld.com/index/727073496.pdf
  http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/index/FUMGQ6WF8WKNUC20.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/brfs/2002/00000010/00000001/art00001
  
• Anil Seth, Bernard Baars & D. B. Edelman (2005). Criteria for consciousness in humans and other mammals.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: The standard behavioral index for human consciousness is the ability to report events with accuracy. While this method is routinely used for scientific and medical applications in humans, it is not easy to generalize to other species. Brain evidence may lend itself more easily to comparative testing. Human consciousness involves widespread, relatively fast low-amplitude interactions in the thalamocortical core of the brain, driven by current tasks and conditions. These features have also been found in other mammals, which suggests that consciousness is a major biological adaptation in mammals. We suggest more than a dozen additional properties of human consciousness that may be used to test comparative predictions. Such homologies are necessarily more remote in non-mammals, which do not share the thalamocortical complex. However, as we learn more we may be able to make “deeper” predictions that apply to some birds, reptiles, large-brained invertebrates, and perhaps other species
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.nsi.edu/users/seth/Papers/ConCog2004aWeb.pdf
  http://vesicle.nsi.edu/users/seth/Papers/SethEdelmanBaarsCC.pdf
  http://pissaro.soc.huji.ac.il/~leon/mivnim/pdfs/sethcriteria.pdf
  http://vesicle.nsi.edu/users/seth/Papers/ConCog2004aWeb.pdf
  http://www.nsi.edu/users/seth/Papers/SethEdelmanBaarsCC.pdf
  http://eprints.assc.caltech.edu/164/
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15766894&dopt=Citation
  
• Peter Singer (1990). Do animals feel pain?   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/singer03.pdf
  http://www.petersingerlinks.com/pain.htm
  
• Ruud van den Bos (2000). General organizational principles of the brain as key to the study of animal consciousness.   (More)

Animal self-consciousness

See also: Self-consciousness, Development of consciousness, Animal self-consciousness, Animal cognition.

• Kim Bard, Brenda Todd, Chris Bernier, Jennifer Love & David Leavens (2006). Self-awareness in human and chimpanzee infants: What is measured and what is meant by the mark and mirror test?   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327078in0902_6
  
• Derek Browne (2004). Do dolphins know their own minds?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Knowledge of one's own states of mind is one of the varieties of self-knowledge. Do any nonhuman animals have the capacity for this variety of self-knowledge? The question is open to empirical inquiry, which is most often conducted with primate subjects. Research with a bottlenose dolphin gives some evidence for the capacity in a nonprimate taxon. I describe the research and evaluate the metacognitive interpretation of the dolphin's behaviour. The research exhibits some of the difficulties attached to the task of eliciting behaviour that both attracts a higher-order interpretation while also resisting deflationary, lower-order interpretations. Lloyd Morgan's Canon, which prohibits inflationary interpretations of animal behaviour, has influenced many animal psychologists. There is one defensible version of the Canon, the version that warns specifically against unnecessary intentional ascent. The Canon on this interpretation seems at first to tell against a metacognitive interpretation of the data collected in the dolphin study. However, the model of metacognition that is in play in the dolphin studies is a functional model, one that does not implicate intentional ascent. I explore some interpretations of the dolphin's behaviour as metacognitive, in this sense. While this species of metacognitive interpretation breaks the connection with the more familiar theory of mind research using animal subjects, the interpretation also points in an interesting way towards issues concerning consciousness in dolphins
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/W8118X0131655TK1.pdf
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=DO00000928&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/w8118x0131655tk1/fulltext.pdf
  
• Peter Carruthers (2007). Meta-cognition in animals: A skeptical look.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: This paper examines the recent literature on meta-cognitive processes in non-human animals, arguing that in each case the data admit of a simpler, purely first-order, explanation. The topics discussed include the alleged monitoring of states of certainty and uncertainty, the capacity to know whether or not one has perceived something, and the capacity to know whether or not the information needed to solve some problem is stored in memory. The first-order explanations advanced all assume that beliefs and desires come in various different _strengths_, or _degrees_
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://eprints.assc.caltech.edu/225/