Preamble: There is but one paradox:
that there can be paradoxes; all the rest are the spawn of this one. Just as with the equations of General
Relativity, the very most potentially interesting explorations give impossible
solutions. Awareness is “impossible,”
yet it is what informs these words and allows the passing on of these “ideas”
to another nervous system. Our
only “solution” has been to assume that the universe, itself, is aware, that
some how this capacity of matter has been concentrated in the human species to
such an extent that we have generated the whole consciousness process. But, of course, this is just easy
foolishness: the first second-level paradox is that awareness is the only tool
with which to study awareness.
Awareness is compellingly real, but is
not directly observable. The
physiological counterparts are broadly obvious – brain is necessary and
electrical/chemical action can be correlated in various ways. There is every reason to believe that
nervous system processes are causal. But, what does it mean when a measurable
process “causes” something as insubstantial as awareness?
The evolution of structures, processes
and behaviors can offer some clues: Bird flight became possible because of the
design of the down covering of the nascent temperature regulating of
dinosaurs. Bones are owed to
cartilage framed fishes needing to store calcium for trips into calcium poor
freshwater, as a way to avoid sea predators – added stiffness, along with an
equally complexly originated structure, the swim bladder, allowed for the
teleost fishes to be so successful; and created the base from which came the
land vertebrates.
Awareness may be of analogous
origin. But before considering
that option; one of the most common arguments made today is that awareness
(often considered equivalent to consciousness) is the natural consequence of
complexity and thus even attributable to cells (or perhaps even responsive
protein). There are many occasions
when increases of quantity result in a change of quality – too much of an
essential nutrient can turn it into a poison – and examples in which changes in
quantity retains a relationship with quality, i.e., the more quantity the more
quality (within the normal range of occurrence). However, it is more likely, when this argument is used for
awareness, that several aspects of responsiveness and behavior are being
conflated.
The vast majority of living
responsiveness is more parsimoniously analogized with a lever than with what we
call conscious agency.
Evolutionary process is, itself (even with the newest understandings of
genetic complexities and integrations of function), ultimately driven by the
relatively simple proposition that the phenotype must perform satisfactorily in
the totality of the ambient environment to remain alive and to send its
genotype on to the next generation.
The new evidence that the genotype can be more directly responsive to
selected aspects of the environment doesn’t change that basic formulation.
Homo sapiens, and very
possibly other members of the genus, began using information in a new and
unprecedentedly powerful way. I
call this the Consciousness System of Order (CSO) and treat it as a design of
order, not as a subjective product of nervous system complexity. And while there is ample to play with
in this less ambitious model, we have not even begun to recognize or explore
this potentially comprehensible idea, rather we are drawn to the confusions and
paradoxes of being aware
of our world.
It is here that I have to attempt to
disarticulate consciousness and awareness. It is clear that other species from other genera and
families, even other classes and possibly other phyla, have some elements of
awareness, but significantly do not function within the CSO [1].
The great apes, the dogs and even complex
mollusks like octopus show behaviors that suggest awareness, that is, they “rush”
to the solution of problems without going through (obvious) random problem
solving processes; and these solutions seem to be mediated by learning: stored
experience seems to organized in such a way that it can be quickly scanned and
options selected relevant to the perceived problem. While this may not suit everyone’s notion of awareness it
does describe the behaviors that we humans typically judge as “aware” behavior
in ourselves and other organisms: that is, complex, situation relevant
behaviors that are not organized and driven solely by genetically based
instinct or random actions stumbling on to behavioral solutions [2].
There are great advantages and great
dangers in approaching life with the various forms of “awareness.” Instinct has been genetically tested,
random actions are not fooled by misperceptions, but when the nervous system is
organized to sort through experiences related to the present ambient
perceptions, appropriate behaviors can be formed far more rapidly than by any
other method when dealing with a complex environment. Or… the organism can be misled, guided in directions so
misdirected that behaviors systematically fail when selected by “aware”
solutions. There is nothing about
awareness that assures veridicality.
In fact, awareness is the only source of disconnection from Reality.
* * *
Awareness is such a consistent feature of
our experience that it is impossible to imagine an experiential life in any
other form, but experience, in the broadest sense of information storage and
change in response to events, is a feature of all living things. Even our subjective experience of “knowing
about” and “evaluating” perceptual and thought events may very well not be
unique to humans. When my son’s
dog “wants” to play ‘chase the ball’ she first brings me a ball and drops it at
my feet, then, if I make no appropriate response, she touches the ball with her
nose and ‘dances’ a bit with her front legs. That failing she then pushes the ball toward me usually
bouncing it off my foot and then chases it for the foot or two that it
rolls. And finally she will try to
set the ball on my foot.
This is unlike the instinctual behavior
of a sandwasp that digs a hole, finds and stings a spider, returns to hole,
plants the spider with her egg in the bottom, covers the hole and flies away;
if the wasp is interrupted in any way it must start over again from the
beginning. The dog can pick up her behavior at any point in the normal
sequence, change the sequence in response to my actions, extend or shorten
parts, leave at any point or opportunistically take advantage of circumstances
to press her case, like setting the ball on top of me without any of the
preliminaries if I lie down on the ground.
All of my ‘operational’ assessments of
awareness are meet, short of the dog saying, “Hey you, get off your butt and
throw the damned ball.” And she
almost does that by getting agitated, when ignored, to the point of making
snappy little barks. I have,
therefore, reason to believe that she is seeing the world in designs around her
desires in ways not remarkably dissimilar to mine other than that I filter my
perceptions through the artifice of language.
It is not unreasonable to suspect that
the subjective experience of awareness, that we even more reasonably believe to
be common to almost all humans, is experienced in varyingly similar forms by
many other creatures with complex nervous systems. Certain other species may, possibly, experience direct
environmental awareness to a greater intensity than typical of most humans
since we run so much of our “awareness” through the variously distorting veil
of language processes.
* * *
If awareness existed only in the human
species, its consideration would be deeply problematic; but since it is
completely reasonable – even compelling – to assume that awareness has an
evolutionary history, then we might usefully apply the typical biological
questions to its development and function. We may still be at our limits to understand awareness
directly – as we might, say, understand the function of the immune system – but
we can, perhaps, recognize (I have to avoid saying things like ‘be made aware
of’) the naturalistic and functional origins of a biological capacity with
survival value.
This separates awareness from the
Consciousness System of Order, which, while it requires awareness processes, is
a completely new way of identifying, selecting, organizing, storing,
distributing and implementing information; and is unique to our genus.
[1] If everyone had a different name for
everything, the discovery of the process of evolution or any other systematic
process would have been unlikely if not impossible; we need to have a
consistent (and accurate) taxonomy of consciousness experience in order to
develop a veridical theory and understanding of awareness and consciousness
processes.
[2] For science and philosophy to deal
with an idea the terms of that idea must be operationalized, that is, they must
be defined as objectively measurable behaviors. It needs to be realized that general considerations of ideas
do the same the thing only without transparency; each person has “operations,”
often in the form of analogies, underpinning concepts and ideas that are
believed to be broadly understood, but deeper examination usually shows that
common terms are not supported by the same analogies, metaphors or other
operators for the ideas.
“Good” science and philosophy operationalizes
concepts in ways that thoughtful people can understand and often agree with; “bad”
science and philosophy operationalizes concepts with behaviors that don’t apply
meaningfully to the concepts. This
has been an especially difficult problem for the concept of awareness. There are people who don’t want any
organism other than modern humans (and supernatural beings!) to be aware and so
they operationalize the meaning of awareness in conditions that only humans can
meet. The goal should be to operationalize
awareness in behaviors that best distinguish it from the behaviors that are
central to other concepts.
