A new, fascinating, and amazing theory about the nature of consciousness.
Definitely worth a read!
https://journals.lww.com/cogbehavneurol/Fulltext/9900/Consciousness_as_a_Memory_System.19.aspx
The authors of this paper, titled Consciousness as a Memory System are Andrew E. Budson MD, Kenneth A. Richman Ph.D., and Elizabeth A. Kensinger Ph.D. . The paper has been published in Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, the Official Journal of the Society for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology on October 3, 2022.
They suggest that consciousness originally developed as part of the episodic memory system, specifically the part needed to recombine information.
Consciousness was subsequently co-opted to produce other functions that are not directly relevant to memory per se, such as problem-solving, abstract thinking, and language, thus explaining, according to the authors, “the slow speed and the after-the-fact order of consciousness, that cannot be explained well by other theories“.
Also. the authors suggest that “episodic memory and its associated memory systems of sensory, working, and semantic memory as a whole ought to be considered together as the conscious memory system in that they, together, give rise to the phenomenon of consciousness. Lastly, we suggest that the cerebral cortex is the part of the brain that makes consciousness possible and that every cortical region contributes to this conscious memory system“.
All this could open a whole set of interesting questions and points, not just from a Neurologic point of view, but also from a cognitive, philosophical, and developmental one.
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