• Question: What is the biological basis of consciousness?

    Asked by joshbromley to Adam, Geoff, Rob, Sheila, Suzie on 21 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Geoff McBride

      Geoff McBride answered on 18 Mar 2011:

      Society talks of sentience which is being self aware. As far as we know humans are the only animals that can question their own existence

    • Photo: Suzie Sheehy

      Suzie Sheehy answered on 18 Mar 2011:

      I have no idea. You’ve read my profile, right? I design particle accelerators. I don’t know anything about biology apart from what I know about treating cancer from my PhD!

    • Photo: Adam Tuff

      Adam Tuff answered on 18 Mar 2011:

      There was an interesting idea proposed by someone that everything we do are memes – that everything that we do is simply copying what we’ve seen others do – from talking to how we act – some have suggested that even the idea of our self awareness is just a meme. I personally don’t think this is true, because I feel aware of myself – maybe it’s something more!

    • Photo: Sheila Kanani

      Sheila Kanani answered on 20 Mar 2011:

      Hehe did this come up from a live chat session?
      I’m going to google this one because I have no clue….
      Brilliant, a Science article. Read it to your hearts content 😀
      http://www.sciencemag.org/content/309/5731/79.full

    • Photo: Robert Simpson

      Robert Simpson answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      I don’t think anyone knows the answer to that. Our minds appear to be more the sum of their parts – but then so do a lot of things. Some people talk about consciousness as an emergent property – meaning that some complicated, natural systems exhibit behaviour that is organised and complex. The beauty and complex symmetry of snowflakes is often used as an example of the random motion of water and ice creating an emergent property. Its a fascinating area – try reading Oliver Sacks’s stuff.

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