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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=FI link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Dear All,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>Regarding the discussion on consciousness, it seems that there is mixing of intelligence functions with subjective experience. Modern smart phones and computers have many of those intelligence functions, but they are lacking consciousness. Moreover, in vast number of empirical studies it has been repeatedly shown that consciousness could in principle exist without every one of those functions (even though in normal healthy persons they usually coexist). So consciousness is different from intelligence, as well as from memory, from attention, and so on.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>Another issue that is present in the debate about consciousness is that usually constitutive and etiological explanations are mixed. At the same time, they belong to different dimensions, and only one of them is interesting in the context of the present discussion (how to verify the presence of consciousness in the system or organoid brains). Constitutive explanation ‘‘looks’’ downward and describes what constitutes the phenomenon, while etiological explanation ‘‘looks’’ backward and specifies the causal pathway that either brought about or modulated the phenomenon. We argue In the case of consciousness, the constitutive basis includes such immediately lower-level entities on which consciousness as a<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>whole is ontologically dependent (see Fig. 1 in the paper: <a href="https://www.bm-science.com/images/bms/publ/art76.pdf">https://www.bm-science.com/images/bms/publ/art76.pdf</a>), meaning that consciousness could not exist without them to be present. In other words, a constitutive explanation describes immediate lower-level processes that as a whole is consciousness. On the contrary, an etiological explanation considers the causal history or pathway chain of events that lead to consciousness and it is neutral about the constitutive entities (Fig. 1), because causal dependence does not entail ontological dependence. Thus, as it is clearly stated by Revonsuo [Revonsuo A. Inner presence: consciousness as a biological phenomenon. Cambridge: MIT Press; 2006], ‘‘consciousness can in principle exist even in the absence of the entities and activities that make up its etiological pathway, while it cannot, even in principle, exist without the entities and activities that make up its constitutive basis.’’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>Greetings,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB>Andrew & Alexander<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>___________________________________________ <br><b>Dr. Alexander Fingelkurts, Ph.D.</b><br>Co-Head of Research <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-GB style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'><img border=0 width=126 height=47 style='width:1.3125in;height:.4895in' id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.gif@01D4BA2B.B61EAA10" alt="cid:image001.gif@01D3856C.A20512C0"></span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>BM-Science – Brain & Mind Technologies Research Centre<br>PL 77<br>FI-02601 Espoo, FINLAND<br> <br>Tel. +358 9 541 4506 <br><a href="mailto:alexander.fingelkurts@bm-science.com"><span style='color:blue'>alexander.fingelkurts@bm-science.com</span></a><br> <br><br></span><span lang=EN-US style='mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>