从自下而上的进化角度考察了意识与个人代理之间的关系,一种与其他处理问题的方法略有不同的方法,但与动物意识问题有关。确定了两种将两者脱钩的方法,允许有限种类的意识在没有机构的情况下存在:(1)将有意识的感觉作为内在成分(InCs)的反射途径,和(2)有意识地调节并依赖于突触可塑性而不是记忆(CCR)的反射。InCs和CCRs是否不仅仅是假设的结构,目前尚不清楚,和InCs在任何情况下都仅限于意识直接取决于EM场效应的理论。与机构的意识,当我们经历它时,然后属于第三类,允许刻意选择替代行动(DC),其中,此路径与CCR级别路径之间的关键区别在于,DC需要访问显式内存系统,而CCR则不需要。然而,从启发式的角度来看,CCR作为一种概念模型是有用的,它说明了有意识的输入如何在允许进化以优化现象体验的同时如何作用来完善常规行为(即,Qualia)在没有个人机构的情况下,有点违反直觉的结果。然而,只要CCR不是内存相关DC电平过程演变的必需前提,后者可以先进化。如果是,意识在第一次进化时的适应性益处可能与它在编码记忆中所扮演的角色以及任何其他功能一样多。CCR不仅仅是一种理论结构的可能性,并在意识的进化中发挥了作用,反对意识理论的争论只集中在高阶功能作为适当的方式来处理意识,因为它第一次发展,因为它在出生后的早期发展,或者与我们以外的动物的有意识的体验。进化的观点也解决了自由意志的问题,它最好被视为一个物种的财产,而不是属于该物种的个体,相比之下,代理是个人的属性。
The relationship between consciousness and individual agency is examined from a bottom-up evolutionary perspective, an approach somewhat different from other ways of dealing with the issue, but one relevant to the question of animal consciousness. Two ways are identified that would decouple the two, allowing consciousness of a limited kind to exist without agency: (1) reflex pathways that incorporate conscious sensations as an intrinsic component (InCs), and (2) reflexes that are consciously conditioned and dependent on synaptic plasticity but not memory (CCRs). Whether InCs and CCRs exist as more than hypothetical constructs is not clear, and InCs are in any case limited to theories where consciousness depends directly on EM field-based effects. Consciousness with agency, as we experience it, then belongs in a third category that allows for deliberate choice of alternative actions (DCs), where the key difference between this and CCR-level pathways is that DCs require access to explicit memory systems whereas CCRs do not. CCRs are nevertheless useful from a heuristic standpoint as a conceptual model for how conscious inputs could act to refine routine behaviors while allowing evolution to optimize phenomenal experience (i.e., qualia) in the absence of individual agency, a somewhat counterintuitive result. However, so long as CCRs are not a required precondition for the evolution of memory-dependent DC-level processes, the later could have evolved first. If so, the adaptive benefit of consciousness when it first evolved may be linked as much to the role it plays in encoding memories as to any other function. The possibility that CCRs are more than a theoretical construct, and have played a role in the evolution of consciousness, argues against theories of consciousness focussed exclusively on higher-order functions as the appropriate way to deal with consciousness as it first evolved, as it develops in the early postnatal period of life, or with the conscious experiences of animals other than ourselves. An evolutionary perspective also resolves the problem of free will, that it is best treated as a property of a species rather than the individuals belonging to that species whereas, in contrast, agency is an attribute of individuals.