Minimal Selfhood and the Origins of Consciousness

262 Pages·2018·18.997 MB·English

by  Rupert Glasgow

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R.D.V. Glasgow seeks to ground the logical roots of i
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ganisms such as amoebae and dinoflagellates as well el
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WürzburgUniversityPress
ISBN978-3-95826-078-8
Rupert D.V. Glasgow
Minimal Selfhood and
the Origins of Consciousness

Rupert D.V. Glasgow
Minimal Selfhood and
the Origins of Consciousness
Impressum
Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg
Würzburg University Press
Universitätsbibliothek Würzburg
Am Hubland
D-97074 Würzburg
www.wup.uni-wuerzburg.de
©2018 Würzburg University Press
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Coverdesign & Illustrationen: Christina Nath
ISBN: 978-3-95826-078-8 (print)
ISBN: 978-3-95286-079-5 (online)
URN: urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-157470
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Acknowledgements
The present book originally formed a rather long final chapter of a PhD
dissertation entitled The Minimal Self. Once again, I owe a great debt of
gratitude to Roland Borgards, Martin Heisenberg and Karl Mertens of
Würzburg University for their generous guidance and encouragement
throughout that project. Together with Bertram Gerber of the Leibniz
Institute of Neurobiology in Magdeburg, moreover, it was their idea that I
should turn that long, final chapter into a book in its own right. Given the
stamina that would have been required of readers of The Minimal Self to
reach that long, final chapter, I think that the advice was absolutely spot-on.
As with The Minimal Self, special thanks go to Bertram, who has provided
invaluable criticism and feedback as well as support and friendship. It was
Bertram who first encouraged me to pursue my thinking on ‘selfhood’, and
without his influence I doubt whether the book would have even been
conceived (at least by me), let alone written. It goes without saying that I
bear full responsibility for the mistakes and shortcomings.
Again, I should like to thank the organizers and participants in the vari-
ous courses and talks I have given on the ‘The Phylogeny of the Self’. In
particular, I thank (in alphabetical order) Mirjam Appel, Achim Engelhorn,
Alex Gómez Marín, Apollonia Heisenberg, Manos Paissios, Alois Palmet-
shofer, Teiichi Tanimura and Ayse Yarali. Many thanks also go to Christina
Nath for contributing the beautiful illustrations, to the team at Würzburg
University Press for their great care and skill in preparing the book and to
Christina Kolbe for helping me to track down some of the research material.
I am very grateful, once more, to Bertram Gerber for making the illustra-
tions possible.
A special mention also goes to my lovely friends in Zaragoza and else-
where. Carmen Canales, Las Peñas Altamira and Los Helechos, and Winni
6
Schindler and Sarah Lothian have all coped admirably with my even
more than usually idiosyncratic behaviour, as have Barbara Glasgow in
Berkhamsted and Faith Glasgow and Tony and Mattie Doubleday in Stoke
Newington.
RDVG
Zaragoza, Spain
Contents
I.
A Brief Introduction to Minimal Selfhood

Minimal Selfhood ..............................................13
II.
Consciousness: Preliminary Considerations
Consciousness and Behaviour ....................................23
A Scale of Consciousness ........................................32
Consciousness, Meta-Mental States and Tacit Selfhood ...............37
Consciousness and Brains .......................................42
III.
From Motionlessness to Directed Motility
Non-Movers and the Almost Immobile ............................51
The Sessility of Plants ...........................................57
Plant-like and Animal-like Unicellulars ............................60
Motile Bacteria: Escherichia coli and Company ......................66
Motile Protozoa: Oxyrrhis marina and Company ....................73
8
IV.
Appetite and Tacit Selfhood
Hunger, Satiety and Siesta .......................................81
Recognizing Hunger: Some Doubts ...............................86
Appetite, Motivation and Pleasure ................................92
Further Aspects of Tacit Selfhood: Pain and Emotion ...............102
Attention, Arousal and Their Absence: Sleep and Anaesthesia ........109
V.
Where Consciousness is Superfluous
Taxis and Reflexes .............................................121
Metazoan Cells ...............................................129
VI.
Limits to Claims about Rudimentary Consciousness
A World of Objects ............................................135
Choice and Freedom ...........................................142
Future and Past ...............................................147
Knowledge, Thought and Morality ...............................155
VII.
Epilogue: Consciousness in Simple Animals
Three Questions...............................................165
Sponges and Other Filter Feeders ................................169
The Non-Directional Movement of Placozoans ....................172
‘Hungry’ Cnidarians ...........................................174
Two Worms ..................................................179
CCoonntteennttss 9
Glossary......................................................191
List of Figures.................................................199
Endnotes.....................................................201
Bibliography..................................................243