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As recently as just a few decades ago, the interconnected web of experiences, thoughts and emotions known as a ‘stream of consciousness’ was widely believed to belong to humans alone. A still-accumulating body of evidence, however, strongly indicates that consciousness is far from unique to us. Rather, according to the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, which was signed by a group of leading scientists in 2012, it’s possessed by ‘nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses’.
So when and why did consciousness spring from the tree of life? This brief explainer from BBC Reel outlines one groundbreaking new theory from Eva Jablonka at Tel Aviv University and Simona Ginsburg at the Open University of Israel. Centred on a concept called ‘unlimited associative learning’ – the ability to link events and outcomes, and change behaviours accordingly – their theory proposes that the advent of consciousness some 500 million years ago gave way to an evolutionary ‘arms race’ in sophisticated thinking.
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Biology
The idea that life on Earth originated elsewhere is not as far out as it seems
6 minutes
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Sports and games
The brutality and beauty of the West African martial art of ‘dambe’
15 minutes
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Biology
Flicker through the eclectic beauty and biological diversity of 2,400 leaves
3 minutes
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Animals and humans
What happened when one woman raised an abandoned squirrel as her own
8 minutes
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Life stages
At 14, Asal is excited about her engagement. Her relatives all have their own opinions
33 minutes
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Metaphysics
Bertrand Russell wanted to kill off causation. Can contemporary philosophy rescue it?
8 minutes
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The future
What’s the healthiest way to handle a creeping feeling that the world is ending?
15 minutes
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Psychiatry and psychotherapy
Pondering the peculiar one-sided intimacy of the client-therapist relationship
3 minutes
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History of science
Bat-people on the Moon – what a famed 1835 hoax reveals about misinformation today
8 minutes