This is a take-home exam. It is "open book". You are free to use and reread our previous readings, but you are expected to work independently of the other students.
Please submit your answers through Blackboard. Please indicate by number which questions you are answering. You don't have to retype the question.
Part One: Short answer. Answer four of the following questions, in one to a few sentences (worth 10 points each)
- Many fish avoid noxious stimuli. Why does Key deny that such "nocifensive" behavior indicates consciousness?
- What is the difference between weak and strong emergence, according to Chalmers?
- What does it mean when the authors we read talked about having an "internal model" of the world? Klein and Barron discussed this in the context of insects. Solms and Friston discussed this in the context of the Free Energy Principle.
- What is the free energy principle and what is it thought to have to do with consciousness?
- What is consciousness according to Dehaene's global workspace theory?
- Briefly summarize Jaynes's theory of consciousness
- Briefly summarize Ginsburg and Jablonka's theory of consciousness.
- How, according to Klein and Barron, is the insect central complex (CX) functionally similar to the mammalian midbrain, in ways that are relevant to consciousness?
- What is the difference between first- and higher-order representation theories of consciousness?
Part Two: Essay. Answer two of the following, in a few paragraphs. Be sure to provide arguments for your view when the question asks you to do so (worth 30 points each)
- In your opinion, what are some sufficient conditions for consciousness? A soul, integrated information, criticality, etc.? Justify your answer, explaining why that ingredient supplies all you'd need for consciousness. (If something meets the "sufficient condition", it WILL be conscious.)
- In your opinion, what are some of the necessary ingredients for consciousness? A soul, integrated information, criticality, etc.? Justify your answer, explaining why something couldn't be conscious without that ingredient. ("Necessary ingredient" means that consciousness cannot exist without it, but other ingredients might also be needed.)
- Is consciousness, in the sense of what-it's-like-ness, an all-or-none phenomenon or is it graded? Can one be slightly conscious? Justify your answer based on experimental evidence and philosophical arguments that we have considered this semester.
- What might weak emergence and/or strong emergence have to do with consciousness?
- Two different theories of consciousness--global neuronal workspace theory and integrated information theory--both claim that integration of information is central to consciousness. Compare and contrast these theories, paying attention in part to the similar and different roles that 'integration' and 'information' play in each.
- How might consciousness have evolved? What, in particular, might consciousness DO for the organisms that have it (i.e, how might it be conducive to fitness)?