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damaged. Under these conditions, however, the visual image remains
subliminal, i.e., does not reach the level of consciousness.
Cynthia Colin:
Is that what happens when a person is put under general
anesthesia?
Gunther Stent:
The parts of the nervous system that are being turned off
under general anesthesia correspond to what Francis Crick calls "the
neural correlates of consciousness." Presumably they are turned off auto–
matically during deep sleep, when we are not aware of our sensations.
Cynthia Colin:
I don't think that's what an anesthetist would tell you he
was doing.
Gunther Stent:
Why not? According to Damasio's triple-decker sand–
wich theory of consciousness, general anesthesia would be induced by
pharmacological blockage of the function of the core self. Anesthesia is
interesting, of course, from a medical point of view, but I don't think it
tells you too much about consciousness. It's too global a phenomenon.
Elizabeth Hansen:
About two years ago, there was an article in
Annual
Reviews in Anthropology
about the origins of language in the human
species . Its leading hypothesis cited was that as human beings became
erect bipedal walkers, there were temperature control problems. They
were standing up, their heads were in the sun, and this led to the selec–
tion of bulging skulls. I thought that this was a very peculiar hypothe–
sis, and I just put it in the back of my mind. Now, what you said today
made me think about the redundancy of the human brain, and percep–
tion itself was going on anyway.
If
the perception bypassed
Vi,
and
went to the parietal lobe, and the muscle was able to recognize what had
happened, then consciousness and articulation of consciousness seem to
be very close together. So, what does that do for animals that don't have
verbal communication?
Gunther Stent:
I did not mean to say that language is necessary for con–
sciousness. What I hope I did say was that consciousness is necessary for
language. There used to be some psychologists who claimed that the
possession of language is a necessary condition for conscious experi–
ence. But this claim is not likely to be true, in view of the behavior of
apes that have no language but give every sign of being conscious. Some
paleoanthropologists hold on anatomical grounds that Neanderthals
