Abstract
The minimal state of consciousness is sentience. This includes any phenomenal sensory experience – exteroceptive, such as vision and olfaction; interoceptive, such as pain and hunger; or proprioceptive, such as the sense of bodily position and movement. We propose unlimited associative learning (UAL) as the marker of the evolutionary transition to minimal consciousness (or sentience), its phylogenetically earliest sustainable manifestation and the driver of its evolution. We define and describe UAL at the behavioral and functional level and argue that the structural-anatomical implementations of this mode of learning in different taxa entail subjective feelings (sentience). We end with a discussion of the implications of our proposal for the distribution of consciousness in the animal kingdom, suggesting testable predictions, and revisiting the ongoing debate about the function of minimal consciousness in light of our approach.
Highlights
One way to study a major evolutionary change, such as the transition to consciousness, would be to discover a trait that is necessary for the transition
As we show our suggestion that selection for unlimited associative learning (UAL) led to the evolution of minimal consciousness and that UAL is its evolutionary transition marker may have important implications concerning the distribution of sentience in the living world and concerning research on animal consciousness
We suggest that UAL is the evolutionary transition marker distinguishing between organisms lacking consciousness, and minimally conscious, or sentient, organisms
Summary
One way to study a major evolutionary change, such as the transition to consciousness, would be to discover a trait that is necessary for the transition This would make it possible to identify the evolutionarily most elementary form of consciousness that is free of the baggage of later-evolved structures and processes. Gánti started by compiling a list of properties that jointly characterize minimal life and constructed a toy model (the chemoton) instantiating them. He suggested that one of the capacities of a minimal life system could be used as a marker of the evolutionary transition to sustainable minimal life. We point to the conceptual and ethical implications of our proposal
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