While this is a far cry from understanding the central importance of consciousness, there are at least some beginnings from scientific research showing there are behavior-like choices even in the least complex and most primitive life forms, like viruses. This will not be much of a gateway to the broader understanding enjoyed by followers of GetWisdom. This will require the creation of a more advanced theoretical framework in the minds of scientists, because their observations will not support such an understanding, especially in the setting of viruses infecting host cells, whether in culture or in the much more difficult to observe setting within a larger organism like a human being harboring chronic viral infections that might come and go. So, like much of science, there will be conjecture housed in complex jargon along with much hand-waving but little substance. So we do not see this as a breakthrough that will truly advance a greater understanding of consciousness, it is more borrowing from an awareness such issues are extant and being wondered about by scientific colleagues. After all, simple cells are used routinely as models of the life process itself and many kinds of interactions that support the physiology and function of higher life forms. But what a virus is thinking will not likely be seen as a path to understanding human consciousness by mainstream science.
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