New-Born Consciousness

http://www.thegreatonwardpress.com/9975/03/index24article6.html

From a single fertilized egg the process of cell division results first in a sort of container of ‘external cells’ surrounding a bundle of ‘internal cells’; then, by further gradual stages, in an embryo; then in a foetus which acquires more and more human features until it is ready to be born. In its early stages the embryo cannot usefully be described as a behaving system at all. Even after several weeks it still seems to be, at most, a pure reflex system. But at some stage in the transition from foetus, through birth, to an infant a few weeks old, we have an organism with the basic package. It will be useful to consider some relevant facts. Here are passages from a couple of textbooks:

— During a significant part of the fetal period (from 9 to 26 weeks), the eyes are closed, but toward the end of the fetal period, the fetus can see light and hear sound. The heartbeat is affected by the level of light or the tempo of music to which the mother is exposed.

— The sensation of taste also seems to be present in utero. Experiments in which the rate of swallowing has been measured have shown that the addition of saccharine to the amniotic fluid increases the rate of swallowing, whereas distasteful materials such as opaque media cause almost complete cessation of swallowing.

It is a sensitive question whether the foetus is perceptually conscious. Does it really see and hear and have sensations of taste? At this stage I am not considering that question, but only whether it is a decider*. The quotations show that the foetus is at least differentially sensitive to various stimuli in different sensory modalities; but that is consistent with its being a pure reflex system. More to the point is evidence that the foetus can learn and remember things. For example, newborn infants have been shown to prefer their mother’s voice to that of an unfamiliar female. To rule out the possibility that this learning was post-natal, it has further been shown that the babies studied show ‘a preference for their mother’s voice as it sounded in the womb’, rather than as it sounded after birth. There is also evidence that the foetus can learn to distinguish not just types of sound but sound-patterns. P. G. Hepper found that ‘babies, if their mothers had watched the TV soap “Neighbours” when pregnant, preferred this tune after birth to other unfamiliar tunes’.

There is similar evidence relating to other sense modalities. However, even that amount and type of learning is consistent with its being a matter of acquiring new stimuli, or at most, new triggering conditions. It doesn’t add up to a demonstration that the foetus has the basic package; the evidence is consistent with its being a triggered reflex system with acquired conditions.

… There is also some evidence against the view that the foetus is capable of learning in anything like the sense in which a decider learns. This shows up in facts about the development of the infant’s nervous system after birth. There is for example a reflex that makes the baby’s eyes follow any passing object. It takes time for the baby to become capable of overriding this reflex: that happens only with the explosion in brain growth around ten weeks. Then, by inhibiting the reflex, the baby becomes able to attend to something without being distracted. As time passes nervous connections permitting this control are strengthened. That suggests, even if it doesn’t imply, that the newborn baby lacks control over its behaviour. Now, we cannot sensibly ascribe to the foetus cognitive capacities not yet possessed by the neonate. So if the baby really can’t control its behaviour until after those post-natal developments in its nervous system, only then can it come to possess the basic package, and only then does it perceive the world in what I am calling the full sense. If that is correct, then… it is only at that stage that the infant is a candidate for genuine perceptual-phenomenal consciousness. So there is some reason to say that even the foetus ready to be born is not yet a decider.

The foetus is still picking up quantities of information—information that will make a difference to the baby’s behaviour. But that is consistent with the newborn baby’s being no more than a triggered reflex system with acquired reflexes, in which case its perception is of a low grade. What the foetus acquires is not yet information ‘for it’: or rather, it is at best information for it as it will become, not for it as it is. Watching a baby develop is an excellent way to see how the terms I am using to define the basic package (‘interpretation’, ‘assessment’, ‘decision-making’) do not pick out unitary all-or-nothing capacities, but complex clusters of capacities and skills which take time to develop. There is a time when the baby cannot sensibly be said to have any control over its behaviour—when it just seems to be a bundle of reflexes—and there is a time when it has clearly acquired at least some degree of control: some control over its voice, for example. But the interval between those times is taken up with the gradual accumulation of those capacities, whose complexity becomes obvious when you observe and reflect on their development.

— Robert Kirk,
Zombies and Consciousness,
Chapter 7 – Decision, Control and Integration

* A decider is by definition able to control its behaviour on the basis of stored and incoming information. It can also interpret information, assess its situation, and make decisions, in however rudimentary a way.