Blame it on Evolution.
If one is not aware, one gets eaten and never makes babies.
Think about this — you exist within an evolved incarnation of a body/brain that has gone through some half a billion years worth of development, each new generation building upon the previous one. Not one single miss during all that time, or you would not be here.
It gets wilder, the cells that make up your body — their history goes back over four billion years’ worth of successful reproductive cycles — all within a harsh and unforgiving biosphere. (see Nick Lane)
Awareness was required for single cells to succeed, even before the eukaryotic cells took it to a whole new level with their nucleus, organelles and complex insides. Science shows us that awareness, drifting into consciousness was one of biology’s first hurdles on the way to creating life. (see Arthur Reber)
Even single celled creatures require awareness, communication, command and control, along with a vessel to navigate.
The rest is Evolution.
This Pageant of Evolution forces us to realize our body started as something very simple. With each generation modeled by the trials and tribulations dished out during its, one day at a time, life cycle, before getting passed along to the next generation. Always building upon what was there before. Striving to do better.
Folds within folds of harmonic constructive biological complexity, not to mention the bioelectrical potentials and fields this biology creates, and that became more important as complexity increased. (see Michael Levin)
Complexity thresholds exist, when systems must adapt, expand, change, or wither. That’s what our extremely complex brain evolved out of. Still we should not lose sight of the fact that our brain was built out of an already first rate consciousness processing primate brain, mammalian before that.
Think about it, there must be untold multiple layers of “consciousness” within a body/brain as complex as ours, after all, don’t cells and organs also need to be communicating? We can’t simply ignore that because they're not sexy.
Our self-aware jabbering voices are but the cherry on the top.
Too many go on as if human beings invented consciousness. It’s blinding hubris. We lose sight of the most fundamental observation of all, the Physical Reality ~ Human Mind divide.
Instead of endlessly repeating an outdated theological-philosophical stance that insists upon the improbability and incomprehensibility of Earth based consciousness,
We should be doing some serious evolutionary homework. Get up to speed, become aware of the scientific reality of how levels of consciousness permeate Evolutionary reality and the animal kingdom.
Realize it is self-evident that half a billion years worth of fortuitous successful generations ought to be able to create a fully capable body. Folds within folds, within layers upon interwoven layers of internal knowledge, with agendas, and strategies, totally beyond what our introspective mind can possibly comprehend.
Senses + Body + Brain + Interactions (interior and exterior) = thoughts, consciousness, mind. We may be the most magnificent animal Earth has created, yet, we are still made of the same stuff and processes as all other animals.
As Mark Solms, (psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist), explains it, scientifically and pragmatically the best way to understand our consciousness is, as the inside reflection of our body communicating with itself.
In light of this modern evolutionary-biological reality, seems to me there’s all sorts of new territory for young sharp iconoclastic philosophers to work with.
PS. “… Dr. Newen and Montemayor begin their paper with a blunt observation about how theories of consciousness have overlooked evolution from the start. “The evolution of consciousness is a neglected topic that plays a surprisingly insignificant role in all major theories of consciousness,” the researchers write. …”
“Consciousness should not be deemed as an ‘all-or-nothing’ cognitive function but rather as a graded and multi-dimensional process,” Dr. Maldarelli and Dr. Güntürkün write. “The presented results add to the growing body of evidence that consciousness may be present in many parts of the animal kingdom, across species that are phylogenetically distant from each other and have remarkably different brain structures.”
Here’s an introductory scientist author’s list:
Robert Hazen: — Mineral evolution on Earth, preparing the ground for biology
Nick Lane: Geology and chemistry harnesses electricity to create biology,
… the most excellent summary of “SELF”
Jack Szostak: The Early Earth and the Origins of Cellular Life
Michael Russell: On the Emergence of Life Through “Negative” Entropy Trapping
Arthur Reber: The “Cellular Basis of Consciousness” proposal — CBC
Michael Levin — Bioelectricity in development and regeneration, exploring cellular cognition.
Biology together with time, and chemistry and geology, that is Earth’s processes created creatures and environments and competition, in short, evolution.
Pageant of Earth’s Evolution, Index of noteworthy YouTube videos
Mark Solms — Regarding the Source of Consciousness
Antonio Damasio — Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain
Robert Sapolsky — Behavioral Biology with a Primatology background
Honorable mention, author David Quammen’s The Tangled Tree of Life, a front and center history of the ‘70’s genetics revolution, that ushered in this golden age of biology.
Peter Miesler,
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