Pygmy Marmosets Hold the Secret to Consciousness
Oscillators, feedback loops, and the brain’s insufficiency
Oddly, the secret to understanding consciousness may be found not so much in the human brain, but in the pygmy marmoset.
Those familiar with the philosophy of mind will have encountered many strange references in such texts, from zombies and Chinese rooms to bats and Boltzmann brains, to Swampman and missing shades of blue. But too little attention is paid to the pygmy marmoset.
We’re used to thinking of ourselves as special primates, so we acknowledge that we’re closely related to apes in the evolutionary tree of life. If you look at the face of a chimpanzee, Orangutan, or gorilla, you can’t help but notice the human-like expressions.
But did you know that some monkeys are only around 5 inches tall, excluding the tail? The world’s smallest monkey has the full repertoire of a monkey’s complex social behaviours, yet its head is roughly the size of the tip of your index finger. Indeed, these monkeys are known as “finger monkeys” because they wrap themselves around the human finger as though it were a tree trunk.
The average human brain weighs 3 pounds and is 5.5 x 6.5 x 3.6 inches. The marmoset’s brain weighs 8 grams, or 0.018 pounds, and is 1.2 x 0.8 x 0.7 inches…
