As lately as just some a long time in the past, the interconnected net of experiences, ideas and feelings referred to as a ‘stream of consciousness’ was broadly believed to belong to people alone. A still-accumulating physique of proof, nevertheless, strongly signifies that consciousness is much from distinctive to us. Moderately, in response to the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, which was signed by a bunch of main scientists in 2012, it’s possessed by ‘nonhuman animals, together with all mammals and birds, and plenty of different creatures, together with octopuses’.
So when and why did consciousness spring from the tree of life? This transient explainer from BBC Reel outlines one groundbreaking new concept from Eva Jablonka at Tel Aviv College and Simona Ginsburg on the Open College of Israel. Centred on an idea referred to as ‘limitless associative studying’ – the power to hyperlink occasions and outcomes, and alter behaviours accordingly – their concept proposes that the appearance of consciousness some 500 million years in the past gave option to an evolutionary ‘arms race’ in refined pondering.
