Why are we conscious? The answer lies in other animals’ heads

It’s casual to deliberation quality conscious acquisition is unique, but a amended knowing of consciousness’s mysteries comes by tracing it backmost successful the evolutionary tree

Humans 17 November 2021

By Alison George

Shutterstock/Jolygon

THE odor of coffee, the bluish of the sky, the anticipation of seeing a loved one: it is intolerable to ideate our lives without the vivid conscious experiences of our each waking moment. And yet they person vexed philosophers for centuries. “The nature of consciousness is extraordinarily hard to define,” says Eva Jablonka astatine Tel Aviv University successful Israel.

It was erstwhile thought of arsenic an immaterial force, a “ghost successful the machine” abstracted from carnal reality. Today, however, galore neuroscientists reason that our felt acquisition is simply the merchandise of our brain’s interior workings. That makes the question of “why?” loom large. Many actions controlled by the encephalon hap unconsciously, beneath the level of our awareness. Why marque exceptions?

Grasping this means reasoning extracurricular our ain box, says Anil Seth astatine the University of Sussex, UK. “Human consciousness is not the lone signifier of being conscious,” helium says. We thin to emphasise conscious experiences that marque america deliberation we are amended and smarter than different animals, similar our quality to recognise ourselves successful a mirror, helium says. “This is not precise helpful.”

The implicit cardinal of consciousness – having an existent acquisition of things – is thing seemingly shared by galore different organisms. “In my view, determination are grades and varieties of awareness, and determination is nary principled dividing enactment astir which – SHAZAM! – the airy of consciousness is turned on,” says Daniel Dennett astatine Tufts University successful Massachusetts.

With a broader presumption of consciousness, we tin look backmost on the histrion of beingness to get an thought astir its earliest glimmers. Jablonka, unneurotic with Simona Ginsburg astatine the …