From the description in the article you've linked to it seems to me that the described behaviour of this single cell organism could be encapsulated in a page or so of conditional logic with some counters and if-then-else statements.
I don't know what consciousness is but I'm confident that it's more than just a page of if-then-else statements.
Re:How Did Consciousness Evolve? (2016)
by williamdclt on Sunday September 27, 2020 @07:03AM
(#24605758)
> I don't know what consciousness is but I'm confident that it's more than just a page of if-then-else statements.
Are you? I'm not :/ I don't know what consciousness is either (if it is anything), but it doesn't seem unreasonable that it would be a spectrum. That the bottom of the spectrum would be as simple as "a page of if-then-else statements" doesn't seem particularly wild
If consciousness was a trivial as a page or so of if then else statements it would be trivial to just generate all possible combinations of these control structures and then test them all for consciousness properties.
The fact that millions of students taking intro CS courses haven't generated consciousness as part of their homework assignment leads me to believe that consciousness is a bit less trivial than a page of if then else statements.
May I ask why? Given there are single-cell-organisms which display complex, intelligent behaviour [1]?
Where do you draw the line, and why? Are lobsters with their 18 'neurons' conscious to you? Because they look very conscious to me, although I'm biased (since electromagnetical imbalance is a sufficient explanation for consciousness in my eyes)
[1] https://www.sciencealert.com/this-single-celled-animal-can-m...
^ there's lots more to this than this single link. For example, I've read about single cell organisms that build shelter for themselves, not to mention 'the blob' (not sure if the ARTE-documentation was translated to english)