Arthur S. Reber earned his Ph.D. from Brown University (1967). He was in the Psychology Department of the University of British Columbia from 1966 to 1970 when he moved to Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. After retiring in 2005, he returned to UBC as a Visiting Professor. Reber is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was a Fulbright Professor 1977-1978 in Innsbruck, Austria. He is also a lexicographer (Dictionary of Psychology - Penguin), a novelist (Xero to Sixty - Create Space), and an authority on poker and gambling (Poker, Life and Other Confusing Things -- Conjelco, The New Gambler's Bible -- Three Rivers, and Gambling for Dummies -- Wiley, with L. Krieger and R. Harroch).

In The First Minds, Reber masterfully organizes and presents this challenging theory in book form, which introduces readers to his reasons for positing the early origin of consciousness. He begins with the question of whether robots can be conscious, contrasting weak AI with strong AI and concluding that computers will not have minds because they do not have self-awareness and agency. He then gives a historical review of the resistance to Donald Griffin's ideas of animal awareness and Brian Key's rejection of fish pain, offering a few approaches to his viewpoint. This is a well-constructed book, worth reading even for those who do not believe the premise.

• Table of Contents Preface Where the Voyage Began: A Personal Note A Quick Overview An Aside on Terminology An Aside on the Nature of Philosophic ArgumentDistinguishing between Evolutionary Biology and Evolutionary PsychologyA Note on CitationsSummary Chapter I : Can Robots be Conscious? Functionalism or the Possibility of "Hardware-Independent" Consciousness What Do I/You Know about Minds? Yours and/or Mine? Is there Something It Is Like To Be a Robot?John Searle's Chinese RoomThe Anthropomorphic "Tug" Summary Chapter II: Why Has A CBC-Type Model Not Been Proposed Before? My Propaedeutic Caterpillar Three Reasons for HesitatingIn Defense of Anthropomorphism A Short Aside on Fish Pain? An Object Lesson Those Who Are, Might Be, or Perhaps Should be Comfortable with Sentient cells Summary Chapter III. Bio-centric Views of the Origin of Consciousness: The Search for the Solution to the Hard Problem General Theories of the Origins of ConsciousnessPhylogenetic Searching for the First Appearance of ConsciousnessSome Thoughts on These EffortsStumbling into a Category ErrorThe Emergentist's DilemmaAnticipating Criticism: Some Prophylactic ArgumentsSummary Chapter IV: Where we Get Serious: The Cellular Basis of Consciousness Common Threads with Other Areas of ResearchA Short Aside on a Personal BewildermentA Short Aside on which Unicellular Species We're Talking AboutThe Cellular Basis of Consciousness FrameworkA Closer Look at Unicellular LifeSummaryCoda: Anticipating Criticism (once more) and Defending Against it Chapter V: Entailments of the Cellular Basis of Consciousness Stance On Evolution's Hierarchical StructureReductionismAvoiding MysterianismEmpirical Problems Searching for SolutionsPlantsEthical ConsiderationsA Short Aside on Altruism and CooperationSecondary GainsSummary Appendix A: An Exercise in Lexicography: Defining (?) Consciousness Appendix B: The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, with Commentary References

Arthur S. Reber earned his Ph.D. from Brown University (1967). He was in the Psychology Department of the University of British Columbia from 1966 to 1970 when he moved to Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. After retiring in 2005, he returned to UBC as a Visiting Professor. Reber is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was a Fulbright Professor 1977-1978 in Innsbruck, Austria. He is also a lexicographer (Dictionary of Psychology - Penguin), a novelist (Xero to Sixty - Create Space), and an authority on poker and gambling (Poker, Life and Other Confusing Things -- Conjelco, The New Gambler's Bible -- Three Rivers, and Gambling for Dummies -- Wiley, with L. Krieger and R. Harroch).

In The First Minds, Reber masterfully organizes and presents this challenging theory in book form, which introduces readers to his reasons for positing the early origin of consciousness. He begins with the question of whether robots can be conscious, contrasting weak AI with strong AI and concluding that computers will not have minds because they do not have self-awareness and agency. He then gives a historical review of the resistance to Donald Griffin's ideas of animal awareness and Brian Key's rejection of fish pain, offering a few approaches to his viewpoint. This is a well-constructed book, worth reading even for those who do not believe the premise.

• Table of Contents Preface Where the Voyage Began: A Personal Note A Quick Overview An Aside on Terminology An Aside on the Nature of Philosophic ArgumentDistinguishing between Evolutionary Biology and Evolutionary PsychologyA Note on CitationsSummary Chapter I : Can Robots be Conscious? Functionalism or the Possibility of "Hardware-Independent" Consciousness What Do I/You Know about Minds? Yours and/or Mine? Is there Something It Is Like To Be a Robot?John Searle's Chinese RoomThe Anthropomorphic "Tug" Summary Chapter II: Why Has A CBC-Type Model Not Been Proposed Before? My Propaedeutic Caterpillar Three Reasons for HesitatingIn Defense of Anthropomorphism A Short Aside on Fish Pain? An Object Lesson Those Who Are, Might Be, or Perhaps Should be Comfortable with Sentient cells Summary Chapter III. Bio-centric Views of the Origin of Consciousness: The Search for the Solution to the Hard Problem General Theories of the Origins of ConsciousnessPhylogenetic Searching for the First Appearance of ConsciousnessSome Thoughts on These EffortsStumbling into a Category ErrorThe Emergentist's DilemmaAnticipating Criticism: Some Prophylactic ArgumentsSummary Chapter IV: Where we Get Serious: The Cellular Basis of Consciousness Common Threads with Other Areas of ResearchA Short Aside on a Personal BewildermentA Short Aside on which Unicellular Species We're Talking AboutThe Cellular Basis of Consciousness FrameworkA Closer Look at Unicellular LifeSummaryCoda: Anticipating Criticism (once more) and Defending Against it Chapter V: Entailments of the Cellular Basis of Consciousness Stance On Evolution's Hierarchical StructureReductionismAvoiding MysterianismEmpirical Problems Searching for SolutionsPlantsEthical ConsiderationsA Short Aside on Altruism and CooperationSecondary GainsSummary Appendix A: An Exercise in Lexicography: Defining (?) Consciousness Appendix B: The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, with Commentary References

Arthur S. Reber earned his Ph.D. from Brown University (1967). He was in the Psychology Department of the University of British Columbia from 1966 to 1970 when he moved to Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. After retiring in 2005, he returned to UBC as a Visiting Professor. Reber is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was a Fulbright Professor 1977-1978 in Innsbruck, Austria. He is also a lexicographer (Dictionary of Psychology - Penguin), a novelist (Xero to Sixty - Create Space), and an authority on poker and gambling (Poker, Life and Other Confusing Things -- Conjelco, The New Gambler's Bible -- Three Rivers, and Gambling for Dummies -- Wiley, with L. Krieger and R. Harroch).

In The First Minds, Reber masterfully organizes and presents this challenging theory in book form, which introduces readers to his reasons for positing the early origin of consciousness. He begins with the question of whether robots can be conscious, contrasting weak AI with strong AI and concluding that computers will not have minds because they do not have self-awareness and agency. He then gives a historical review of the resistance to Donald Griffin's ideas of animal awareness and Brian Key's rejection of fish pain, offering a few approaches to his viewpoint. This is a well-constructed book, worth reading even for those who do not believe the premise.

• Table of Contents Preface Where the Voyage Began: A Personal Note A Quick Overview An Aside on Terminology An Aside on the Nature of Philosophic ArgumentDistinguishing between Evolutionary Biology and Evolutionary PsychologyA Note on CitationsSummary Chapter I : Can Robots be Conscious? Functionalism or the Possibility of "Hardware-Independent" Consciousness What Do I/You Know about Minds? Yours and/or Mine? Is there Something It Is Like To Be a Robot?John Searle's Chinese RoomThe Anthropomorphic "Tug" Summary Chapter II: Why Has A CBC-Type Model Not Been Proposed Before? My Propaedeutic Caterpillar Three Reasons for HesitatingIn Defense of Anthropomorphism A Short Aside on Fish Pain? An Object Lesson Those Who Are, Might Be, or Perhaps Should be Comfortable with Sentient cells Summary Chapter III. Bio-centric Views of the Origin of Consciousness: The Search for the Solution to the Hard Problem General Theories of the Origins of ConsciousnessPhylogenetic Searching for the First Appearance of ConsciousnessSome Thoughts on These EffortsStumbling into a Category ErrorThe Emergentist's DilemmaAnticipating Criticism: Some Prophylactic ArgumentsSummary Chapter IV: Where we Get Serious: The Cellular Basis of Consciousness Common Threads with Other Areas of ResearchA Short Aside on a Personal BewildermentA Short Aside on which Unicellular Species We're Talking AboutThe Cellular Basis of Consciousness FrameworkA Closer Look at Unicellular LifeSummaryCoda: Anticipating Criticism (once more) and Defending Against it Chapter V: Entailments of the Cellular Basis of Consciousness Stance On Evolution's Hierarchical StructureReductionismAvoiding MysterianismEmpirical Problems Searching for SolutionsPlantsEthical ConsiderationsA Short Aside on Altruism and CooperationSecondary GainsSummary Appendix A: An Exercise in Lexicography: Defining (?) Consciousness Appendix B: The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, with Commentary References