A Persuasive Theory on the Origin of Consciousness

I've been reading a very interesting book these past few days, Julian Jaynes' "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind".

I've often thought about how we came to be as we are and read upon the subject, this book presents the best theory that I have yet seen.

According to the theory, consciousness is a late comer to the party.

Humanity's evolution of speech and reason did not need consciousness. Speech allowed far larger social groups to be coherent and reason allowed us to cope with the increased complexity of our environments.

As groups increased in size and settlements were formed, humanity needed some means of "sustaining" activities that have no immediate apparent reward.

The mechanism postulated is that of part of a brain that evolved to store the admonitions and advice given by parents and those in authority and to play it back. To a modern mind this playback would appear to be an auditory hallucination. Thus a non-conscious human could persist in preparing a field for planting despite the lack of immediate reward. A voice would be heard, possibly of a parent or of a leader continually reminding them to 'prepare the field for planting'.

Initially this mechanism would have been a simple playback mechanism, but driven by societal advances, it would have increased in complexity and would have been able to synthesise original commands.

The potential ramifications are interesting, the auditory hallucinations based on the voice of a person would have persisted long after the person had died, leading to a belief in life after death and even to worship of ancestors. As the complexity of the mechanism increased, there is no reason not to assume that the voices were limited to known people, and instead could have been interpreted as coming from gods.

It is interesting to note how much of the early writings available to us, talk about how people acted on the promptings of gods or goddesses and how there is very little about personal motivation. Indeed a case can be made that the introspection is a later addition to the text.

In effect early humanity were hallucinating schizophrenics (Bicameral) and much of the structure of ancient societies can be explained by this.

Consciousness only emerged when language gained enough complexity to support a concept of "I" and humanity was forced to evolve mentally by the breakdown of their bicameral societies. Consciousness emerged as an outcome of the integration of the hallucinatory aspects of our minds with the logical/active portions and the ability to conceptualise a self.

I've summarised very briefly here my understanding of a much more complete argument and have only touched on its consequences. I came across this theory first in fiction through the works of Neal Stepenson and other authors, now I can see where they took there inspiration.

I'm certain that this theory is not totally correct, but I would argue that it needs to be considered seriously as we continue to try to arrive at a full understanding of consciousness. It addresses for me how consciousness could arise without a significant physiological change.

The 'self' may be just a construct and this speaks interestingly for future human social and mental evolution.

Chilidish Men? Or Childish Women?

I'm sure that the women in my life will give me a lot of grief for this entry, but here goes...

I'm a contentedly childish man, I like my toys, I like cartoons; generally I like having the time to play from time to time. When I have to be I can be as adult as necessary, dealing with difficult things in personal or professional life.

What I have noticed over the years is a certain undercurrent in our society where certain of the feminine elements belittle men because of the very form of childishness that I acknowledge in myself. Expressions such as 'He's such a big kid.' or 'Boys and their toys...' are a mild form of this.

I have started to wonder however whether women are any more grown up than men. I think that they are just better at public relations.

When a boy is playing with toy cars and guns he is being childish, when a girl is playing with dolls, makeup and dressing up they are preparing for adulthood.

This transfers forward to later life, when women spends hours trying on different outfits or being pampered at a beauticians - that is adult. I wonder whether are really just reverting to childhood.

Evolution and Religion

Sorry about the length of time between posts, but I've spent an awful lot of time thinking about this post.

Recently I've been aware that several of my friends and acquaintances fall into one of two camps. One camp is the believers who feel that the theory of evolution is an argument used by others to attack the notion that God exists. The other camp is the sceptic who believes that the theory of evolution can be used to deflate certain of the 'absurd' beliefs endemic to most religions.

I happen to fall into another and much quieter camp, those who believe both in a religion and in evolution (whether Darwinian or a more modern form).

So, you ask, how do I reconcile the two?

My first thought is that God tends to use the most effective and elegant means of addressing his will. To my mind that means that there is no reason why evolution isn't the technique that God chose to use in creating the many and varied creatures on this planet.

Secondly I tend to take very seriously the assertion that God stands somehow outside of our conception of time. This means that to God it makes no difference whether it took 4 billion years of our time for us to evolve or we appeared in an instant. What matters is the result.

Something like evolution is almost required, because one thing that most religions are clear about is the importance of faith. Without evolution or its like, we would be able to point and say we know that a supreme being created us. Where would faith be then?

I also believe that there are reasons why we were created with intelligence; one of them is that we can start to approach an understanding of God (however slight an understanding), by investigating the marvellous universe around us..

Enlightened Self Interest

Doing a Google search today for the phrase 'Enlightened Self Interest', it came up at 35,300 hits. Yet most people who I say it to look at me blankly.

To me it is one of the founding principles of my ethics. While many of my ethics come from my Christian upbringing, I am by nature a person that likes to understand the why and the how. 'Enlightened Self Interest' (ESI) answers both these questions.

What is it?

'Enlightened Self Interest' is the understanding of the boundary where selfishness stops being productive and starts being harmful. Applying enlightened self interest means a lot of thinking, it means that you strive to see where short term selfishness will lead to long term self harm, it means that you work hard to understand the other people around you in order to be able to choose those with who to cooperate to mutual benefit and on a wider scale you have to grasp how your actions impinge on society and how they will cause society to impinge on you.

A little selfishness leads you not to give away your ability to support yourself and so not become a burden on others.

As a philosophy it is a little less than inspiring, the acknowledged ideal is to be perfectly selfless. Unfortunately that ideal only works if everyone around you is equally selfless. A selfless person encountering a selfish person has no defence.

As a simple example, enlightened self interest can address the basic tenet of most societies. 'Thou shalt not kill.', the short term benefit of killing someone in order to gain some advantage is outweighed by the long term risk that it becomes alright for anyone to kill you. In modern society this fact is (dangerously?) less obvious, in older societies a killer became an outlaw and thus fair game for others to kill.

I would ask everyone to consider applying ESI to their everyday lives and ethical decisions, as it allows one to approach the ideal of selflessness, promoting cooperation while still protecting you and society from the selfish.