Natural evolution and human consciousness

Natural Evolution and Human Consciousness

A visual conscious experience is my empirical basis. All that we know comes to us through conscious experiences. Thanks to natural evolution, we have nearly direct perception, and can largely trust the information we attain. There is full integration, with no gaps, of organisms in the continuous world. Human conscious experiences, on the other hand, are discrete. Consciousness has certain limit...

Consciousness: Natural and Artificial

Based on results from evolutionary psychology, we discuss important functions that can be served by consciousness in autonomous robots. These include deliberately controlled action, conscious awareness, self-awareness, metacognition, and ego consciousness. We distinguish intrinsic intentionality from consciousness, but argue it is also important to understanding robot cognition. Finally, we exp...

Natural theories of consciousness

Many people have thought that consciousness – particularly phenomenal consciousness, or the sort of consciousness which is involved when one undergoes states with a distinctive subjective phenomenology, or ‘feel’ – is inherently, and perhaps irredeemably, mysterious (Nagel 1974, 1986; McGinn 1991). And many would at least agree with Chalmers (1996) in characterising consciousness as the ‘hard p...

Evolution and Structure of Consciousness

Evolution of Consciousness

In order to discuss evolutionary aspects of consciousness, researchers from neuroscience, medical psychology, zoology, biophysics, computer science and philosophy were convened for the workshop, Evolution of Consciousness, at the research centre Agora for Biosystems, August 11–13, 2001 in Sigtuna, Sweden. The workshop took place in immediate conjunction with the conference Consciousness and Its...