Do You Need to Be Conscious to Learn to Be Conscious?

Cleeremans, Axel; Achoui, Dalila; Beauny, Arnaud; Keuninckx, Lars; Martin, Jean‐Rémy; Muñoz-Moldes, Santiago; Vuillaume, Laurène; Heering, Adélaïde de

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2020.10.002

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Furthermore, since there is evidence that fully fledged theory of mind does not develop until the age of 3 or 4 years, this suggests that an upshot of SOMA is that children below that age cannot be said to be phenomenally conscious. However, proponents of SOMA appear to reject this, albeit without giving an alternative answer (Cleeremans et al, 2021).…”

Section: Conclusion About O-emergence In Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ontogenetic emergence as a criterion for theories of consciousness: Comparing GNW, SOMA, and REFCON

Kirkeby-Hinrup,

Overgaard

2023

PhiMiSci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In recent years increasing attention has been given to systematic comparison of theories of consciousness. Laudable practical projects have emerged in this regard, such as adversarial collaboration and the development of databases lending themselves to comparisons of empirical support for theories. In addition to the practical advances, theoretical advances have been made, such as a list of issues a theory of consciousness must address. We propose adding the issue of the ontogenetic emergence (O-emergence) of consciousness to the list of issues we use to evaluate theories of consciousness. O-emergence concerns how and when consciousness emerges ontogenetically in human beings. The underlying assumption is that there exists a point in the development of a human individual before which that individual is not and cannot be conscious. This assumption, in turn, depends on a widely shared assumption of cognitive neuroscience, which is that consciousness somehow depends on — or derives from — brain activity. In this paper, we lay out the O-emergence criterion and investigate whether it can be accounted for within the Global Neuronal Workspace theory, the Self-Organizing Meta-representational Account, and the Reorganization of Elementary Functions framework.

show abstract

Section: Conclusion About O-emergence In Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%