I've been listening a lot to Sean Caroll's mindscape podcast [0]. In it they have this notion of complex-to-intelligent systems. Their loose definition is that such systems can hold an internal state that represents the world around them. A sort of model to interact with and to extrapolate future events from (time travel!). In this light consciousness also makes more sense to me, although consciousness feels more like a by-product, our (human) ability to hold an internal model of the world in our minds and interact with it, is pretty advanced. One can imagine, somehow in the feedback loops (I think, that she thinks, that I think, that she thinks, ...), something like consciousness (awareness [a model?] of the self in the world?) evolved.
Anyway, cells can hold (super) primitive models of the world and maintain internal balance in the face of anticipated events.
I'm just a cocktail philosopher, but aren't we all.
Anyway, cells can hold (super) primitive models of the world and maintain internal balance in the face of anticipated events.
I'm just a cocktail philosopher, but aren't we all.
[0] https://podverse.fm/podcast/e42yV38oN