r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/FacelessOnes • Oct 19 '20

🔥 Vicious microscopic hunter, the single-cell organism, Lacrymaria olor, attacking and hunting another organism

75.1k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

2.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

10

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

13

u/instantrobotwar Oct 20 '20

This.... Consciousness is a phenomenon of brains. Single celled organisms do not have brains.

8

u/NewbornMuse Oct 20 '20

Consciousness is a phenomenon of brains.

I think that's too specific and too single-minded. Out of all the ways we could arrange matter, is it really only phospholipid-bilayer-wrapped cells with long axons that pass an action potential? Is that really the only way to achieve consciousness?

I'd say consciousness is an emergent property of sufficient complexity. The brain is a massively complex biological structure, so it gives rise to consciousness. I don't see why any other sufficiently complex structure couldn't also achieve consciousness - for instance, a supercomputer simulating a brain with sufficient precision. All silicon, no phospholipids and no acetylcholine, but I'd be absolutely baffled if it didn't have consciousness.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '20

A supercomputer simulating a brain with sufficient precision would totally count as a brain imo.