http://www.epilepsybehavior.com/article/S1525-5050(14)00201-7/abstract?cc=y

The disruption of consciousness (or volitional behavior), not merely an inducement of asphasia, seems to indicate an analogous consciousness in animals, all of which also have a claustrum. Of course, such a conclusion would likely discomfit those who insist on the absolute uniqueness of human consciousness.

'Consciousness' can mean many things, and there is no single consensus in any scientific field towards one single definition.

That being said, this is an interesting discovery. The implications however are not as deep and disturbing as you may think. Consciousness as defined by the ability to perceive the totality of the information our brain filters out of our sensory organs as a continuous experience in a sensible experience nested in a continuous, linear timeline is absolutely not unique to humans.

As a fun thought experiment, try to imagine your life if your conscious experience was fragmented to the point where you could not have any reliable sense of time, your senses would give you information at their own processing rate and speed and as soon as and in chunks that your neural processes deemed appropriate on their own. Not only your senses, but other regulatory functions which make sense of the world around you as well. It makes for quite the kafkaesque experience.

The core of what many of us call consciousness is the process whereby our brains work tirelessly throughout the day to not only process all the functions which are necessary for understanding the world around you, but also to deliver an experience which seems seamless and continuous in time. If you suddenly turn to look at a clock, the first image the brain manages to compute of that clock becomes extended for up to half a second in order to give the illusion of continuity of experience. This effect is called the 'stopped-clock illusion' and the underlying principle, I just learned, is called 'chronostasis'. As a result, the brain 'edits' the visual feed, attaches that precise image of the clock to your visual field pivot earlier, and extends it so you have time to cope with the object of your focused attention.

Returning to the study, I believe it's a great thing that we have stronger and more precise evidence for the function and effect of this very small and vital part of our brain. Science moves forward with no discernible end. And as long as there are new things to learn in neuroscience and I don't have to worry about running out of old things (yeah right...), I'm a happy duck.

It seems to me that there is an almost theological aspect to the question of consciousness, as well as language and cognition, which is the question of whether humans are special. As we learn more about the similarities between humans and other animals, terms tend to get redefined so that they apply only to humans, as far as we currently know. It used to be, for instance, that imitation was considered a low level cognitive ability. Monkey see, monkey do. But then it seemed that imitation was essential to learning culture, and the term got redefined. It was still learning by observation, but there is a higher form of imitation that is not simply learning rote behavior. Culture is uniquely human, after all. And now there is good evidence that orangutans imitate each other and humans in the higher way.



I noted the fragmentation of my own consciousness when I was in my early 20s, simply through self observation. If consciousness is a seamless experience, how did I do that? (It wasn't the effect of drugs. )



There are some old experiments that show that humans can easily remember the order of events wrong, even when they are separated by as much as 1 second.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

I make no pretense of expertise in cognitive science. However, I am old enough to recall definitions from the 1950s and '60s that characterized human consciousness as a discontinuous jump from animal consciousness. In particular, I recall that humans were supposedly the only animals that used tools and had some capacity for "higher-level" language--whatever the latter meant. As animals were discovered to use tools, that definition shifted to making tools, and still later to making tools to make tools. (Next step will be to require machine tools, no doubt.) And similarly, with the discovery of higher-level language acquisition in not just apes but parrots and other animals, the notion that there must be some "quantum jump" from animal to human consciousness seems almost, dare I say, religious.

Minus a physiological explanation of consciousness, I really like Douglas Hofstadter's notion of self-reference, or recursion, as fundamental to the emergence of consciousness. One may simply postulate that the human brain allows a slightly deeper "do loop" than other animals.

Maybe it's time to get my head examined.

You're going to have to explain that again, with more information, if you want a proper reply.

Thought experiments have always been a big part of my life. Some would say I never stopped being a kid and simply took my natural imaginative instincts and simply took them the extra mile. The next step was to experiment with different (sometimes wildly different) states. I figured my own physiological 'chemistry lab' was plenty good and got to very interesting 'places' without the use of external drugs. In fact, I don't believe I've ever been in a 'normal' state.

We can discuss experiences of fragmented consciousness. Or maybe you're talking about something different. Clarify and I'll move onward accordingly.



'Thinking about thinking' is one of the requirements underlying the 'human condition'. Apes and crows can reason out solutions to relatively complex problems, and both react in specific ways to certain situations based on their previous experiences, to the point of demonstrating fairly complex thought patterns. Some are self-referential, for example when an animal is confronted with a complex obstacle course, and has to visualize itself going through the course before it can make a decision as to whether or not it it feasible, and how it will be done. Seen from another angle, signing apes can self-reference and describe wants, needs, emotions and causes of these reactions,

However no animal outside humans has been proven, to my knowledge, to be able to think about its own thoughts. We can catch our own cognitive patterns and consciously attempt to change them. We can envision how thinking about a problem or issue from another point of view could skew our own conclusions. We can remember two similar states and compare them in their respective situations to a fine degree in order to isolate which part of a situation versus the other accounts for the difference, and what exactly this difference is.

And we can do so much more complex tasks while thinking about thinking. This is a barrier between humans and other animals which has held up so far, and better than all the other 'definitions' we have come up with to separate and glorify our species.

Eventually we will learn that we absolutely are animals, and that's okay.

That would be putting Descartes before Deshors.

_________________
The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Take it Bach!