It’s Cells All the Way Down

Abstract

Abstract This chapter presents an overview of the evidence to support the Cellular Basis of Consciousness theory. It reviews the large, indeed enormous, literature for sentience, awareness, subjectivity, cognitive functions, feelings, motivational states, learning, memory formation, decision-making, and communication in a large number of single-cell species. As noted in Chapter 1, these behaviours are ones routinely cited as evidence for sentience, cognition. However, within the standard approaches to what’s been dubbed ‘consciousness science’, they are treated as though they are not reflective of an existential sentience, but as ‘dumb’ routines carried out independently of any internal experiences, feelings, or valenced sensations. The material, however, makes clear that this ‘competence without comprehension’ stance is, quite simply, wrong.