Puck85

Puck85 t1_iukbeq7 wrote

I think it's an important study for that reason.

We see articles all the time that essentially say, "staying active keeps you mentally fit." But then the trope in this sub is to question the causality of that: maybe mental decline contributes to inactivity.

The causation could be backwards. Isn't that what this study suggests?

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Puck85 t1_iuf71ve wrote

ok, that's your theory. I can't say it applies to other apparently-conscious things, like crows or dogs, since they aren't social in the ways humans are, so i'm not satisfied with your approach because it doesn't address other forms of consciousness, and it even gets things backwards, because how can unconscious complicated social structures develop anyway?

actually reading the article provides some insight:

“Our theory of consciousness rejects the idea that consciousness initially evolved in order to allow us to make sense of the world and act accordingly, and then, at some later point, episodic memory developed to store such conscious representations,” Budson and his colleagues said in the study. “Our theory is that consciousness developed with the evolution of episodic memory simply—and powerfully—to enable the phenomena of remembering.”

“We posit further that consciousness was subsequently co-opted to produce other functions that are not directly relevant to memory per se, such as problem-solving, abstract thinking, and language,” the team noted. “We suggest that this theory is compatible with many phenomena, such as the slow speed and the after-the-fact order of consciousness, that cannot be explained well by other theories. We believe that our theory may have profound implications for understanding intentional action and consciousness in general.”

Please read the article folks. It's interesting.

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