The origins of consciousness
This chapter discusses the origins of consciousness with reference to three different questions: why, how, and whether. In answering the question why, the chapter examines what advantage accrues to consciousness in an evolutionary sense. To answer the question how consciousness is generated, the chapter explores the view that ‘consciousness’ emerges out of increasing neuronal complexity first before continuing to another view that arises from a concern with issues of dualism and free will, which appeals to phenomena at the level of quantum mechanics. In the question of knowing whether, the chapter explores the idea that if an animal is aware, it allows a link to be forged with human neuropsychological dissociations of awareness, and the neurological arrangements of the systems that underly them.
Keywords: origins of consciousness, neuronal complexity, dualism, free will, quantum mechanics, human neuropsychological dissociations, neurological arrangements
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