For the project, we’ve investigated plants, protists, and prokaryotes, all of which are capable of more interesting “behavior” than I would have anticipated. We began a preliminary investigation into a host of non-organic entities, but we discovered that an investigation of that sort is a bit more complicated than we expected. For many of the features we examined, it’s a lot more difficult to ascertain whether a non-organic entity exhibits the feature. Also, many theory-neutral arguments for consciousness in various animal species rely on the species in question having an evolutionary background. It’s of course totally possible that a non-organic entity is conscious, but the way you would argue that such an entity is conscious is often different in subtle but important ways from the way you would argue an organic entity is conscious. In future work we hope to examine this issue more thoroughly.
For the project, we’ve investigated plants, protists, and prokaryotes, all of which are capable of more interesting “behavior” than I would have anticipated. We began a preliminary investigation into a host of non-organic entities, but we discovered that an investigation of that sort is a bit more complicated than we expected. For many of the features we examined, it’s a lot more difficult to ascertain whether a non-organic entity exhibits the feature. Also, many theory-neutral arguments for consciousness in various animal species rely on the species in question having an evolutionary background. It’s of course totally possible that a non-organic entity is conscious, but the way you would argue that such an entity is conscious is often different in subtle but important ways from the way you would argue an organic entity is conscious. In future work we hope to examine this issue more thoroughly.