• Question: What is the biological basis of consciousness?

    Asked by imogenn to Mike, Pip, Tim, Tom on 4 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      My father-in-law has spent a good proportion of his life trying to answer this question. I believe that conciousness is a way of explaining complex thought processes and can be described from a basic science perspective, but he seems to think there is something more to it – like some sort of spirit.

      I would argue that an advanced enough robot could have as much of a conciousness as any animal, but he would not agree with this.

      At what point to you draw the line between a concious being and not? Would you say humans have it, but nothing else does? Or is it limited to intelligent animals, including crows, dogs and monkeys? What about insects? Or even bacteria?

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      Consciousness is our brain being able to respond to things going on in our surroundings. Your brain works by sending electrical signals between neurons (the cells that make up your brain), but that’s the limit of what I know.

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