The surprising reason consciousness evolved – BBC REEL

Every minute you spend awake, your mind passes from experience to experience. This ebb and flow of thoughts and feelings is often called a ‘stream of consciousness’ – and, throughout history, it was largely believed to only exist in humans. However, thanks to decades of consciousness research, we now know that consciousness is far more widespread in the animal kingdom than we ever imagined.

Which begs the question, why did consciousness evolve in the first place – and when?

A compelling new theory from Eva Jablonka at Tel Aviv University and Simona Ginsburg at the Open University of Israel may just have the answers. Their theory hinges around a process called ‘unlimited associative learning’ and the evolution of this ability may have been a decisive factor in why our earliest ancestors not only survived but thrived.

Script & narration: David Robson
Animation: Archie Crofton
Producer: Florence Craig
Special thanks to Eva Jablonka & Simona Ginsburg

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#bbc #bbcreel #bbcnews

[louiemalgre]

The surprising reason consciousness evolved: it's googly eyes!

[lagreen]

Kierkegaard put it this way: " The self is a relation that relates itself to it's own self." (Swenson's translation).

[martineyles]

The learning described can be linked to observation and behaviour, but that doesn't provide any evidence of consciousness - that learning and behaviour could all be done without any associated conscious experience.

[TruKave]

doesn’t this entire hypothesis hinge on the idea that consciousness represents little more than its surface level aspects such as thoughts and feelings?

[alkeryn]

this literaly explains nothing about consciousness or why it exists.
you could imagine something that does all of these things without having a subjective experience.

[gistfilm]

"I feel, therefore I am" - Consciousness

[deanwurm]

please remember this is a 5 minute summary of a book which is a summary of a thesis. Very condensed and light on an in-depth topic that couldn't possibly be adequately reviewed in 5 minutes. Having read the book, it's incredibly informative and is meant to be a "starting point" for the reader.

[simongross]

Perhaps I was unconscious at the time, but I didn't find out what consciousness actually is.

[annagulkova]

People like putting everything into boxes and drawing straight lines. There is a spectrum of consciousness, and all living creatures are conscious to some extend, as they react to the external stimuli. Even unicellular organisms could learn and exhibit complex behaviours. Also the example with flowering plants was weird. If flowers evolved to be so complex are they conscious? And as far as I know we don't know exactly what caused the Cambrian explosion.

[patrikpass]

So what is the reason all those things our brain react to exists?

[Jussaynoh]

Cool vid. Consciousness is required for suffering. Therefore I don’t like it.

[kimchiwasabee]

I like how all creatures in this clip appear to have been so aware to take m3th or sth.

[wp]

I don't get it. Unlimited associative learning does not, ipso facto, imply consciousness. Why can't all this happen without conscious thought, such as in controlling blood pressure or the digestive process? I hope the researchers behind this theory have tenure because this work won't get them there.

[dadrock]

Why do we call them “fingers” If we never see them “fing”?

[MrVibrating]

It evolved for processing meta-information - abstracting meaning from and interpretation of primary sensory information, and integrating spatial information from temporal. It's an entropy-reduction process, involving a physical correlation between thermodynamic and informational entropies, which is why it experiences rhythm induction in the temporal domain and octave equivalence in the spatial domain. Consciousness evolved for improved - and especially, generalised - problem-solving; basically as a general-purpose computer, using efficiency itself to model problems and find solutions.. it's a flow of wave-like activity cascading from the cerebellum up the temporal lobes to neocortex, and circulating through the corticothalmic feed-forward / feedback loops, the carrier waves the power spectra seen on electroencephalograms.

Merely tracking nutrients and avoiding stressors etc. can be achieved without a CNS, so would be a poor explanation for consciousness's early development, though obviously providing selection pressure once actually present. Jellyfish with rudimentary photoreceptors seem to 'navigate' by visual cues, if you could call it that, but lacking a CNS obviously aren't conscious, yet highly conserved over aeons, apparently under little pressure to develop brains. But then their niche is a lower trophic level.. the increasing complexity of nervous systems up the food-chain obviously driven by the arms race between predator and prey.

[fauxvier]

The animation is so cool, its definitely worth to be on TED ED

[trolly]

It evolved so it could disappear, look at people today and tell me they are thinking, aware people. We falling apart. Intelligence isn’t a winning trait anymore, if anything it’s a pitfall. Idiocracy is a documentary, not a comedy

[daddymuggle]

OK, but why all the googly eyes?

Why did they evolve, and why hadn't I noticed them sooner?

[apparentbeing]

I have never understood why people believe that other animals are not conscious.
Just try to do something in an unconscious state.

[RoseSantos-qjyf]

I was just wondering where the 300 million years ago situations became dated and/or written down? 4+28+2024