Unlimited Associative Learning and the Origins of Consciousness: a Primer and Some Predictions

Overview

Journal Biol Philos

Specialty Biology

Date 2021 Feb 18

PMID 33597791

Citations 22

Authors

Jonathan Birch

Simona Ginsburg

Eva Jablonka

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Over the past two decades, Ginsburg and Jablonka have developed a novel approach to studying the evolutionary origins of consciousness: the Unlimited Associative Learning (UAL) framework. The central idea is that there is a distinctive type of learning that can serve as a transition marker for the evolutionary transition from non-conscious to conscious life. The goal of this paper is to stimulate discussion of the framework by providing a primer on its key claims (Part I) and a clear statement of its main empirical predictions (Part II).

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