This article examines the nature of affective states across biological taxa. It argues that affect constitutes a primary form of consciousness. Creatures capable of affect are sentient of their bodily states and can behave in ways intended to maintain or restore them to a homeostatic range. After reviewing and critiquing neurobiological and philosophical theories of the evolution of consciousness, this article argues that some possible creatures are limited to self‐directed affective states, even if those creatures are capable of exteroception. Such (...) creatures enjoy solipsistic sentience: awareness of their own selves and bodily demands, but unawareness of their exogenous environments. (shrink)

For consciousness to exist, an entity must have prerequisite characteristics and attributes to give rise to it. We explore these “building blocks” of consciousness in detail in this paper, which range from perceptive to computational to meta-representational characteristics of an entity’s cognitive architecture. We show how each cognitive attribute is strictly necessary for the emergence of consciousness, and how the building blocks may be used for any entity to be classified as being conscious. The list of building blocks is not (...) limited to human or organic consciousness and may be used to classify artificial and organisational conscious entities. We further explore a list of attributes that seem intuitively necessary for consciousness, but on further investigation, are neither required nor sufficient. The building blocks do not represent a theory of consciousness but rather a meta-theory on the emergence and classification of consciousness. (shrink)

The evolutionary origin of consciousness has been a growing area of study in recent years. Nevertheless, there is intense debate on whether the existence of phenomenal consciousness without the cerebral cortex is possible. The corticocentrists have an empirical advantage because we are quasi-confident that we humans are conscious and have the well-developed cortex as the site of our consciousness. However, their prejudice can be an anthropic bias similar to the anthropocentric prejudice in pre-Darwinian natural history. In this paper, I propose (...) three basic principles to provide a conceptual basis for evolutionary studies of consciousness: the non-solipsistic principle, the evolution principle, and the anthropic principle. These principles collectively help us to avoid solipsism, anthropocentrism, and anthropomorphism to some degree, although we cannot be completely free from them. Also, the landscape metaphor associated with the anthropic principle provides an image of how different forms of consciousness can be acquired. (shrink)

The article suggests answers to the questions of how we can arrive at an unambiguous characterization of consciousness, whether conscious states are coextensive with subjective ones, and whether consciousness can be graded and multidimensional at the same time. As regards the first, it is argued that a general characterization of consciousness should be based on its four dimensions: i.e., the phenomenological, semantic, physiological and functional ones. With respect to the second, it is argued that all informational states of a given (...) organism are subjective, but not all are necessarily conscious. Finally, where the third question is concerned, in each of the four dimensions of consciousness a graded element is identified: quality of information in the phenomenological one, abstractness in the semantic one, complexity in the physiological one, and usefulness in the functional one. The article also considers certain consequences of the solutions proposed, as well as some practical applications of the 4D-view of consciousness. (shrink)

While life in general can be explained by the mechanisms of physics, chemistry and biology, to many scientists and philosophers it appears that when it comes to explaining consciousness, there is what the philosopher Joseph Levine called an “explanatory gap” between the physical brain and subjective experiences. Here we deduce the living and neural features behind primary consciousness within a naturalistic biological framework, identify which animal taxa have these features (the vertebrates, arthropods, and cephalopod molluscs), then reconstruct when consciousness first (...) evolved and consider its adaptive value. We theorize that consciousness is based on all the complex system features of life, plus the even more complex features of elaborate brains. We argue that the main reason why the explanatory gap between the brain and experience has been so refractory to scientific explanation is that it arises from both life and from varied and diverse brains and brain regions, so bridging the gap requires a complex, multifactorial account that includes the great diversity of consciousness, its personal nature that stems from embodied life, and the special neural features that make consciousness unique in nature. (shrink)

In this paper, we take a meta-theoretical stance and aim to compare and assess two conceptual frameworks that endeavor to explain phenomenal experience. In particular, we compare Feinberg & Mallatt’s Neurobiological Naturalism (NN) and Tononi’s and colleagues' Integrated Information Theory (IIT), given that the former pointed out some similarities between the two theories (Feinberg & Mallatt 2016c-d). To probe their similarity, we first give a general introduction to both frameworks. Next, we expound a ground plan for carrying out our analysis. (...) We move on to articulate a philosophical profile of NN and IIT, addressing their ontological commitments and epistemological foundations. Finally, we compare the two point-by-point, also discussing how they stand on the issue of artificial consciousness. (shrink)

This article comprehensively examines how information processing relates to attention and consciousness. We argue that no current theoretical framework investigating consciousness has a satisfactory and holistic account of their informational relationship. Our key theoretical contribution is showing how the dissociation between consciousness and attention must be understood in informational terms in order to make the debate scientifically sound. No current theories clarify the difference between attention and consciousness in terms of information. We conclude with two proposals to advance the debate. (...) First, neurobiological homeostatic processes need to be more explicitly associated with conscious information processing, since information processed through attention is algorithmic, rather than being homeostatic. Second, to understand subjectivity in informational terms, we must define information uniqueness in consciousness (e.g., irreproducible information, biologically encrypted information). These approaches could help cognitive scientists better understand conflicting accounts of the neural correlates of consciousness and work toward a more unified theoretical framework. (shrink)

This book provides a comprehensive overview of my recent theoretical work that aims to explain some of the more puzzling properties of life and mind, in particular agency, goal-directedness and consciousness. It contains published papers as well as new material. Table of contents: Preface - PART I: GROUNDWORK - 1. Introduction - 2. The basic mechanism - 3. Inclusive and extensive fitness - 4. Components of F and X - 5. The consequences: a preview - PART II: LIFE - 6. (...) What qualifies as life? - 7. Biological meaning - 8. Biological functions - PART III: MIND - 9. Minimal agency, goal-directedness and value - 10. Intentionality and meaning - 11. Language - 12. Consciousness - 13. The human self - PART IV: PHILOSOPHY - 14. Strong emergence - 15. The real, the true and the good - 16. Philosophical problems of consciousness - Epilogue - Appendix A: Summaries of computational simulations - Appendix B: Examples of minimal intentionality - References. -/- . (shrink)

The field of consciousness studies has been an area of active research for well over a century. Perhaps more than any other field, it has proven to be a magnet for numerous disciplines: from philosophy and religion to neuroscience and psychology, to social sciences and more. Even quantum physics has claimed to offer important insights that explain the mystery of subjective experience. Today, consciousness studies are a thriving area of research with numerous theoretical perspectives to its credit. Yet the “hard (...) problem” of subjective experience remains unsolved. There is still no general theory of consciousness that would synthesize the extensive aggregation of theoretical perspectives and empirical facts. -/- The article offers an explanation for this obvious anomaly. It argues that the failure of one of the most active fields of inquiry is a result of the dominance of the anthropocentric tendency in consciousness studies. The article starts by offering a critical overview of the prevalent theoretical approaches in the field. It tries to show the pervasive influence of anthropocentrism. The article also outlines a new perspective that escapes this insidious influence. The focus of the new perspective is not on specific functions and aspects of consciousness, as in all currently dominant approaches, but on the process that has been involved in their formulation. The focus offers a possibility to view consciousness from the perspective that does not rely on mental constructs created by humans. The perspective also offers a critically informed point of observation that does not depend on human choices. (shrink)