The Origin of Consciousness – How Unaware Things Became Aware

Consciousness is perhaps the greatest mystery of nature. Reduced to its essential meaning,

consciousness

is what allows us to be

aware

of both the

things

around us and our inner state. But thinking about

consciousness

is not usually a fruitful process. We all intuitively know what consciousness is. Is this... This is what you are experiencing here and now. But as soon as we try to define exactly what it is, we fail. And it's not just us, philosophers and scientists who struggle to define consciousness. Different schools and ideas compete with each other, but no one has come close to defining it.

It is disturbing to realize that we do not understand what makes us

aware

of ourselves and the world. In this nebulous zone, consciousness and intelligence are related, although they are not the same. We will talk more deeply about the theories of consciousness and intelligence in other videos. Like much of what makes us human, our consciousness probably evolved from less complex forms, as a product of evolution by natural selection. Most likely, it arose from a flow of countless microscopic steps lasting 100 million years, which together constitute a kind of gradient of consciousness. What was the first step on this path from an unconscious being to basic consciousness that eventually led to the complex consciousness we enjoy today?

Take a stone. The consensus is that a stone is not conscious. Although not everyone agrees on this. Some panpsychists believe that a pile of stones can have an inner life. However, there is no real basis for such an assumption since the stones do not show behavior. His inner life cannot be proven or disproved. A more common starting point is living

things

. A living being, or a self, is part of the universe that sustains itself and produces more of its kind. For this he needs energy. And this is where world awareness comes in handy. The

origin

al function of consciousness was probably to direct a mobile, low-energy being toward a supply of fresh food.

On the smallest scales of life, you don't need to be conscious to find food. Trichopax adhaerens, one of the simplest animals, moves randomly. It slows down in the presence of food and accelerates in its absence. This is very effective and causes the little creature to spend more time where there is food than where there is not. But it never moves in a particular direction toward a particular goal, and it doesn't need to be aware of its surroundings. The first great step towards consciousness was probably taken when mobile beings began to move in one direction. Going toward what was good for them, for example, food, and away from what was less good, for example, someone else thinking they were food.

Consider Dugesia tigrina, a small worm known for its funny face. Sometimes the worm is hungry and sometimes not. This means that when it moves, the worm itself is not simply producing an automatic response to an external stimulus, but its actions depend on its internal physiological state, whether it is hungry or full. When freshly eaten, the worm has less energy, but when it has been hungry for a while, it moves in the direction of tasty things. It uses chemical receptors in its head to smell its surroundings and guide it in the direction where the smell of food is strongest.

After finding and eating something, our friend returns to a dark place where he takes refuge to digest it safely, until he is hungry again. But animals that blindly follow their sense of smell have no specific goal. They still have no idea where they are going. So the next step on the consciousness ladder is to add some distance perception, like the first one. The first adds context and depth to our world. With the first comes a sense of the space in which we and our food exist. It adds a whole new dimension to consciousness and is a big step towards a more familiar consciousness.

An optical device, like an eye, allows us to visualize our objective and focus on it. But even at this stage, a self is only able to follow its food as long as it sees it. So the next logical step must be taken internally. To anticipate the absence of food, for example, it is necessary to create some type of internal representation of the world. Now, an animal can continue searching for food, even when the food escapes its sensory range. Because of this internal representation of what is important in the world, she can remain focused on her food and her desire to obtain it.

Our self now exists in a world with which we can be known. The ability to remember things has appeared. Thanks to memory, animals can get confused during the chase for a few seconds, but then quickly continue on their way. A related phenomenon is called "object persistence." This describes our awareness that things continue to exist even when we cannot see them. Some mammals and birds, and possibly other animals as well, enjoy this cognitive ability. Human babies tend to develop this ability around eight months of age, while chicks show this ability a day or two after birth. The ability to remember a thing in its absence suggests at least a basic sense of time.

The sense of time is a big step on the ladder of consciousness. It can also allow us to think about and predict the future. For example, adult chickens may resist a meal placed in front of them if they expect to receive a larger meal as a reward for their self-control at that time. This type of delayed gratification means there is the ability to anticipate a reward that only exists in the future, which can be challenging even for adults. Western jays are experts at delaying gratification. They show an even more elaborate sense of the future when they hide food in one place to retrieve it in the future.

Jays will go back to hiding their food if they realize a potential thief has been watching them. This means they know that there are other hungry people who are aware and see the world from their own unique perspective. Scrub jays can read other birds' minds in some ways. This ability to read minds is crucial for complex levels of consciousness. By putting yourself in the shoes of others, you can defeat a wealthy competitor or empathize with a hungry friend. Language takes the ability to read minds and represent what is missing to a whole new level. Words allow us to construct hypotheses about the world, make detailed plans, and communicate them to others.

Words allow us to think about ourselves and our place in the universe, and even our consciousness, something we will do more of in future videos. So what is the

origin

of our consciousness? This probably began as the directed movement of a hungry self toward a food source. With survival benefits, this favored him over competitors who moved randomly or did not move at all. Maybe it started with wanting more food. So even with the sophisticated consciousness that allows us to dream about space, build skyscrapers, or obsess over novels, it's no surprise that we can't stop thinking about where we'll get our next meal.

Collectively, we have put so much effort and ingenuity into getting food that we can now get it to us with just a little conscious effort. This video is part of a three-part video series on the big questions of life and the universe, made possible by a grant from the Templeton World Charitable Foundation. You can find our resources and further reading in the video description, or get Rupert Glasgow's mindfulness book for free at the link below. If you want to help us make more videos, you can do so on patreon.com or pick up one of our posters in our store.