I have this idea about how self-consciousness happened. Let me know where my logic is faulty and give me a chance to respond. And any time I use the word theory its purely the colloquial use of the word. Thanks
We are the product of Evolution. I use the capital "E" because I use it in that sentence as an all encompassing word. Not just biological but also cosmological. Sure, we don't know everything about physics, but we can observe that stars, planets, galaxies and everything else in the universe had its own kind of evolution.
On earth we had a new kind of evolution, of the biological nature. For a billion years or so, we were just single celled organisms. Then, at some point, we started becoming more than just an amoeba. Our biological adaptation became more and more sophisticated. We crawled out of the ocean, and then started evolving on dry land.
I am sure that many would agree that the earliest brain was a key to life being able to adapt more effectively to its surroundings. There was always this raw survival mentality and the brain made it easier to adapt.
I believe that animals developed consciousness at very early stage in evolution. It just was a consciousness that worked on auto-pilot. It didn't think about decisions, it only reacted. For millennia after millennia, the largest and most powerful forms of life became the most likely to survive. This, mixed with an atmosphere that was more rich in oxygen, kept the large, powerful, and sometimes vicious animals at the top of the food chain.
Yes, there were still smaller and maybe even more gentler species, but they had a survival technique that was more focussed on different ways to avoid the big guys rather than try to beat them. Some evolved to be faster, some were more agile, some were smarter, and everything in between.
It was after 2 mass extinctions that there was a huge game changer. There was ecological like peace time.
The evolutionary line that was becoming smarter, became more and more sophisticated in its survival techniques. It used similar evolutionary advancements that many animals implemented but it was able to try and consciously perfect them. Like living in herds, making tools, and building things. All the while, the brain is doing this on an autopilot that is just focussed on being able to survive.
So the brain had the ability to create, but it only could create new things that were tangible outside of the brain, like rudimentary tools. All of the energy of the brains was focussed on these survival techniques and the brain never diverted energy to itself. This is how I believe sleep evolved, it was a necessary function that allowed the brain to recoup after expending all of its energy making sure that the body functions correctly and efficiently.
Somewhere along the way though, the herds of early human ancestors began to get more and more comfortable. The brain had evolved a highly efficient system where almost all of the necessary survival adaptations worked in their very own autopilot. It had to use less and less energy on just pure raw survival. The brain was able to divert energy to itself for the first time.
When this happened, it was like the pilot woke up from his nap and jumped back into the cockpit. For the first time in evolutionary history, the brain realized that it could create something so much more useful than any tool, it could create its own thoughts.
Of course, like all evolutionary advancements, this early self-consciousness was also very rudimentary. The pilot was in the cockpit, but it still had every intention of surviving. So it was almost like the pilot actually didn't know how to fly, but was learning to fly by just sitting in the cock pit while the autopilot was still on. The more time in the cockpit, the more comfortable the pilot felt to take more control.
This advancement in cognitive thinking ability sped up the evolution of these intelligent humanoid like creatures. They grew closer in their communities. They were even able to start passing time with entertainment. They created stories and drew pictures. They even developed a sense of humor among other evolutionary oddities. My theory on humor is that we are just observing an absurdity. Look at a child, they laugh when you play peek-a-boo. Its a gut reaction to a perceived absurdity. It also can eventually lead to the baby getting scared and crying, I think because the little baby brain hasn't developed enough to understand that the absurdity that they experienced is not real.
Basically, I am saying that consciousness was always hardwired in. It just took our brains being able to relax a bit from the arms race, that was evolution for billions of years, and focus more on its own ability to make decisions based off of predictions. Consciousness was not an instantaneous eureka moment but another slow moving evolutionary advancement. As we became more and more comfortable with our own thoughts, we started creating more and more ideas. This was the turning point that made us fully self-conscious
We are the product of Evolution. I use the capital "E" because I use it in that sentence as an all encompassing word. Not just biological but also cosmological. Sure, we don't know everything about physics, but we can observe that stars, planets, galaxies and everything else in the universe had its own kind of evolution.
On earth we had a new kind of evolution, of the biological nature. For a billion years or so, we were just single celled organisms. Then, at some point, we started becoming more than just an amoeba. Our biological adaptation became more and more sophisticated. We crawled out of the ocean, and then started evolving on dry land.
I am sure that many would agree that the earliest brain was a key to life being able to adapt more effectively to its surroundings. There was always this raw survival mentality and the brain made it easier to adapt.
I believe that animals developed consciousness at very early stage in evolution. It just was a consciousness that worked on auto-pilot. It didn't think about decisions, it only reacted. For millennia after millennia, the largest and most powerful forms of life became the most likely to survive. This, mixed with an atmosphere that was more rich in oxygen, kept the large, powerful, and sometimes vicious animals at the top of the food chain.
Yes, there were still smaller and maybe even more gentler species, but they had a survival technique that was more focussed on different ways to avoid the big guys rather than try to beat them. Some evolved to be faster, some were more agile, some were smarter, and everything in between.
It was after 2 mass extinctions that there was a huge game changer. There was ecological like peace time.
The evolutionary line that was becoming smarter, became more and more sophisticated in its survival techniques. It used similar evolutionary advancements that many animals implemented but it was able to try and consciously perfect them. Like living in herds, making tools, and building things. All the while, the brain is doing this on an autopilot that is just focussed on being able to survive.
So the brain had the ability to create, but it only could create new things that were tangible outside of the brain, like rudimentary tools. All of the energy of the brains was focussed on these survival techniques and the brain never diverted energy to itself. This is how I believe sleep evolved, it was a necessary function that allowed the brain to recoup after expending all of its energy making sure that the body functions correctly and efficiently.
Somewhere along the way though, the herds of early human ancestors began to get more and more comfortable. The brain had evolved a highly efficient system where almost all of the necessary survival adaptations worked in their very own autopilot. It had to use less and less energy on just pure raw survival. The brain was able to divert energy to itself for the first time.
When this happened, it was like the pilot woke up from his nap and jumped back into the cockpit. For the first time in evolutionary history, the brain realized that it could create something so much more useful than any tool, it could create its own thoughts.
Of course, like all evolutionary advancements, this early self-consciousness was also very rudimentary. The pilot was in the cockpit, but it still had every intention of surviving. So it was almost like the pilot actually didn't know how to fly, but was learning to fly by just sitting in the cock pit while the autopilot was still on. The more time in the cockpit, the more comfortable the pilot felt to take more control.
This advancement in cognitive thinking ability sped up the evolution of these intelligent humanoid like creatures. They grew closer in their communities. They were even able to start passing time with entertainment. They created stories and drew pictures. They even developed a sense of humor among other evolutionary oddities. My theory on humor is that we are just observing an absurdity. Look at a child, they laugh when you play peek-a-boo. Its a gut reaction to a perceived absurdity. It also can eventually lead to the baby getting scared and crying, I think because the little baby brain hasn't developed enough to understand that the absurdity that they experienced is not real.
Basically, I am saying that consciousness was always hardwired in. It just took our brains being able to relax a bit from the arms race, that was evolution for billions of years, and focus more on its own ability to make decisions based off of predictions. Consciousness was not an instantaneous eureka moment but another slow moving evolutionary advancement. As we became more and more comfortable with our own thoughts, we started creating more and more ideas. This was the turning point that made us fully self-conscious
