Our comment is based on a simple but, we believe, compelling principle. The proposed cognitive processes and functions that are components of Jablonka and Ginsburg’s Unlimited Associative Learning (UAL) are real and are fundamental elements in the varieties of consciousness, cognition, problem solving, and sentience in the species they identify. But, from our perspective, they didn’t function as the metaphoric biomolecular ship that brought consciousness into being. The UAL functions are, and should be viewed as, evolutionary steps that built upon a deeper and much older cognitive foundation. The appearance of UAL didn’t allow consciousness to emerge. It allowed it to change the manner in which sentience was instantiated − just as a host of other evolutionary developments did. In short, the emergence of UAL is a token on a continuum of mental experience and not a distinct type of mentation.

我们的评论基于一个简单但我们认为令人信服的原则。作为 Jablonka 和 Ginsburg 的无限联想学习 (UAL) 的组成部分，所提出的认知过程和功能是真实的，并且是他们所识别的物种的意识、认知、问题解决和感知能力的基本要素。但是，从我们的角度来看，它们并没有起到使意识产生的隐喻生物分子船的作用。UAL 功能是并且应该被视为建立在更深、更古老的认知基础之上的进化步骤。UAL的出现并没有让意识出现。它允许它改变感知被实例化的方式——就像许多其他进化发展所做的那样。总之，UAL的出现是一个象征在连续的心理体验上，而不是一种独特的心理。