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Originally Posted by raytri";p="
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Originally Posted by ForceoftheTruth";p="
That is consciousness as we have it. Animals with only one cell have some level of consciousness.
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That is such an expansive definition of consciousness as to be meaningless. Very few people would consider the consciousness of a single-cell organism to be true consciousness in any meaningful sense.
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Given how human development progresses, it follows that consciousness evolves rather than appears suddenly.
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Possibly. But just because it emerges gradually does not mean that it is present from the beginning.
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Actually, we are all biological machines on a physical level. Consciousness and self-awareness are, for the purposes of science, biological phenomena.
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Agreed. And when the biological underpinnings necessary for consciousness are absent, consciousness cannot be present.
I'll try some other metaphors. One circuit is not a computer. It takes millions of circuits, linked together and coupled to memory, ROM and an electrical supply. A pile of silicon may be a potential computer chip, but it is not a computer chip. A cotton plant is not a shirt. |
I don't think that the majority defines whether consciousness is meaningful or not. All that matters to me is whether consciousness exists. The last statement is true if an unborn baby must have a brain to have any form of consciousness- even a very primitive kind- but I see no evidence that an unborn child couldn't have some form of consciousness with fewer cells. In fact, if single-celled animals have a consciousness, then the overwhelming probability is that single-celled humans (zygotes) do as well.