Simon Conway Morris on animal intelligence (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, January 23, 2017, 21:00 (2861 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: If “me” is your personally shaped consciousness, or "mental totality", that is what controls the brain and survives the death of the brain. And yet you say “consciousness does not control the brain” but is “a mechanism the brain uses”, and – the starting point of our discussion – enhanced consciousness, which I regard as the springboard for all the differences between our fellow animals and ourselves, is to be attributed to your God providing our mental totality (us) with an enlarged brain. And so our mental totality (= we) controls the brain, but the brain uses and has given rise to our enhanced consciousness. This would only make sense if you separated your (enhanced) consciousness from your “mental totality”, and that simply doesn’t make sense!

I cannot separate 'me' from my consciousness. My consciousness is me from what I experience. I control what my consciousness does, and my brain responds to what I make my consciousness do, by altering its connections ,adding new neurons. Remember I view consciousness as being received by the brain, the more complex the brain, the more advanced the attributes of consciousness to be used, from Arthropithicus to human forms.