LABORATORY animalsCONSCIOUSNESSTEST designPHENOMENALISMTonic immobility (TI) is an innate, last-resort response to the presence of a predator, commonly referred to as feigning death or thanatosis. However, it is critical to distinguish death feigning from TI; the former enco...
A number of concepts are included in the term 'consciousness'. We choose to concentrate here on phenomenal consciousness, the process through which we are able to experience aspects of our environment or of our physical state. We probably share this aspect of consciousness with many animals which...
Phenomenal consciousness or the subjective experience of feeling sensory stimuli is fundamental to human existence. Because of the ubiquity of their subjec
In Part II, I explore the significance of qualitatively relevant biochemical mechanisms in providing the foundations to the emergence and evolution of organisms that possess phenomenal consciousness. In Part III, I relate these ideas to the emergence of an evolving awareness of the embedded subjective...
Phenomenal consciousness can be conceptualized innocently enough that its existence should be accepted even by philosophers who wish to avoid dubious epistemic and metaphysical commitments such as dualism, infallibilism, privacy, inexplicability, or intrinsic simplicity. Definition by example allows us ...
animal consciousnessother mindsinferenceA phenomenal concept is a concept that one possesses only if one has the relevant experience. In this essay, I argue that phenomenal concept theorists, namely, those who believe that we acquire phenomenal concepts through being acquainted with the relevant ...
machine consciousnessWe answer the question raised by the title by developing a neural architecture for the attention control system in animals in a hierarchical manner, following what we conjecture is an evolutionary path. The resulting evolutionary model (based on CODAM at the highest level) and ...
We probably share this aspect of consciousness with many animals which, like us, feel pain or pleasure and experience colours, sounds, flavours, etc. Since phenomenal consciousness is a feature of some living species, we should be able to account for it in terms of natural selection. Does it...
Moral Status or Moral Value? The Former May Require Phenomenal Consciousness, But Does It Matter?moral status can be violated if, for example, their organs are retained without permission, the Holocaust is denied, or their systemic enslavement is downplayed. Our descendants feature, too, with ...
It has also been intuitively used by advertisers in an attempt to increase the emotional appeal of a product (“a movie based on real events”). Moreover, it encounters an echo in modified states of consciousness (drug’s effects and mystical experiences; Carhart-Harris et al., 2012; ...