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Tue 27 Feb, 2007 06:26 pm
There was a time that some call the Dreamstate, or rather the Time of the Dream, to clarify the point that it is not a governmental state we're talking about, but a mental state, like shock, for instance. During this period humans were guided by their feelings and emotions. This was before the accumulation of the I, and humans, like other advanced animals, lived their lives according to impulses and mindless reaction. Mindless because there was no mind. The mind slept unborn, hence the Dream. There was memory, there was learning, but there was no focuspoint traveling the trancendental grounds, no I.
Thus the primate that came to baptize itself Human walked the earth, scavenging for food and fleeing from the diminishing number of different predatory species that had them on the menu. From each escape there came a memory, an afterimage burned into the biological hard drive, unlabeled and unnamed. From each feast came memory, and each hungry, cold night too, adding to the growing sea of information, slowly creating a chaos so vast that it became the perfect place for another miracle of evolution.
Like the deer, humans had wandered without will beyond the groans of the belly demanding food, or the breeding instinct driving them to find their mates. All this time their experience being recorded and blended into the growing well of information. At some point, as is the way when a need arises, evolution resulted in a function to disarm the growing chaos before it came to harm the individual. It came gradually, like the chaos, and entirely fluid, like a mile with no markers.
An infinite mile with no markers, but with many milestones. This Awakening, to call it something, was definetly one. A focuspoint started forming, and the crucial moment came. It is known in some of our myths as "the eating of the forbidden fruit". Self awareness was born.
I agree that the story of "The Apple" is the story of self awareness. And being forced out of Eden is what results when the innocence of a mind without judgement is lost.
I have often wondered what it must have been like for our ancestors on the threshold of self awareness. It must have happened gradually. Much of our view of reality is a result of our language as well as our accumulated knowledge, so early homo sapiens, even though they may have had the same brains we have, may not have had our level of (or flavor of) self awareness.
Still, it must have been a very mystical time. In every population, just as today, there would be differences in intelligence, and emotion, and all combinations in between. Then of course they had the old and the young. Maybe for a time, each individual crossed the threshold into self awareness just as we do today when we transition from toddler (which we may not remember), to an age of awareness (usually some of our first memories of "ourselves").
I think the time in which humans were becoming self-aware was a vulnerable time. Between instinct and action there was suddenly a new agency. Now the human could chose not to eat, no matter how hungry it got.
It could chose not to obey it's instincts. A dangerous time, for sure, when coming to terms with oneself could easily lead to disaster. No wonder religion was invented...
Any comment on that conclusion ros?
The real thing was when the realisation of inevitable personal demise took place and a scientific materialist claims it was a pure physical process but makes no attempt to suggest the mechanism by which evolution came by it nor to wonder why humans are the only organisms to which it happened out of all the vast array of obvious possibilities. It was a one off. For it to have happened within organic bio-systems only the once is really unique and a divine spark is a pretty obvious contender for the responsibilty despite being unprovable for an animal with such a capacity.
I gather some types of drug can return us to the vegetative state but I've never tried any.
Cyracuz wrote:I think the time in which humans were becoming self-aware was a vulnerable time.
Vulnerable in what way? You think that awareness made humans more vulnerable to the dangers of the natural world? Or that it increased our psychological instability?
Quote:Between instinct and action there was suddenly a new agency.
Suddenly? Doesn't everything evolve gradually?
littlek
No, not suddenly. Gradually, as you say. My bad.
rosborne
I am thinking of the time when awareness was being formed. I don't think it happend as if a switch was flipped, so I imagine that there was a period in which humans experienced self awareness without realizing just what it was. Without the neccesary concepts to map changes in perception. I see humans of that era as caught in between to worlds; no longer animal, but not quite human. That might have left them more vulnrable to the dangers of nature.
But, as I said, I am imagining, because I don't think there is any hard evidence in this matter...
I can't imagine it not being sudden.
Partial self-consciousness of the knowledge of one's ultimate destiny seems ridiculous.
How does one become partially aware that Liverpool lost 1-0 in the big match. When the ball hit the back of the net in the 2nd minute of the 2 minutes extra time everybody knew of an instant that there was no way back for the Red Devils.
Before the realization of self there are a whole bunch of concepts that have to be defined. I do not think that the first human to ever become aware of himself just jumped to his feet yelling "eureka!". I think that the revelation of self was a result of a string of other realizations that turned the attention of the creatures of that time inward, thus making them vulnerable for a time.
But I think it was ok. Some theories say that important factors around gaining the brain capacity for self awareness were that the creatures that would become human settled by the sea, with easy access to fish, and thereby getting plenty of brain stimulating amino acids. Another factor was that they had fewer and fewer natural enemies, and since they didn't have to flee or spend a lot of time searching for food they had plenty of time to just sit there.
And think "I think therefore I am."
Cripes!!!
Cyracuz wrote:I am thinking of the time when awareness was being formed. I don't think it happend as if a switch was flipped, so I imagine that there was a period in which humans experienced self awareness without realizing just what it was. Without the neccesary concepts to map changes in perception. I see humans of that era as caught in between to worlds; no longer animal, but not quite human. That might have left them more vulnrable to the dangers of nature.
But, as I said, I am imagining, because I don't think there is any hard evidence in this matter...
Our own rise to awareness from newborn to adult might be the best example. Perhaps the level of awareness we at five years old, might be one which our ancestors experienced at fifteen years old.
I also wouldn't be surprised if the acquisition of language has a lot to do with cognitive awareness, even today.
I agree rosborne.
The aquisition of language was a key ingredient as I envision it.
There were grunts and guttural sounds at first, and they had very basic meanings. One grunt meant "stay away", another "danger" and so on. Then as capacity grew I envision that the amount of sounds they were able to make grew too. So more "words" for communication" were used, and gradually it evolved into what we know as language.
I think it took quite some time from the forming of spoken language to the forming of written language. Symbolic representation was a huge step, and the earliest forms of symbolic representation we know of are the cave paintings found around the world.
How much of our present self awareness is learned from our environment, and how much is innate ?
Off the top of my head I'd say that all of our ability to be aware of self is innate, while, at starting point at least, all actual self awareness is from our environment. The process of ending this "environmentally based" self awareness and finding one's true self is a process though, and one I am in the midst of.
As I see it, it is a matter of realizing that there is no distinction between "self" and "environment", that self is a "commitee of conflicting drives", as fresco puts it. There is this notion called self, but it's contents can never be easily defined, because it's contents change continuously.
Cyracuz,
I'm sure we've discussed the significance of language in self awareness.
Recognition of the child's transition from "Child's name do it" to "I do it" is to observe stages in the process of aquisition and internalisation of the "I" as an "actor" amongst other actors. i.e. Language allows for "thinking" or "the internal playing out of options for the self" ....this is the essence of "self awareness".
THUS
(1) It communicates....therefore (2) It thinks.....therefore (3) I am !
Yes, I think we have discussed that.
Does that mean that the development of self awareness has been parallel to the development of language?
As I envision it, these primal humans experienced a growing understanding, becoming aware of more and more nuances that required separation from one another, thereby expanding language, and in so doing expanding awareness of self...
Does this imply that the size of a person's vocabulary determines the degree of self-awareness?
I am probably over simplifying matters, but I do not see exactly how this works.
A study found recently that elephants are somewhat self-aware..? But their language is not thought to be well developed...and opposable thumbs trump trunks any day.
I also saw a very good theory that children are responsible for language development. It was all to do with the fact that human children are one of the most immaturely born species...(due to brain size / pelvis issues)...and the children need to communicate it's needs to it's mother, and the mother to warn of dangers. (Seems language began with nagging!)
Also, psychopathy is always useful for studying human traits. There must be various diseases which result in a lack of self-awareness?
Eorl
I would be interested in your reference to the elephant study.
Cyracuz
As far as I know what "matters" in the uniqueness of human language is thought to be the innate propensity to acquire "grammar" not the number of lexical items.
Fresco,
I understand. Was it Nietzche who said that "Grammar is the metaphysics of the masses"?
My point is only that self awareness sometimes seems to get in the way of awareness in general. We cannot really percieve the world anymore, only our illusions and mirror images of it. Curious, that once self awareness was a fact humans were no longer aware of anything else except indirectly, as relating to self...
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