| Dolly's head scratching question of the day 16:11 - Feb 10 with 2104 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
At what point do we become conscious?
We don't really think of a woman's egg as being conscious, but perhaps the sperm is (because it travels in a certain direction, it has a goal). Perhaps, though, it's like an automaton, moving on instinct. In which case, does consciousness develop at the moment the sperm penetrates the egg, or slightly after?
At some point one sperm penetrated one egg... and several years later we get a fully developed Dollers. But at what point did the 'me,' or what I experience as me-ness, come into being? Obviously my brain was very underdeveloped at birth, which is why I can't remember the event, but I was at least conscious at that point. I had a desire for food - I recognised a thing as 'mother'. So presumably consciousness begins at some point in the womb?
I'm guessing the answer is 'it's impossible to know' but have there been studies which have at least attempted to determine when consciousness first comes into being? Not sure what point is the last where you can legally terminate a pregnancy, but has that been determined as the point where the embryo becomes conscious and moves over into the fetus stage? Or is it more about physiology rather than any kind of mental capacity? |  |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
| |  |
| Dolly's head scratching question of the day on 10:26 - Feb 15 with 178 views | WeWereZombies |
| Dolly's head scratching question of the day on 19:10 - Feb 10 by The_Flashing_Smile |
It's an interesting but non-conclusive explanation of consciousness. If it doesn't give us an evolutionary advantage then I'm not sure how something so indescribable and complex could just develop for no reason. And anyway, surely all humans had consciousness, right back to cavemen.
The brain size development argument suggests things such as slugs aren't conscious. Which they surely are, just to a less intelligent degree.
Of course none of this answers at what point a being becomes conscious. |
If language (as an internal construct) helps us to explain ourselves to our inner psyche then consciousness could start once we start wondering what the feck just happened when we are born?
'Chomsky marshaled evidence that a child's rapid mastery of the complexity of language indicated an innate ability programmed into the development of the human mind from birth that could not be explained by the "blank slate" view of the infant mind. Rather, the mind has a built-in propensity to process symbolic representations. The origins of this ability were sought by Pinker in a Darwinian struggle that established the survival value of the ability to communicate. According to Pinker, Charles Darwin himself "concluded that language ability is 'an instinctive tendency to acquire an art', a design that is not peculiar to humans but seen in other species such as song-learning birds."'
https://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Subjective-objective_dichotomy |  |
| |
| |
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
