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Sentience and Consciousness in Single Cells: How the First Minds Emerged in Unicellular Species.
- Source :
-
BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology [Bioessays] 2019 Mar; Vol. 41 (3), pp. e1800229. Date of Electronic Publication: 2019 Feb 04. - Publication Year :
- 2019
-
Abstract
- A reductionistic, bottom-up, cellular-based concept of the origins of sentience and consciousness has been put forward. Because all life is based on cells, any evolutionary theory of the emergence of sentience and consciousness must be grounded in mechanisms that take place in prokaryotes, the simplest unicellular species. It has been posited that subjective awareness is a fundamental property of cellular life. It emerges as an inherent feature of, and contemporaneously with, the very first life-forms. All other varieties of mentation are the result of evolutionary mechanisms based on this singular event. Therefore, all forms of sentience and consciousness evolve from this original instantiation in prokaryotes. It has also been identified that three cellular structures and mechanisms that likely play critical roles here are excitable membranes, oscillating cytoskeletal polymers, and structurally flexible proteins. Finally, basic biophysical principles are proposed to guide those processes that underly the emergence of supracellular sentience from cellular sentience in multicellular organisms.<br /> (© 2019 WILEY Periodicals, Inc.)
- Subjects :
- Animals
Awareness physiology
Biological Evolution
Escherichia coli physiology
Humans
Lipid Bilayers chemistry
Membrane Potential, Mitochondrial physiology
Plant Cells physiology
Polymers chemistry
Synaptic Potentials physiology
Cell Membrane physiology
Consciousness physiology
Cytoskeleton physiology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1521-1878
- Volume :
- 41
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 30714631
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.201800229