In the scientific world, there is so far no unified theory of the development and evolution of consciousness that would suit everyone and not raise questions. However, there is a very clear idea of ​​all the problems and contradictions associated with this topic. First of all, we are talking about the nature of a special mental state that distinguishes a person from all other living beings and gives him a subjective understanding of his own existence and his own thinking. Heidegger called this phenomenon dasein, and even earlier Descartes used the expression cogito ergo sum ("I think it means to exist") to describe a similar phenomenon. In the future, we will denote this phenomenon as p-consciousness. In this article, we will look at the prospects for its evolutionary explanation.
The evolution of human consciousness
Our consciousness gave us the opportunity to reach a fundamentally new level of development, which is characterized by scientific and technological progress - a quick process of improving the species, bypassing all the laws of nature and evolutionary rules. That is why many thinkers are interested in the origin of our thinking, self-organization, and complex behavioral patterns, rather than purely biological evolution. Indeed, it was not even the brain that made us unique, but that which is beyond it - thought and consciousness.
The idea of ​​cognitive evolution is not an independent theory, but has close ties with integral theory, spiral dynamics, and the noosphere hypothesis. It is also associated with the theory of the global brain or collective mind. One of the earliest uses of the phrase “evolution of consciousness” may be a 1918 Mary Parker Follett report. Follett said that the evolution of thinking leaves less and less room for the herd instinct and more for the imperative of the group. Mankind is emerging from the "herd" state, and now, in order to discover a rational way of life, it is studying relations in society rather than directly feeling them and thereby tuning them to ensure unhindered progress at this higher level.
Features
One of the real achievements made in recent years is that we have learned to distinguish between different types of thinking. Not everyone agrees on what kind of distinction is necessary to make, but everyone at least agrees that we must distinguish the mind of a being from its mental state. It is one thing to say about an individual person or organism that he is conscious, at least partially. This is not so difficult. And it is quite another matter to define one of the mental states of a being as a state of consciousness. This can only be fully said about a person.
Mental state
Also, no one denies that in the very thinking of beings we must distinguish between intransitive and transitive variants. The understanding that the body is the localizer of this process is that we can safely say that it is awake, unlike a sleeping or comatose organism. We feel it perfectly.
Scientists still have questions regarding the evolution of mechanisms that control wakefulness and regulate sleep, but this, apparently, is only for evolutionary biology. They should not be considered within the framework of psychology and philosophy.
The evolution of consciousness: from the psyche of animals to human consciousness
So, we are talking about the mouse, that she understands that the cat is waiting for her at the hole, thus explaining why she does not come out. This means that she perceives the presence of a cat. Thus, in order to provide an evolutionary explanation of the transitive thinking of beings, it is necessary to try to explain the occurrence of perception. There are undoubtedly many problems here, some of which we will return to later.
It was consciousness, as the driving principle of evolution, that put man at the very top of the food chain. Now it seems certain.
Turning now to the concept of mind as a mental state, the main difference lies in phenomenal thinking, which is a purely subjective feeling. Most theorists believe that there are mental states, such as acoustic thoughts or judgments, that are conscious. But so far there is no agreement on the question of whether mental states can be p-conscious without being so in a functionally defined sense. There was even debate about whether the phenomenon of the mind can be explained in functional and / or representative terms.
Access concept
Consciousness as the driving principle of evolution is a very powerful tool for interaction with the outside world. It seems obvious that there is nothing deeply problematic regarding functionally defined concepts of thinking as a mental state, if we consider it from a naturalistic point of view.
However, all who deal with this issue agree that it is philosophically the most problematic. The philosophy of the evolution of consciousness is not only Kant and the phenomenology of the mind, but Heidegger with his dasein concept, and Husserl's phenomenology. Humanities have always dealt with this issue before, but in our time they have given way to the natural sciences. The psychology of the evolution of consciousness is a field that has not yet been explored.
It is not easy to understand how the properties characteristic of the mind - a phenomenal sensation or something like that - can be realized in the nervous processes of the brain. It is just as difficult to understand how these properties could develop. Indeed, when people talk about the "problem of consciousness", it is precisely the problem of thinking that is meant.
Mysticism and physiologism
There are those who believe that the connection between reason and the rest of the natural world is inherently mysterious. Some of them believe that mental states are not determined by physical (and physiological) processes, although they may be closely connected with the physical world through natural laws. Others believe that although we have general reason to believe that mental states are physical, their material nature is inherently hidden from us.
If p-consciousness is a mystery, then so is its evolution, and this thought is generally correct. If there is an evolutionary history, then within the framework of this topic, research will be just a report on the evolution of certain physical structures in the brain with which, we can assume, thinking is inextricably linked, or the structures that cause it as an epiphenomenon. Or, at worst, structures that are causally correlated with mental processes.
Criticism of mystical theories
However, there are no good arguments against the mystical approaches to the issue considered in the article. Nevertheless, it can be shown that the various arguments that were presented in support of the mystery of thinking are bad due to their unprovability and speculativeness.
Since the focus of this article is on those cases where evolutionary considerations can help resolve alternative explanations for the nature of p-consciousness, it is worth leaving mystical approaches aside. Similarly, for the same reason, we leave aside theories that claim to explain the nature of thinking by postulating a typological identity between mental states and brain states. This is due to the fact that such identities, even if they are true, do not in fact explain some of the mysterious features of p-consciousness, such as prophetic dreams, lucid dreams, mystical experiences, out-of-body experience, etc.
The right place to look for this explanation is in the cognitive domain - the field of thoughts and perceptions. Accordingly, it is on such theories that it is worth focusing your attention.
First Order Representations
A number of theorists have attempted to explain thinking in representative first-order conditions. The goal of such theories is to characterize all the phenomenal “sensations,” the properties of experience in terms of the representative content of the experience. Thus, the difference between the perception of green and the perception of red will be explained by the difference in the reflective properties of the surfaces. And the difference between pain and tickling is likewise explained in representative terms. It depends on different methods of influencing different parts of the human body. In each case, subjective experience affects the beliefs of the subject and the processes of practical thinking, thus determining his behavior. This was confirmed by the evolution of human consciousness in the process of the great transition. Our behavior is largely determined by what and how we see it, that is, by the representative capabilities of our brain.
Representative theory
It seems obvious that for such hypotheses there will be no particular problem in providing an evolutionary explanation of thinking. The objective of this theory is to explain in evolutionary terms how transitions from organisms occur with a set of behavioral reflexes caused by simple environmental features:
- organisms whose innate reflexes are patterns of action driven by incoming quasi-perceptual information;
- organisms that can possess a set of trained action schemes, also guided by quasi-perceptual information;
- to an organism in which perceptual information becomes available for simple conceptual thoughts and reasoning.
Environmental triggers
As an example of an organism that relies solely on environmental triggers, consider a parasitic worm. The parasite drops out of the perch when it detects a pair of butyric acid, which is secreted by the glands of all mammals. These are fixed action patterns launched by some initiating stimuli. But the worm does not conceptualize anything and does not consciously correlate its behavior with the surrounding conditions. As an example of an organism with a set of innate patterns of action, guided by quasi-perceptual information, usually single individuals are given. Their behavior when leaving a paralyzed cricket in a hole with their eggs seems to be a fixed action. In fact, this is an action template, the details of the execution of which depend on quasi-perceptual sensitivity to the contours of the environment. These conditions are only quasi-perceptive, because, according to the hypothesis, the wasp lacks the ability to conceptual thinking. Rather, her perception directly controls behavior.
Looking for examples of organisms with scientific action patterns, you can turn to fish, reptiles and amphibians. They are able to learn new ways of behavior, but they are not capable of anything that really resembles practical reasoning.
Finally, as an example of an organism with conceptual thinking, consider a cat or mouse. Each of them probably has simple conceptual ideas about the environment generated by perception, and is capable of simple forms of reasoning in the light of these ideas.
From reflexes to perception
It should be obvious that evolutionary gains at every stage come from increasingly flexible behavior. In the transition from evoked reflexes to states oriented to perception, you get behavior that can be precisely tuned to the contingent features of the current environment of the body. And with the transition from a set of perceptually-oriented action patterns to conceptual thinking and reasoning, you get the opportunity to subordinate some goals to others, and it’s also better to track and evaluate the objects of the world around you.
Advantages of this theory
There is no good argument that could be found against a representative first-order theory. On the contrary, this theory can provide a simple and elegant story about the development of p-consciousness, which is one of its strengths. According to her, the evolution of consciousness is really just a further development of perception. However, there are serious objections to this approach by proponents of other concepts. Partly they are related to her inability to make important distinctions and explain some of the mysterious features of our mind.
Higher Order Representations
Firstly, there is an “internal meaning” or experience of a higher order. In accordance with it, our thinking arises when our perceptual states of the first order are scanned by the ability to develop internal meanings thanks to the subjective evolution of consciousness. Secondly, there are higher order accounts. According to them, consciousness arises when a perceptual state of the first order is or can be aimed at the corresponding point. These theories allow two additional subsets:
- relevant, where the actual presence of thinking is assumed, which has a perceptual effect on p-consciousness;
- dispositional, which states the presence of a perceptual state that makes him aware;
- then, finally, there are descriptions of a higher order. They are similar to previous theories, except that linguistically formulated descriptions of the psychic states of the subject fulfill the function of thoughts.
This is approximately what the evolution of the forms of thinking in the framework of this theory looks like. Each type of a representative account of a higher order can pretend to explain the phenomenon of the mind, without requiring an appeal to the internal, unrepresentative properties of experience. Scientists have examined this claim in detail with respect to the dispositionist theory of higher orders, and therefore it makes no sense to repeat it here.
People possess not only a herd instinct, but also a conscious ability to organize into groups, united by common rational interests. This pushed the evolution of social consciousness. This is because any system that implements this model of thinking will be able to distinguish or classify perceptual states according to their content.
As cognitive psychology tells us, the evolution of consciousness went through many stages before becoming a complex, refined system. Our mind, being a complex system, is able to recognize colors, for example red, because it was originally built into a simple mechanism for perceiving red in exactly this way, and not some other way. Bees, for example, perceive yellow as blue. Thus, this system has the concepts of experience perception available to it. In this case, the absent and inverted subjective sensations will immediately become a conceptual opportunity for those who apply these concepts as the basis of their mind. If such a system is ever created, then we can sometimes think about our internal experience in this spirit: “This type of experience could have some other reason.” Or will we be able to wonder: “How do I know that red objects that seem red to me do not seem green to another person?” And so on.
Modern view of evolution
The hominids could well have developed in specialized groups - cooperative exchange systems created for work and instrumental production, collecting and organizing information about the living world, choosing partners and directing sexual strategies, and so on. This is what some evolutionary psychologists and archaeologists suggest. These systems will operate independently of each other, and at this stage most of them would not have access to each other's conclusions. Although the anthropologist Dennett does not give us an exact date for the alleged development of these processes, this first stage could well coincide with the period of massive brain growth lasting two or more million years, between the first appearance of Homo habilis and the evolution of archaic forms of Homo sapiens. By that time, the evolution of consciousness from the psyche of animals to human consciousness had already completed.
Secondly, hominids then developed the ability to create and perceive a natural language, which was initially used exclusively for interpersonal communication. This stage could well coincide with the arrival of Homo sapiens sapiens in South Africa about 100,000 years ago. This ability for complex communication immediately provided our ancestors with a decisive advantage, providing more subtle and adaptable forms of cooperation, as well as more efficient accumulation and transfer of new skills and discoveries. Indeed, we see that the species Homo sapiens sapiens quickly colonized the globe, crowding out the species of competing hominids.
People first came to Australia about 60,000 years ago. On this continent, our species was more effective in hunting than its predecessors, and soon began to carve harpoons from bone, fish, etc. This is the fruit of the evolution of human consciousness.
As Dennett says, we began to discover that by asking ourselves questions, we can often get information that we did not know before. Each of the specialized processing systems had access to language patterns. By creating questions and receiving answers from their own minds, these systems could freely interact and gain access to each other's resources. As a result, Dennett thinks, this constant stream of “internal speech”, which takes so much of our time and which is a kind of virtual processor (serial and digital), superimposed on parallel distributed human processes, completely transformed our brain. Now this phenomenon is called "internal dialogue", and almost all spiritual and practical teachings have developed their own psychotechnics to stop it. However, this is another story.
Let us return to the emergence of internal dialogue and other attributes of complex consciousness. The final stage of its occurrence could well coincide with a surge of culture around 40,000 years ago, including the use of beads and necklaces as jewelry, the burial of the dead with ceremonies, work with bones and horns, the creation of sophisticated weapons and the manufacture of carved figurines. Later, the evolution of forms of historical consciousness began, but this is also a different story.
Language connection
In contrasting opinion, it is possible that before the evolution of the language there was only a rather limited ability to communicate in the form of mutual transmission of primitive signals. However, even if this were so, the question remains open whether this primitive language was involved in the internal operations of mature mental interaction. Even if it gradually developed, it is quite possible that structured forms of thinking could become accessible to a modern person even without the development of a language.
The evolution of the psyche and the development of consciousness went parallel to each other. Since there is evidence regarding this issue, there is an opinion that structured forms of thinking can appear without a developed language. One has only to look at deaf people who grow up in isolation in a community of their own kind (the same deaf) and who do not study any form of syntactically structured signs (letters) until a very young age. Nevertheless, these people develop their own language systems and often engage in complex pantomimes to communicate something to others. This is similar to Grechan’s classic instances of communication — and they seem to suggest that the ability to think does not depend on the presence of a complex language.
Conclusion
The evolution of human consciousness hides many secrets. Evolutionary considerations cannot help us if our goal is to argue with mystical views on the nature of the human mind or on representative first-order theories. But they give us good reason to prefer a dispositional view of the evolution of forms of consciousness on the one hand, or a theory of a higher order on the other. They also have a role to play in demonstrating the superiority of dispositional theory over higher order theory.