The octopus and the unity of consciousness Sidney Carls-Diamante ; Philosophy, School of Humanities University of Auckland (to appear in Biology and Philosophy) Abstract If the octopus were conscious, what would its consciousness be like? This paper investigates the structure octopus consciousness, if existent, is likely to exhibit. Presupposing that the configuration of an organism’s consciousness is correlated with that of its nervous system, it is unlikely that the structure of the sort of conscious experience that would arise from the highly decentralized octopus nervous system would bear much resemblance to those of vertebrates. In particular, octopus consciousness may not exhibit unity, which has long been assumed to be the normal or default structure of consciousness. The octopus nervous system is characterized by the following features: its three anatomically distinct components have extensive functional autonomy and little intercommunication; much of the sensory processing and motor control routines—that in vertebrates are localized in the brain—take place within the peripheral arm nervous system; and proprioception and somatotopic representation (point-for-point mapping of the body) are significantly downplayed. In this paper, I present the octopus as a highly successful biological organism in which it is plausible that the unified model of consciousness does not hold. Keywords Octopus; Octopus consciousness; Unity of Consciousness; Disunified Consciousness Introduction: Consciousness, the nervous system, and the octopus This presents the octopus as a counterexample to the established notion that where consciousness exists, it is unified. While the octopus is among the non-human animals in which consciousness (in the sense of subjective experience) is believed to be present, it is a highly atypical inclusion due to its being an invertebrate with a functionally decentralized nervous system—the very features that have brought it to the attention of the philosophical community. The most prominent philosophical works on octopuses are those of Peter Godfrey-Smith (2013; 2016), who presents the octopus as a point of reference for tracing the evolutionary history and cladistic distribution of
The octopus and the unity of consciousness Sidney Carls-Diamante ; Philosophy, School of Humanities University of Auckland (to appear in Biology and Philosophy) Abstract If the octopus were conscious, what would its consciousness be like? This paper investigates the structure octopus consciousness, if existent, is likely to exhibit. Presupposing that the configuration of an organism’s consciousness is correlated with that of its nervous system, it is unlikely that the structure of the sort of conscious experience that would arise from the highly decentralized octopus nervous system would bear much resemblance to those of vertebrates. In particular, octopus consciousness may not exhibit unity, which has long been assumed to be the normal or default structure of consciousness. The octopus nervous system is characterized by the following features: its three anatomically distinct components have extensive functional autonomy and little intercommunication; much of the sensory processing and motor control routines—that in vertebrates are localized in the brain—take place within the peripheral arm nervous system; and proprioception and somatotopic representation (point-for-point mapping of the body) are significantly downplayed. In this paper, I present the octopus as a highly successful biological organism in which it is plausible that the unified model of consciousness does not hold. Keywords Octopus; Octopus consciousness; Unity of Consciousness; Disunified Consciousness Introduction: Consciousness, the nervous system, and the octopus This presents the octopus as a counterexample to the established notion that where consciousness exists, it is unified. While the octopus is among the non-human animals in which consciousness (in the sense of subjective experience) is believed to be present, it is a highly atypical inclusion due to its being an invertebrate with a functionally decentralized nervous system—the very features that have brought it to the attention of the philosophical community. The most prominent philosophical works on octopuses are those of Peter Godfrey-Smith (2013; 2016), who presents the octopus as a point of reference for tracing the evolutionary history and cladistic distribution of
SCarlsDiamante-The%20Octopus%20and%20the%20Unity%20of%20Consciousness.docx