Research and Development Service, Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, CA 90073, USA; Felidae Conservation Fund, Mill Valley, CA 94941, USA; Virus Focus Group, NASA Astrobiology Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA; Expert Network, Penn Center for Innovation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Conscious Cogn. 2018 May;61:76-78. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2018.04.002. Epub 2018 Apr 10.
The origin(s) and purpose(s) of consciousness continue to be fervently debated by neuroscientists. A recent unconventional hypothesis put forth by Morsella et al. suggests the primary function of consciousness is the integration, selection, and execution of advantageous lower-level voluntary skeletal muscle behavior on surrounding external environments. However, at main issue is whether more precise, adaptable voluntary skeletal motor action, and therefore the corresponding workings of consciousness, first emerged and evolved in animals to exert control over external environments or internal ones regulated by less flexible autonomic function. Using the example of voluntary immunomodulation, one can identify the strengths and weaknesses of either rationale. For instance, highly trained meditative techniques for immunomodulation more-or-less conform to Morsella et al.'s assumptions on higher-level indirect conscious control of autonomic function. Whereas, untrained skeletal motor resolution of infection-related approach-avoidance conflicts support conclusions contrary to those of Morsella et al. In such cases, primitive voluntary changes in host respiration rate and volume may selectively facilitate/inhibit acute autonomic psychophysiological stress responses to pathogen insult. This and other types of scenarios predictably give evolutionary and ecological rise to self-awareness of (visceral) internal states as well as to voluntary regulation of internal state action conflicts.
意识的起源和目的一直是神经科学家热烈争论的话题。莫斯拉等人最近提出的一个非传统假说认为，意识的主要功能是整合、选择和执行有利的低级自愿骨骼肌肉行为，以适应周围的外部环境。然而，主要问题是，更精确、适应性更强的自愿骨骼运动行为，以及相应的意识运作，是否首先出现在动物身上，以对外环境施加控制，或者对自主功能调节的内部环境施加控制。通过自愿免疫调节的例子，可以确定这两种推理的优缺点。例如，用于免疫调节的高度训练的冥想技术或多或少符合莫斯拉等人关于高级间接意识对自主功能控制的假设。然而，未经训练的骨骼运动解决与感染相关的接近-回避冲突的方法则支持与莫斯拉等人的结论相反的结论。在这种情况下，宿主呼吸率和量的原始自愿变化可能会选择性地促进/抑制对病原体侵袭的急性自主心理生理应激反应。这种情况和其他类型的情况可以预测地导致（内脏）内部状态的自我意识以及内部状态动作冲突的自愿调节的进化和生态出现。
