Evolution is non-directional. There is no "top" or "bottom" or evolutionary "staircase". The idea that evolution is about some vague concept of progress toward some sort of goal is fundamentally flawed. Similarly, the idea that evolution always leads to increased complexity is a fallacy. We need to avoid such anthropocentric pitfalls when thinking about evolution.

Jon: "We don't know whether or how to separate the concept of subjective consciousness from the concept of being able to receive data and process it to control our actions, let alone use it as a basis for teleological planning. For us to make anything meaningful, let alone useful of that question, we need to be able to make that separation..."

This one of the fundamental questions that the retinoid model of consciousness addresses. See "Space, self, and the theater of consciousness", in particular, Fig. 8. here:

http://people.umass.edu/trehub/YCCOG828%20copy.pdf

and "Evolution's Gift: Subjectivity and the Phenomenal World", here:

http://theassc.org/documents/evolutions_gift_subjectivity_and_the_phenomenal_world

Evolution is non-directional. There is no "top" or "bottom" or evolutionary "staircase". The idea that evolution is about some vague concept of progress toward some sort of goal is fundamentally flawed. Similarly, the idea that evolution always leads to increased complexity is a fallacy. We need to avoid such anthropocentric pitfalls when thinking about evolution.

Jon: "In short, if you know of any way of detecting genuine empirical third person subjectivity, you will have cracked the existentialist problem, which I am sorry to say still strikes me as being unassailed, if not actually unassailable."

Third-person subjectivity (3pp) has to be an intersubjectively validated theoretical model of first- person subjectivity (1pp). Its validity will be judged by the same standard that science judges the validity of unobserved subatomic entities whose theoretical properties are tested by the observable events that theory predicts should be observed under specified conditions. In my theoretical model of retinoid consciousness, the structure and dynamics of a particular system of neuronal brain mechanisms is detailed (3pp), and relevant subjective phenomena (1pp) are predicted to be caused by these mechanisms under specified conditions.

You experience your own brain from the inside (1pp) and you say that there is no possible way that the activity of nerve cells in your brain can actually be your vivid conscious experience. Neuroscience experiences your brain from the outside (3pp) and says that a particular kind of neuronal activity in your brain must be your conscious experience. So we have a clash of intuitions that has to be settled within the norms of science by appeal to empirical evidence. If the neuroscience explanation is correct, we should be able to predict that you will have certain relevant kinds of conscious experiences (1pp) under specified experimental conditions (3pp).

I have suggested that the hallmark of consciousness (1pp) is a transparent representation of the world from a privileged egocentric perspective. The key questions of how the neuronal mechanisms and systems of our brain create the phenomenal experience of our self as the subjective origin of a surrounding world, and how we are able to parse and analyze the world to do our science are now being addressed in a detailed neuronal model that explains our phenomenal experience of a personal world-space. Science must start within this phenomenal world.

Jon, imagine the following situation:

An artist stares at a canvas on an easel as you look over his shoulder. In the center of the canvas is a vertical slit in which a vertical array of dots, moving up and down, disappear, and then reappear, in periodic fashion. Suddenly, an image of a complete two-dimensional object that was created in the brain of the artist distinctly appears to him to be on the canvas without his making a mark on it. He says that he sees the object right there in front of him, and you believe him because you see the object on the canvas just like the one he describes to you. Suppose a detailed theoretical model of a particular kind of neuronal brain mechanism were to predict that this kind of strange event should actually happen in this particular kind of situation. Wouldn't you take this as strong evidence in support of the theoretical model of the neuronal mechanism that predicted this phenomenon? In fact, experiments have been conducted in which human subjects, similar to the imaginary situation posed above, consistently have a vivid hallucinatory visual experience of an object out there in front of them when there is no such object in their visual field. If you look over the shoulder of the subject, you will see what the subject tells you he/she sees. These results provide convincing evidence in support of the theoretical brain model -- the retinoid model -- that has successfully predicted this striking visual hallucination (1pp). So here we have a clear case of subjectivity detected in the third-person domain -- 1pp intersubjectively (3pp) observed.

My SMTT experiments, described in the papers cited above, give details of the experimental procedure and results. Earlier in ResearchGate I posed a question asking if anyone knew of any theoretical explanation for the SMTT phenomenon other than the retinoid model. To date, no other explanation has surfaced.

Jon: "In particular 4PW's senses and interpretations are close enough to those of a human that we should expect practically any of them to lie comfortably near the mode of the bell curve, say within 2 to 4 SDs.

If you have any non-question-begging objection to 4PW's feasibility, please let's have them as early as possible."

I think that we would both agree that anything is POSSIBLE. Therefore I would have to say that 4PW is possible. But feasible? On the basis of what I know about the limitations of opto-electronic computational systems (I've been involved in the design such systems in my past life), I would say that 4PW is not feasible. I have asked many knowledgeable people if they know of any artifact that can represent, analogically, the volumetric space in which it exists and which includes a part representing a fixed perspectival locus within the volumetric space (I! in my model of retinoid space). So far no one has been able to point to such an artifact, or to one on the drawing board. Of course, we are not omniscient and we might be proven wrong. But it seems to me that this kind of possible refutation of an existing theory is commonplace in science. Why should the retinoid theory of consciousness be held to a higher standard? All scientific theories are provisional and subject to possible displacement or revision as new evidence is gathered.

Jon: "No one has yet found a way of explaining away subatomic strangeness and colour in terms of more familiar fields and forces, but there are plenty of ways of explaining or even ignoring subjectivity."

Obviously you are free to ignore subjectivity. But it seems to me that your objection has no scientific force unless you are able to demonstrate that your alternative explanation successfully predicts all the manifestations of subjectivity that the retinoid model predicts. See for example "Where Am I? Redux", here:

http://theassc.org/documents/where_am_i_redux

Evidence trumps intuition.

Here is a simple thought experiment:

Little John accidentally locks himself in a garden shed. There is no one within shouting distance who can get him out. Lined up along one wall of the shed are, a small basket containing garden tools, ten 10-pound bags of garden mulch, and a bottle of insect spray. High on the opposite 
wall is a small window. Hanging next to the window, well above John’s reach, is a key to the lock on the shed door.

If you have figured out how the child gets out of the shed, then I think 
you would agree that the most reasonable explanation is that your brain 
created spatial representations analogous to the layout of significant 
physical objects and affordances inside the shed, and then assumed that 
John planned his escape accordingly. In all of this your heuristic self-locus is projected and moved about through phenomenal spaces well beyond your skull. But all the while that you are thinking about this, your heuristic self-locus is well contained within your retinoid space, within your brain, within your head, which is located in your office or wherever you are. John’s predicament is entirely imaginary but the excursions of your self-locus through retinoid space are real biophysical events happening only where you are located in the world. If an artifact that was not programmed by a human mind to discover this particular escape was able to give an account of how it was done, I would be tempted to say that the artifact was conscious.

Arnold, I apologize if this gets a little away from the topic, but I've been reading some of your answers and I'm reminded of Julian Jaynes' "analog I". Jaynes description of consciousness is pretty much the same as what you've been describing only Jaynes was convinced that language was necessary. I may be understanding incorrectly but Jaynes' "analog I" was basically what you call the "retinoid model". Jaynes' felt that our "analog I" is responsible for what he called our "analog mind space" which I think in your words would be considered our "personal world-space". So my question is do you think consciousness, or at least this concept of consciousness (the concept of the self being in and simultaneously controlling our analog mind space) is dependent and/or a result of language?

I've always disagreed with Jaynes because of experiments and observations I've read about with apes but I would be really interested to hear your thoughts.

thanks

Sean: "So my question is do you think consciousness, or at least this concept of consciousness (the concept of the self being in and simultaneously controlling our analog mind space) is dependent and/or a result of language?"

1. I don't think that language is necessary for one to be in a conscious state. In my view, animals without language (primates, other mammals, birds, maybe even some kinds of cephalopods) have retinoid mechanisms in their brains and are therefore conscious creatures.

2. Regarding "the self controlling our analog mind space", we have to distinguish between the *core self* (I!) which is the perspectival *origin* of our subjective world and the *phenomenal self model* (Metzinger's PSM). Neither actually controls our analog mind space (retinoid space); however, our phenomenal self model, which is built on the foundation of our core self (I!) provides the basis for our BELIEF that what we call our self is in control of what we chose to experience. But beyond our primitive sense of being centered in a surrounding space, the control of the content of our phenomenal world really resides in our preconscious cognitive brain mechanisms.

Dear Marco,

In modern science, evolution is seen as a tree-like shape with no specific direction. Every branch of the tree goes its own direction. In some branches we can see a growing complexity through time but in other branches it is right the opposite: simplification. Like for example, many parasite species that are less complex than there free counterparts.

The very idea of growing complexity trough time has a measure of evolution is in fact a pre-evolutionary thinking that dates back to the Scala Naturae introduced by Charles Bonnet in 1745. Complexity cannot be used has a proxy to measure evolution, only time and diversity can reflect the results of evolution. Every extent species has evolved exactly the time has any other extent species. The great chain of beings does not reflect the tree-like shape of evolution.

Thereby it is not possible to answer your question because there is no such thing as 'top of evolution sequence'. There are so many different evolution sequences that it is not relevant to search for a global tendency. Besides, since evolution has no direction nor goal, there is no 'top' either.

I highly recommend reading Rigato and Minelli, Evolution: Education and Outreach 2013, 6:18 http://www.evolution-outreach.com/content/6/1/18

Cheers,

Cyril

before reading Cyril's answer .... I was wondering ...how it is possible to ask such a question in 2013 on a rather scientific gate ...

Scala naturae doesn't exist anymore, it is a myth and belongs to history of ideas !

In some representations of this scale, clouds occupy a step on this ladder, then, the original question could be turned in "Is cloudness at the top of evolutive sequence?"

Cyril and Bruno are entirely correct... bravo gentlemen! I addressed this point in an earlier comment above, but it would appear that it was lost in the long discussion about what constitutes consciousness.

I think there still is the naturalistic concept of 'emergence', i. e. universe holds the possibility of new properties/qualities arising from previous entities. Such steps might be neither necessary nor predictable but often novelties have necessary preconditions, i.e. they (appear to) require certain steps in advance.

In this respect the emergence of conciousness is preceded by the emergence of complex multicellular lifeforms which is in turn preceded by the emergence of life which is in turn preceded by the emergence of chemical compounds which is turn preceded by the emergence of matter as we know it...

My feeling is that evolutionary rise in complexity or efficience (e.g. present-day ecosystems being more energy-efficient than 300 million year old ecosystems) are usually avoided in discussions and for no good reason (tradition? a diffuse ideological discomfort?) declined before proper consideration.

With the evolutionary emergence of consciousness, creatures, for the first time, were able to have an egocentric representation of the volumetric world in which they lived. This capability, combined with the enormous increase in the power of cognitive mechanisms in the human brain, created an important discontinuity -- a critical change in the course of natural evolution. Human inventiveness and the world-changing artifacts that invention spawned had a profound effect on the fundamental conditions to which living things must adapt. Wide-spread extinction of species, inadvertently or by design, as well as the preferential promotion of the survival of other species became more dependent on human motivation than on the strict forces of nature.

Cyril,

Ok about the non-unique line in evoltuionary theories. Yet such "multidimensional" perspectives are everywhere in science, culture and so on.

Currently it's impossible to reasoning in a reductive way because "it's all a complex system of systems and holistic ecc.". At the end you may be sure: quantum theory! Quantistic brain, quantistic trees, quantistic whatever you want!

Let me know how is possible to measure all the branch of the tree and estabilish that they are equals in extension? May be some branch are more adaptive, or too weak.

Therefore I think that the question endure

Simply, the initial question is wrongly expressed

As, there is no top on the tree, it cannot be a consciousness at the top of evolutive sequence !

One might think that "our" lineage is the sole to exhibit a consciouness, but it is highly speculative and this view quits sciences. But the species exhibiting consciouness do not occupy a top ! Recent studies on wild monkeys showed that what we thought to be unique to human species (humor, laughing, war, lying, sympathy, using tools, politics ...) exist in those species. Specialists can discuss about the influence of a consciouness within these abilities (humor, laughing, war, lying, sympathy, using tools, politics ...) in these monkeys, in man and maybe other species. And this "embryo" of consciouness could have appeared independently.

one of the characteristics of sciences is to provide scenarios without eluding or hiding data, with the initial question, you was forgetting data and not taking in account the structure of the evolutionnary tree

Hi Marco

I agree with Sam, that the process of evolution is directionless. There is every possibility that a new group, with either lesser or higher or even of same level of consciousness, emerge in future. However, the trait called ‘consciousness’ (whatever way you may define it) is something so grand that it has brought us (the so called conscious species) to a distinguished level in the history of evolution. We, the conscious animals are comparatively less exposed to the forces of evolution. And (natural)-selection pressures do not work much on our populations. We have our own criteria of mate selection (which is not random) and therefore have established a different system all-together.

I think we have reached a blind end, and nothing much is possible from this standpoint. I believe that instincts are much important than consciousness to a species for it to get naturally evolved at a faster rate.

What you think?

Hi Jon

Yes, even the so called conscious species are vulnerable to the selection forces, but the degree of vulnerability is less (if you compare them with that occurring in case of other so called lower/unconscious/less intelligent animals) or the forces are somewhat different in our case. For example, we do not reproduce randomly, our mate selection depends on our social status (among other criteria), we have restricted offspring production (to a few numbers only), we have tools to defend so many otherwise deadly diseases, and so on. This single trait (consciousness) has made us different from other species and so the process of evolution is likely to be different in shaping our populations.

Further, I agree with your understanding of the term 'consciousness' !

Cheers

Dola

Marco

"Let me know how is possible to measure all the branch of the tree and estabilish that they are equals in extension? May be some branch are more adaptive, or too weak."

The length of the branches of the tree of life is related to time. Obviously all extent branches have the same length since they have all evolved the same time. If you mean to measure the length by the degree of adaptation then once again all extent branches are the same because they would have disappeared if they were not adapted.

Comparing branches in terms of “better” or “higher” is meaningless since it all depends on the criteria you use to compare. Let me take an example: if we choose metabolic efficiency then humans rank far behind bacterias. Bacterias have been out there for billions of years where we have been here for only a few thousands years, in terms of survival capacity I wouldn't bet on us...

Just like a few hundred years ago man had to understand that earth wasn't the centre of the universe we have to accept that we are not at the top of evolution.

So well said, Dr. Cyril.

Jon

we measure the effect of selection by the fitness of a character. The number of descendants of an individual bearing this character is a good estimate of it's fitness.

Intelligence is a commonly accepted feature of scientists (which, I agree, is rather subjective). The number of descendants per capita in the scientific population is low compared to the rest of the population. We can conclude that intelligence fitness is low and thereby counter selected.

Off course this reasoning is absurd because selection works only on inherited characters.

it has been written here:

"With the evolutionary emergence of consciousness, creatures, for the first time, were able to have an egocentric representation of the volumetric world in which they lived."

how can this assertion be tested (Cf. Popper) or confirmed (Cf. Carnap) ? is it scientific then ? we do not know about it! It is a thought, which is important and has to be respected as it (I do it), but it doesn't belong to scientific activities.

OK,

in the "real" world our minds handle just 1 to 4/5 thinkings simultaneously, Anyway it's obvious that the brain process bilions of neural activities at the same time.

This is a self evident truth

Brain is a very large "tree" of possibilities BUT science is devote to reduce the number of answer. Just as consciousness seems to done!

A simple example: despite the multidimensional evolutive ways an octopus show the capacity of mutating it's own color: what about the evolutive meaning/advantage?

look at this: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CdLlx_s3N74&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DCdLlx_s3N74

May be there are a lot of evolutive advantages of animal's camouflage BUT the main of those it's only ONE! Do you agree?

Thus: althought we don't know the consciousness main evolutive advantage (main branch of the molteplicity ones) I'm sure that is not honorable, for a scientist, to disguise the lack of result by means of a lot of speculative and meaningless holistic and new-age like speculations.

In my opinion when we talk about the "whole" without maneagebles result we are simply far afield.

(sorry for my macheronic english)

Bruno wrote:

"It has been written here:

'With the evolutionary emergence of consciousness, creatures, for the first time, were able to have an egocentric representation of the volumetric world in which they lived.'

how can this assertion be tested (Cf. Popper) or confirmed (Cf. Carnap) ? is it scientific then ? we do not know about it! It is a thought, which is important and has to be respected as it (I do it), but it doesn't belong to scientific activities."

I'm the one who wrote about the evolutionary emergence of consciousness and the egocentric representation of the volumetric world, and I claim that this proposal is not only well within the scientific agenda, it is an increasingly important aspect of the scientific agenda.

1. Before making the assertion, I proposed a working definition of consciousness in terms of its being an egocentric brain representation of the volumetric space in which a creature exists.

2. I published a detailed theoretical model of the minimal neuronal structure and dynamics of the brain mechanisms that can realize such an egocentric representation --the retinoid system. See *The Cognitive Brain*, MIT Press 1991.

3. I demonstrated how the theoretical model of the retinoid system could explain previously inexplicable conscious phenomena and also predict new kinds of conscious phenomena.

4. Since consciousness is hypothesized to be constituted by a particular kind of brain mechanism, it is scientifically reasonable to assume that it must have emerged at some point in the course of creature evolution.

5. So, since the putative system that gives consciousness to a creature (the retinoid system) has been described in biological terms, we do know what to look for in different creatures. This makes the theory testable and capable of being falsified.

Here on *Edge* is an essay by the physicist Lee Smolin and my comments in response to his essay:

http://edge.org/conversation/think-about-nature#25175

I think these remarks are relevant to this discussion.

Jon: "Suppose that you, who were not consulted on its design and knew nothing of it, were to ask 4PW what its impression of your moving triangle was, how would you know whether to believe either its denial or assertion of the subjective impression?"

You're overlooking an essential detail of my SMTT experiments. How could 4PW possibly accomplish the following?

..................................................................................................................................................

As subjects increase the frequency of oscillation of the hidden figure, they observe that the length of the base of the perceived triangle decreases while its height remains constant. Using the rate controller, the subject reports that he can enlarge or reduce the base of the triangle he sees, by turning the knob counter-clockwise (slower) or clockwise (faster).

3. The experimenter asks the subject to adjust the base of the perceived triangle so that the length of its base appears equal to its height.

Results:

As the experimenter varies the actual height of the hidden triangle, subjects

successfully vary its oscillation rate to maintain approximate base-height equality, i.e. lowering its rate as its height increases, and increasing its rate as

its height decreases.

..............................................................................................................................................

Jon: "How would you know whether to believe me about my impression?"

I would believe you because i *see* the same triangle that you *see*, with its base about equal to its height just as you have been instructed to adjusted it. This is the case even thought there is *no visual triangle projected to your retinas or mine*! It is the neuronal machinery of our brain's retinoid system that does this astonishing trick.

By the way, I think you have to acknowledge, on the basis of available evidence, that our theoretical model of electromagnetism, like all physical theory, is a product of the biology of the human brain.

Jon, you wrote:

[1] "Which particular aspect of that procedure do you see as presenting 4PW with problems?"

[2] "What makes you think that the image that I synthesised, using my retinal and cerebral neural mechanisms resembles yours any more than I taste cocoanut the same way that you do?"

[3] "Why should the image synthesis be different for 4PW?"

[4] "How does it differ from the effect of moving an LED-staff that synthesises a picture when you move it in the dark?"

[5] "Have you included in your triangle experiment, measurement of the movements of the subjects' eyeballs?'

[6] "Have you noted what appears in the image captured by a camera moved in time with the movement of the triangle?"

1. Since you arbitrarily claim that 4PW can do everything a conscious person can do without specifying how 4PW actually works, your question is meaningless in this context. It reminds me of the philosophical zombie argument that says since one can conceive of a robot that is an exact replica of a human in every respect, and behaves exactly like a human except that it is not conscious ... etc, etc. Incoherent.

2. I think that the triangle image that your brain constructs in SMTT is similar to mine because when you adjust the base of the hallucinated triangle to equal its height you arrive at an image that *I actually see* as having the desired approximate base-height equality. In other words, it is an inference to the best explanation. Determining the similarity of taste, color, or emotion is another matter and requires extended explanation as well as different kinds of experimental probes.

3. Again, since the operational structure and dynamics of your mythical 4PW have not been specified, there is no possible way that I can give a principled answer to your question.

4. It differs substantially because the dots in the SMTT slit, unlike the moving LED-staff, move only up and down; they do not move in two dimensions.

5. Eye movement was thought to be responsible for SMTT in the early days. Psychologists called the explanation "retinal painting". Like your camera question #5, it assumed that the retina moved in concert with the hidden object in SMTT so that the full image was "painted" on the moving retina. Subsequent work established that this was not the case, and that the synthesis of a full image must occur in some kind of post-retinal brain mechanism. See these publications:

McCloskey & Watkins (1978). The seeing-more-than-is-there phenomenon: Implications for the locus of iconic storage. *J. Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance*, 4, 533 - 564.

Shimojo & Richards (1986). Seeing shapes that are almost totally occluded: a new look at Park's camel. *Perception and Psychophysics*, 39, 418 -426.

6. See 5.

Jon: "More experiment trumps less experiment?"

We are in full agreement on this.

Jon: "OH, btw, I think you omitted some of your explanation about the two tables in the discussion of their shapes in the Edge essay."

Yes, my brief response did not go into an explanation for the phenomenon. *Edge* doesn't allow detailed theoretical accounts of this kind. Briefly, in order for the table illusion to occur, your brain has to construct a 3D analog representation of the space in which the 2D drawings are presented, and the 2D depiction is analogically extended in retinoid space. The vertical-horizontal distortions are naturally caused by the compensatory operation of the size-constancy mechanism in you retinoid system. For a hint of how this works, you might take a look at "Where Am I? Redux", here:

http://theassc.org/documents/where_am_i_redux

Jon, you raise all kinds of possibilities, but none of them confront the fact that a triangle is NOT presented as a stimulus to the subject, or to you looking over the subject's shoulder. Yet the subject claims to see a complete triangle which, in fact you also see; and the subject is able to change the width of the hallucinated triangle so that it seen by you to meet the arbitrary criterion of height-width equality. As remarkable as the jumping spider's eyes might be, there is nothing that we know about their visual-cognitive machinery which suggests that this spider would hallucinate a triangular object in the SMTT paradigm.

Jon: "My point? If those distant analogies to our vision gives such apparently closely matching function, then why should 4PW, equipped with fairly similar modes of vision [??], or even widely different mechanisms such as flying spot scanning, in either case, backed up with similar or analogous information processing [??], see things functionally differently?"

The answer is this: Because the devil is in the details, and only creatures that have the particular kind of post-retinal machinery capable of transforming retina-centric images into ego-centric images have the slightest chance of experiencing the SMTT hallucination. I would also stress that what one experiences is a hallucination, not an inference.

The old assumption that consciousness is at the top of some neurological (or evolutionary) pyramid is so deep seated that is barely noticeable. But it's an assumption none the less and deserves some serious challenging.

To start off with, what reason do we have for thinking that consciousness is something "at the top" rather than "at the bottom". Dennett and Jackendoff (in my opinion two of the best authors on the subject) repeatedly challenge the assumption and point out that at some level of dissection all neurological connections are equally "stupid" in their operations.

As pointed out by others, this question repeats the old mistake of inferring direction in evolution. But many of the responses also repeat the assumption that consciousness is at the top of the heap.

Jon, if you don't understand the clear distinction between a *perception* and an *inference*, then I think that you will have a very hard time understanding the nature of subjectivity.

You wrote: "That SMTT hallucination most emphatically is an inference, an inference of our clue processing machinery. If you deny that, then let's see you try the same mechanism with that clues incompatible with a triangle."

The SMTT experience is a perception when the screen is seen as containing vertically oscillating dots. It is a hallucination when the screen is seen as containing a complete 2D object in horizontal oscillation. In the case of the SMTT experiment that I described, the object that appeared happened to be what is called in english a "triangle". I might have induced a different object with a different name, but the significant implications of the experiment would remain the same. A subject, thinking about the experiment, might *infer* that there was something curious happening when the vertically oscillating dots that he *perceived* suddenly changed into a vividly seen triangle in horizontal oscillation.

Von Helmotz was the man!

Arnold I have a little question for you: dou you see at subjectivity as an "essential (and unique for human's) ingredient" of consciousness?

Marco, I see subjectivity as essential for any kind of consciousness. I don't think subjectivity is unique to humans because the weight of evidence suggests that mammals, birds, and perhaps some kinds of cephalopods have subjectivity.

Thank You Arnold,

Now, another little concerns: in your opinion we may declare: the more is thifficult to predict the response to a stimulus the more is the subjectivity for a such species/individual?

Marco, I would say it a little differently. I would say that the more complex the pre-conscious cognitive mechanisms that contribute to the *content* of subjective experience/consciousness the more difficult it will be to predict the response to a stimulus. In my view, a creature either has subjectivity/consciousness or does not have subjectivity/consciousness, even though its content may be expressed at different levels of complexity when or if it is expressed. The more complex the potential cognitive content, the more difficult it is to predict the content that will be expressed.

WOW Arnold!

WOW, yes, or WOW, no??

John, the size and the clash of "flavors" in each of your servings (bites?) are hard for me to digest, but I'll try to respond as succinctly as I can, a bite at a time.

You wrote: "... the very idea of perception without inference is pretty close to a contradiction in terms, I would say."

Wrong! A perception is an *analogical* brain event. An inference is a *propositional* brain event. In the everyday course of events, we perceive many things, but we do not form inferences about all that we perceive. For example, you perceive many words on your computer screen as you read this, and from the meaning that these words automatically evoke, you might infer that I disagree with your contention above. Inference follows perception!

This is my first bite. Your response?

Jon. I have just perceived "John" at the beginning of my previous post. I infer that you will notice the typo and excuse me.

Jon: " ... I deny that there is a clearly separated practical distinction [between perception and inference]."

If we want to understand the mechanisms that make the cognitive brain work, as I assume we scientists do, there is a clear difference between the biological machinery of perception and the biological machinery of inference. One of the virtues (I think) of the neuronal model of the cognitive brain that I have proposed is that it points to real differences in the brain mechanisms serving sensation, subjectivity/consciousness, perception, and inference.

Jon: "Sure you cannot have inference before reception of the stimulus, but but the overlap is considerable .."

The overlap must be a temporal overlap in parallel functions served by different mechanisms. It cannot be an overlap of different functions served by the same mechanism. Many complex systems have different functions happening in parallel (overlapping in time).

If you read *The Cognitive Brain*, Ch. 3, "Learning, Imagery, Tokens, and Types: The Synaptic Matrix", you can see (Fig. 3.2) stimulus patterns as inputs to the mosaic cells. After learning occurs in the detection matrix, these images are then classified according to the class cell each evokes. This is a simple kind of inference that is made according the shape of the stimulus presented. You can look at the chapter here:

http://people.umass.edu/trehub/thecognitivebrain/chapter3.pdf

More complex inference can be seen in "Building a Semantic Network", here:

http://people.umass.edu/trehub/thecognitivebrain/chapter6.pdf

I will get back to the original question, 60 answers later. Yes, the consciousness of every animal (human and nonhuman) with a brain is at the top of evolution sequence, because our lineages have all survived this long, strange trip through time and space, and we continue to interact with each other and with the cosmos. All life forms without brains are also at the top of this sequence, but the word "consciousness" seems to limit the scope of your question to animals with brains.

Depends on what do you mean by "top of evolutive sequence". Evolution has no goal or direction. In terms of evolutionary success, all lineages that survived up to date are equally successful.Others had bad genes, or bad luck (very often :-). In the evolutionary perspective we are all equal: humans, animals, plants, protists, bacteria...

However, if you mean complexity, then consciousness is a complex thing.

Yes, Peter, nicely said. That's the point I was trying to make. I just went back and added the word "All" to the phrase "Life forms without brains" to make my answer a bit less ambiguous.

Marco,

The science of Yoga states that Consciousness pervades everything, very much like the Unified Field.. It is present at both the bottom and the top of the evolution sequence. At the bottom lies Matter and at the top is Light/Spirit. Matter too has Consciousness/Awareness, but in a dormant/sleeping state(Potential Energy), whereas Light, is Energy/Consciousness/Awareness itself. There is no duality here. Matter is in fact, only condensed light/energy.

Evolution proceeds from Matter to Light(Super Consciousness or Pure Consciousness). But it is not a "Linear" concept. It is cyclical, with Universes collapsing into space and zero Consciousness to once again beginning the sequence again, after a brief gap(sleep). Matter emerges out of Space and collapses back into Space.

Hope this helps.

Claudio,

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22203808

There are about 75 research articles on Yoga in PubMed.

In my opinion evolutive runs are like a tree, the sum up of high complex networks, hovewer we may admitt a "better way" in these networks, my question is restricted to consider only the most (hipothetical) important evolutive sequence.