2020-12-30, 10:05 PM
A Role for Consciousness
David Hodgson
David Hodgson
Quote:I want to offer a specific and straightforward proposal as to what the role of consciousness is:
Consciousness enables an organism to be responsive to circumstances grasped as wholes, not just to constituent features that can engage with laws or rules.
To expand a little:
The evolutionary advantage of consciousness is that it enables an organism to determine and/or shape a response to circumstances facing it that has regard, not only to features that can engage with laws of nature and/or computational rules, but also to whole combinations of features that are particular and perhaps unique to the circumstances and cannot as wholes engage with laws or rules.