The Darwinian Evolution of Conscious Experience (Or Not - Under Standard Physics!)

Resumen

The kind of 'causal efficacy' that mainstream consciousness science attributes to conscious experience can't support the usual Darwinian selection mechanisms. Why? Because mainstream consciousness science assumes a standard-physics setting in which conscious experience has no effect on behaviour. (Behaviour is determined by neural dynamics. Conscious experience is the same as some subset of neural dynamics, according to the mainstream.) This leaves us with a rather stark choice. We can have either standard physics, or the evolution of conscious experience - but not both! Fortunately, we can 'do science' on this conundrum, by experimental observation: does standard physics always govern brain-dynamics. in evolutionarily-salient behaviours where conscious experience might play a role? [Chapter 5, from 'The Science We Need - One Experiment to Change the World'.]

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Cómo citar (APA 7)

Rosseinsky, N. M. (2019). The Darwinian Evolution of Conscious Experience (Or Not - Under Standard Physics!). https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/ws37j