Assembling the Tree of Consciousness: A Study of Scientific Methodology for Investigating the Phylogenetic Distribution of Consciousness (Postdoctoral Fellowship)

尽管人类并不是地球上唯一有意识的生物这一观点被广泛接受，科学工作和公众对动物意识的兴趣也重新抬头，但关于动物是有意识的这一说法到底意味着什么，仍然存在相当大的科学怀疑和分歧的公众舆论。这个项目解决了两个相关的研究问题。在不同的研究背景下，意识是如何概念化的？动物意识的各种和看似不相容的概念化能否以循证的方式整合或联系在一起？智力价值该项目将使用对科学和哲学立场的概念和逻辑分析的方法来生成关于这一主题的一系列研究出版物，并将启动一个“在线意识树”，作为这一领域的研究、教育、伦理和政策的开放数据库。该项目将清楚地描述来自多个学科的现有概念和方法。其目标是将这些整合到一个单一的讨论领域，围绕已研究物种之间的系统发育关系进行组织。这将允许不同类型的证据(行为、神经生理、进化等)。将在其系统发生学背景下进行评估，并应有助于发现现有数据中的模式，并帮助系统地确定研究不足的领域。潜在的更广泛的影响该项目有望为未来的科学工作提供一般性的建议和指导方针，更清晰地了解关于动物意识的一系列想法以及如何研究它，为关心动物福利的政策制定者和伦理学家提供更多关于意识的最新研究，为社会科学家更好地获得与动物意识研究的历史和社会学模式相关的数据，以及为寻求挑战学生的教育工作者提供更容易的途径，这些问题是任何科学都面临的最困难和最吸引人的概念问题之一。

IntroductionDespite widespread acceptance of the idea that humans are not the only conscious creatures on the planet, and a resurgence of scientific work and public interest in the topic of animal consciousness, considerable scientific skepticism and divergent public opinion remains concerning what it actually means to say that animals are conscious. This project addresses two related research questions. How is consciousness conceptualized in different research contexts? Can the various and seemingly incompatible conceptualizations of animal consciousness be integrated or related in an evidence-based way? Intellectual MeritThe project will use the methods of conceptual and logical analysis of scientific and philosophical positions to generate a series of research publications on this topic, and will initiate an "Online Tree of Consciousness" to serve as an open database for research, education, ethics, and policy in this area. The project will provide a clear characterization of existing concepts and methods from multiple disciplines. The goal is to integrate these into a single domain of discourse organized around phylogenetic relationships among the species that have been studied. This will allow different sorts of evidence (behavioral, neurophysiological, evolutionary, etc.) to be evaluated in their phylogenetic context, and should aid in the discovery of patterns in existing data as well as helping to identify systematically understudied areas. Potential Broader ImpactsThe project is expected to yield general recommendations and guidelines for future scientific work, greater conceptual clarity about the range of ideas about animal consciousness and how to study it, improved accessibility for policymakers and ethicists concerned with animal welfare to the latest research on consciousness, better access for social scientists to data relevant to the historical and sociological patterns of animal consciousness research, and easy access for educators looking to challenge students with one of the hardest and most fascinating conceptual problems facing any science.