thought must be influenced by some level of internal stimulation, as you can deprive your senses and still think. Likewise, before you have the capability of memory, you are not conscious, it is simply impossible. Consciousness is directly tied to the ability to remember. Thusly it must be some mix of the two, life experiences, and remembered experiences.
Isn’t the internal stimulation just the nervous system zapping things to get a response? And doesn’t that need a trigger to get it going?
Anyway, I feel like I’m heading into contested territory here, but I gotta ask. At which point can we consider babies as conscious?
Most people will claim their earliest memory is at the age of 4 or 5 years old. So that time is probably considered as the general start of conscious identity. Yet some have reported that simulating the conditions in a womb such as sleeping in a fetal position or floating aimlessly within a larger body of water will grant them an instinctual sense of serenity. So it can be argued that at some level, we remember our time in the womb, even though we are not able to recall it directly.
And I’ve seen babies aged around 1-2 years old trying (unsuccessfully) to hide from their parents in order to attempt an action that had been forbidden several times before.
How early does our capability to store memory actually start? And at which point will the amount of stored and remembered experience be enough to count as consciousness?