A Continuum View of Consciousness: From 12-Neuron Sea Creatures to Us
ctjlewis · x · 2026-10-06
A tech practitioner sketches a continuum view of consciousness: rather than a binary on/off, consciousness behaves like a dial. A hypothetical 12-neuron ancient sea creature processing temperature is effectively an automaton, yet as an information-processing system can be thought of as a 0.00000001% approximation of human consciousness.
Scaling complexity 10x or 1000x yields organisms with behaviors and apparent emotional states. On this view, philosophical first-person consciousness is just an advanced form of animal consciousness, and there's no hard threshold— even a two-neuron organism processing environmental input sits somewhere on the spectrum.
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