The following quote was copy-pasted, from "Knowledge Formation. 7. The mind : – awareness – consciousness – wisdom" starting, on page 570 and following.
This 1,150 page book will be available on my website this 27th of August.
This 1,150 page book will be available on my website this 27th of August.
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Since the down of time life conservation, through the reproduction of the individuals and their societies, has been considered the first among “the first principles of life” and if one species of life emerged it felt dutifully compelled to reproduce. It was compelled because it was instinctively feeling that without conservation and reproduction its emergence would have been in vain indeed.
The nature of the universe is not incoherent nor random. There is an order at work throughout it that impulses a direction to its evolution. And space/time are indicators of the direction in which its evolution is unfolding.
As a matter of fact the evolution of the universe is unfolding as the materialization of what is possible in the contextual settings of its parts and ensembles. This means that what is not contextually possible is being rejected by evolution and so it does not materialize on the arrow of space/time. As a painter I understand this selection or rejection by evolution through the prism of aesthetics which consecrates the notions of beauty and ugliness that are so prevalent in all societies historically and geographically.
What is being selected by evolution is beautiful for no other reason than it is being represented on the arrow of space/time which represents the life of the universe, its sub-ensembles and their particles. What is not being selected by evolution automatically becomes ugly for no other reason than it is being rejected from the context of the universe. These principles form the essence of my personal understanding about aesthetics. I'll come back to this idea more systematically in the Volume 4 of this series that is titled “About the arts”.
Having said all this there is no need to posit that the unfolding of the universe has a starting point or an end point. It simply unfolds, for no other reason than its constant transformation in further forms. This should satisfy us for it is the substance of evolution. Evolution is the unfolding of the universe into ever more complex forms while conservation-reproduction is a universal necessity for the good reason that, without conservation and reproduction, evolution would come to a standstill which is like saying that its clock would eventually stop.
The principle of polarities indicates that the clock of the universe does not stop. Changes take place as a result of cycles : from young yin to old yin, to young yang to old yang, and back to young yin and so forth… Some of those cycles fall in the realm of human vision, or perception, while others are invisible in the realm of human vision or perception. They are invisible because their span is either too long, or too short, to be perceived in the realm of human vision or because they operate in wavelengths that are not perceived by human sensors.
Since the advent of power-societies we have always tried to circumvent our limitations by building new technological sensors that act as de-multiplicators of the human realm of perception and when these sensors failed to bring us sensical answers we delved into mental abstractions to guide our search for ever new sensors. In other words we have been engaged in a schizophrenic scientism that externalizes the human realm of perception while separating us from our traditional internal realm.
The arrow of space-time does not bear interruption because change is the rule of life and the scientifically non-proven theory of the big-bang can not even be invoked to deny the continuity of the arrow of time. If there has indeed been a big-bang, as astrophysics pretends, it should be understood as the end-phase of a cycle of contraction that ultimately explodes into a new cycle of expansion. But the separation from our traditional internal realm of perception is hiding this profound reality. Change is continuous and the idea that it would have emerged sometime in our deep past, and will peter out sometime in our deep future, is an ideological construction that has been fostered on us by the separation of our realms of perception.
In other words old contraction gives way to young expansion that grows into old expansion that, in turn, grows into young contraction that grows in old contraction and so on… The forms of the contraction, or the expansion, might eventually change but there is always continuity in their dance along the arrow of space-time. But the continuity of this dance will, in all probability, always stay outside of the human realm of external perception.
The fact is that the separation of our internal and external realm of perception is a cultural and societal phenomenon that is narrowing our realm of comprehension ! But the narrowing of the limits of human comprehension can’t hide from our observation the fact that the instinct of each species is to prioritize the conservation and the reproduction of life which are the most determinant set of life’s polarities. The second most determinant set being the search life’s urge for ever more complexity.
This implies that, even if our internal and external realms of perception are separated in the cultural field of our societies, our realm of comprehension is still constantly remanded by our biological field. But how does this work ? Since the down of life on earth each individual, of each species that ever emerged, was equipped with a predictive, or probabilistic computation function that was connected to bodily sensors feeding it through the nervous system, with inputs of information about what is going on in its habitat. This device eventually takes different forms from one specie to another but the outcome is always the same : biological computation of the gathered information and eventual commands of actions to the body in order to ensure its integrity.
The strategy at work here is to maximize the chances that the individual will effectively prolong its life and eventually take its chance to further reproduce. In other words sensors inform the brain about potential dangers in the near environment. The brain computes the potential outcome of that information and orders the body to take eventual actions. And all this takes place in a fraction of a second well before the mind becomes aware of what happens. Once aware the mind often delusions itself into believing that it orders the action.
This mechanism is still at work in human beings in the twenty-first century. But societal evolution, and more particularly societal knowledge formation, have unleashed a supplemental line of data processing that acts through the synchronization, of the daily-contextual settings with the societal cultural field, to produce the daily societal culture.
The fact is that even in the societal cultural field our minds are no match for the speed at which the brain calculates and orders actions. The synchronization of the daily-contextual settings, with the societal cultural field, and the resulting societal evolution remain thus largely an unconscious line of data processing that mimics the probabilistic computation of bodily actions.
What happens is that the brain gets its information from biological sensors that scan the environment. The major sensor of the human being is the eye that transmits live uninterrupted visual signs to the brain. Our other sensors complement the eye : — or they inform the eye where to watch — or they inform the brain about additional information not contained in the visuals supplied by the eye.
The information gathered by the brain is then analyzed and thoroughly processed to predict the potential outcomes, for the individual, of what is going on in her or his environment. From these potential outcomes the brain computes the most likely, or most probable, scenario that will ensure the protection of the body from any damages. If the probability is high that damages are unavoidable the brain will order a path of action that will minimize the damages while ensuring the survival of the body.
This process of life preservation is one of the first among “First Principles of Life”. It is also called “the strong principle of life”. And, as we just saw, “the strong principle of life” also manages the synchronization of the daily contextual settings with the societal cultural field to produce our daily-culture. As evolved or conscious, as our minds might be, the brain always takes precedence which confirms that biological evolution primes cultural and societal evolution.
In situations of urgency the brain simply does not tolerate the loss of time for an intervention by our mind. The order to act has already been transmitted to the body before our minds realize the nature of the encountered situation. And the processing speed of the brain is what so often causes us to be surprised by our own actions.
This whole 'sensor-brain-mind' process is primal for every living species. And the fact that visual information is the primary source of information, of the human brain, has instilled an habituation of the mind to visual signs as its primary source of meaning. This explains the recourse to visual signs, by the (wo)men of knowledge in the dawn of tribal societies, to share meaning to the minds of their fellow tribesmen. A practice that originated what in the Renaissance came to be called the arts.
The process, of 'sensor-brain-mind, originated the communication of the societal worldview through visual signs and this explains how and why the arts took such a central place in human activities.
But how exactly and when the animistic (wo)men of knowledge came to realize the importance of their communication through artistic practices will always remain an enigma. It makes no doubt that the observation, of the rhythms of nature in the habitat, was always their preferred method of knowledge formation and in light of the human attraction to the visual, and its relation to meaning, it should not come as a surprise that they eventually used artistic practices to share their view of the world with their fellow tribesmen.
This was true one hundred thousand years ago and it remains true today. The only difference between then and now is that the animist (wo)men of knowledge used this observation to ensure the survival and continuity of their societies while today the image makers have fallen out of the loop of societal significance. Today the arts are indeed solely used to generate short term gains for the holders of stocks in the art-merchants’ companies.
There is no longer any concern, whatsoever today, for the transmission of meaning to the minds in order to ensure the well-being of the viewers or for the sustainability of their societies. When the transmission of meaning is invoked it is solely to propagandize the vision of reality held by the men of power who in Western-Modernity are the big capital holders and their private and public institutional servants.
The visual arts yesterday were at the service of life and by extension of humanity at large. Today visual arts serve “the mechanical reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money, or debt, into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”. And we need to remember that the scientific rationality of this reason has initiated a 6th mass-extinction that could possibly wipe humanity from the surface of the earth. In light of all this what is the smartest way ? Then or now ? You tell me…
It takes only a small step to imagine how the potential, of the human attraction to the visual and its relation to meaning, has had on strengthening societal cohesion. The animist (wo)men of knowledge were in charge of all aspects relating to the knowledge formation of their tribe. And their learning was undertaken by consulting the spirits animating all entities in their habitat. The spirits were viewed as intermediaries, between the whole and all species on earth, whose task was to instill the consciousness of the universe in the minds of the animist (wo)men of knowledge.
This kind of knowledge formation has spread over a very long line of generations which, to me, suggests that societal continuity was a constant preoccupation for all (wo)men of knowledge under non-power tribal societies and animism. And so visual signs became naturally their prime instruments to increase societal cohesion so as to ensure societal reproduction.
I dwell at length, in the Volume 5 of this series, on the cycles of concentration and collapse of early kingdoms and their ending with their absorption in empires that reproduce their civilization over the generations.
It was the collaboration of men of power, with the men of knowledge having a large following, that allowed empires to glue the minds of their citizens in a common foundational narrative or worldview. And it was the sharing of a worldview by the citizens of empires that permitted their reproduction over the generations.
Visual arts played a leading role in these operations by instilling meaning in the minds through visual signs. But by the time of empire, in the West, the image makers were no longer the men of knowledge but low social status specialized craftsmen who were illustrating the creed of the religious or philosophic men of knowledge to propagandize the vision of reality of the men of power. In other words power in the West split knowledge, and the making of its visual signs, to propagate its vision of life.
China experienced a radically different set of circumstances. The animist (wo)men of knowledge became the scholars of the early power-confederations. They practiced poetry, music, painting, archery and philosophy and after successfully passing exams they were de facto recruited to manage the institutions of power. So the approach of the arts was quite different between the West and China along the whole of the history of power societies. I'll come back in detail on this subject in book 4 “About the arts”.
This state of affairs continued unquestioned until the eruption of Modernism, in Europe, that the avant-garde posited as being a radical rejection of past representations in favor of a search for deeper dimensions of reality. Unfortunately within the span of half a century the adventure of Modernism concluded in total confusion. In contrast the practice of knowledge formation and the arts in China continued unabated until the republican revolution of 1911 when the institutions of power got destabilized for a few decades.
In summary biological evolution equipped Homo-Sapiens with a brain that is able to handle abstractions and to use visual signs to compute meaning in the brain. And once the brain terminates its analysis, of the data procured to it by the bodily sensors, it eventually orders decisions at the attention of the body so that it can take the necessary actions to ensure its preservation.
Biological evolution expanded into cultural and societal evolution when the men of knowledge started to use this same visual strategy to form knowledge and to share it with all. They represented their narrative about the working of reality in visual signs that, when captured by the minds of their fellow-tribesmen, strengthened societal cohesion which in turn ensured the conservation and reproduction of their societies while alleviating individual suffering.
The rhythm of cultural and societal evolution ran ever faster and gradually overwhelmed human life. But in the process Homo-Sapiens lost sight of “the First Principles of Life” which resulted in the separation, of their internal and external realms of perception, that eventually saturated the cultural field of their societies with confusion. In the confusion Western-Modernity lost contact with the big picture and externalized costs that generated multiple side-effects.
During this ending of Late-Western-Modernity we observe that “the Great convergence of the multitude of side-effects of Western-Modernity” has engaged a 6th mass-extinction which now threatens to wipe humanity from the face of the earth ! But as far reaching as the ultimate damages of the separation, of the internal and external realms of perception, might be the fact is that our biology remands us constantly of “the First Principles of Life” which explains the growing call for a new societal paradigm.
1. The brain and the mind.
Because the brain’s analysis and decision-making is such an extremely energy hungry process the nervous system, in an innate reflex, arranges for the brain’s automatic re-use of formulas that worked in the past.
To save some of the resources used by the brain the nervous system encourages a kind of instinctual computation that we call the action of the mind. We know for a fact that we are largely unconscious about the mass of computations that are carried out by our brain. But we seem to gain awareness, at least in an impressionistic fashion, about repeated orders by the brain that our mind associates with elements of its own perception.“Glucose is the obligatory energy substrate for the brain. … Although the brain represents only 2% of the body weight, it receives 15% of the cardiac output, 20% of total body oxygen consumption, and 25% of total body glucose utilization.” (1)
Rationalists view the mind as a property of the brain but it seems to me that it acts more like an emergent property of our nervous system, which sensing the tension of the body caused by the huge consumption of energy by the brain, feels compelled to find an alternative answer to the demand, for analysis and commands, addressed to the brain by the signals of the body’s sensors.
Viewed from this angle the process of the mind’s emergence appears to be different from the process of life’s emergence after organic matter satisfied a set of chemical conditions while encountering a particular environmental energy setup. Life emerges indeed in the context, of a long chain of causes and effects, which gets animated by a favorable energy context that organizes organic matter in a particular molecular arrangement that has the property to replicate over the long haul.
In contrast the mind emerges somehow like a virtual brain which juxtaposes present signals, by the body’s sensors, with past brain computations that were associated with similar signals. Such a juxtaposition allows the mind to reflexively command orders to the body thus reducing the tension rising at the prospect of the brain’s use of energy to analyze the data and command an order to the body.
By reducing the brain’s demand for resources, the mind saves energy that becomes available for expanding the time of brain usage or other tasks for other body functions. In the process the nervous system captures the intentions of the brain and impulses the minds’ intervention along the lines of past brain decisions that answered similar signals by the body’s sensors.
The mind acts thus like an instinctual virtual brain that is activated by the nervous system’s reading of the memory of the brain's imprinted set of past computations that were associated with the observation of similar signals. This idea is reverberated in popular expressions such as “a gut feeling” or “an intuition” that make us believe that we know the outcome of a sequence of coming events.
1.1. The primitive instinct
After a certain threshold of repetitive decisions by the brain, the nervous system activates an instinctual virtual brain, that activates the mind of the self. The mind is indeed no more than an innate reflex of the nervous system to save the consumption of energy by the body.In other words when the eyes see a phenomenon, that in the past led to decisions by the brain to activate actions by the body, the nervous system takes over and orders the mind to decide the same kind of actions. In this sense the innate reflex of the nervous system activates the mind to act along the lines of what the brain computed in the past thus saving the energy that would have been used by the brain to order the body to act.
After a known signal is transmitted to the brain, by the body’s sensors, the nervous system activates a stack of memory that in an innate reflex activates the mind’s command of an order to the body.
But how does the mind become aware of its activity ? In other words how do we get a feeling of self from this instinctual something that is called the mind ? This is the trillion dollar question that has still not found any valid scientific answer. The question could usefully be reformulated as what drives the individuals to discover their thinking, behaviors, and action, as if these reflected in a mirror ?
We are aware of only a very small portion of what is going on in our brain and are unaware of the bulk of its activity. This implies that our brain's computation and its responses at best stay in the realm of the subconscious. We may eventually gain the knowing from science that the brain influences our behaviors and that what we are conscious about is stored in the instinctual memory of the nervous system. But this does not give us access to what is really going on in our brain.
1.2. Discovering ourselves in a mirror
What awakens the awareness of the mind is attention and observation. So the question moves from 'how does the mind become aware of its activity' to how our attention and observation are being activated which brings us back to their reflection in the mirror of the mind.Plato's “tripartite structure of the soul” (2) has influenced almost every Western thinker interested in the human mind. Among the most influential :
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Kant wrote the following :
“...all faculties of the soul, or capacities, are reducible to three, which do not admit of any further derivation from a common ground: the faculty of knowledge, the feeling of pleasure or displeasure, and the faculty of desire” (3)
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The trilogy of the mind remains a popular idea
An example among many of this popularity is the book “The trilogy of mind: Cognition, affection, and conation”, by the American psychologist Ernest R. Hilgard, (4) continues to exerts a huge influence.
To possibly reach such a conclusion the individuals would necessarily need a deeper recourse to knowledge formation. The desire for alleviating suffering, which incidentally might produce pleasure, is an elegant explanation of the thirst for knowledge formation that closes the loop from knowledge to the mirror where emerges the self.
Once the process of knowledge formation is put in motion there is no stopping its movement forward. The desire to alleviate suffering marginalizes anything that stays in the way and its movement forward becomes thus an automatism that, in one way or another, encounters the mirror projecting the image of the inquiring self. This is when the reflections of one’s face on the surface of water comes to mind as a metaphor for the mirror.
1.3. The emergence of awareness
We have a better chance to find a satisfying answer to the question, “how our attention and observation were activated initially”, by focusing on the intersection where biological evolution meets societal evolution as was also the case with the question “how tribal societies emerged initially” to which the best answer is “the social brain hypothesis” (5) that verifies the existence of a close relation between group population size and individual brain size.The expansion of the brain to the frontal cortex opened the path to the generation of abstractions from the observations of early Homo-Sapiens. Tens of thousands years later the first such abstractions emerged in the conscious minds of some individuals and it took tens of thousands years more for the conscious mind to that these abstractions had the potential to satisfy the most desired outcome : the alleviation of individual suffering. Thus appeared the notion of knowledge formation but satisfying the needs of small bands called for the non-stop foraging of these hands. The idea eventually emerged to delegate the band’s knowledge formation to the least physically able body which explains the origin of the association of the (wo)men of knowledge with physical infirmities.
The (wo)men of knowledge were immediately confronted with how to maximize the sharing of their abstractions. The spoken language was still a poor instrument to share abstract ideas. Visual signs had always been the most potent instrument of communication which explains their use, by the (wo)men of knowledge to share meaning with the brains and minds of their companions. And music was soon used to amplify the meaning of visual signs by manipulating the feelings they suggested. Later it was eventually observed that dance amplifies the power of feelings through trances that illuminate the meaning of the visual signs.
Because visual signs, music and dance allowed the members of bands to share a common vision of the world the trust among themselves was boosted. They had suddenly de-multiplied our grooming abilities to larger quantities of individuals which resulted in increasing small bands populations. And the increasing population of small bands eventually concluded, after a few thousand or a few tens of thousand years of trials and errors, with the natural selection of the tribal golden number of 150 that fixed the average population size of the tribal base-group.
Both “the social brain hypothesis” and the Golden number, also called “Dunbar number”, are attributed to British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar. The “social brain hypothesis” is an image template of the answer I have in mind about the question “how our attention and observation were activated initially”. This is also an emergent answer at the intersection between biological evolution and societal evolution.
1.3.1. Observations about brain-mind
The brain and other data processing centers are part of the body which means that they emerged as specialized organs in the individual’s biology. The mind is not a biological quantity. It is a reflection, of the working of the body’s data processing centers, that eventually activates an awareness in the mirror, or in the self, that receives that reflection.The mirror, that receives the reflection of the reality of the world, is activated by the self as the conscious mind. But the conscious mind captures only a small fraction of the reality of the world. The bulk of that reality remains hidden in the data processing centers of the body. The conscious mind should thus be viewed as an emergent property of the body’s data processing centers. I described this emergent property in 7.3.1. The primitive instinct.
After a certain threshold of repetitive decisions by the brain, the nervous system activates an instinctual virtual brain, that activates the mind of the self. The mind is indeed no more than an innate reflex of the nervous system to save the consumption of energy by the body.
Starting from an innate reflex of the nervous system, to reduce the consumption of energy and resources by the body, the mind is activated by the self as the conscious mind. Under the impact of socialization the self eventually learns to capture more of what the mirror reflects from the reality of the world but the conscious mind is not equipped biologically to capture the entirety of the reality of the world.
Capturing more, of what the mirror reflects from the reality of the world, engages the conscious mind in 3 levels of development, — awareness — consciousness — wisdom, along the following lines :
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The brain is a life preserving predictive and probabilistic computation machine
All living species are equipped, in one way or another, with a computation mechanism in order to satisfy the first among “First Principles of Life” which is the preservation of life. And what is also noteworthy is that this first among “First Principles of Life” is also the prime focus of all living species. -
The innate reflex of the nervous system activates the primitive mind
The primitive mind is an automatism that shifts into action, in order to reduce the energy consumption of the brain. While this principle is observed to be in application in all species its active forms vary according to the biological context of species. -
The biological nature of the brain evolves in complexity in order to adapt to changing contextual settings
When confronted with contextual changes, that threaten the survival of life, the brain evolves an added layer of computational power to its existing state. And when a new layer is evolved, as an adaptive answer to a changing context, it uses computation principles to solve the newly emerging contextual stimuli. -
The computation principles, used to solve unanswered contextual stimuli, are woven in the biological framework of the species
The biological framework of species contains the potential to address a certain range of contextual stimuli. This range corresponds to the species bandwidth of survivability which means that any shift outside of this bandwidth may potentially lead to the extinction of the species.
Since biological evolution is an adaptation to a changing context each evolutionary step procures a range of behavioral adaptations. In the case of Homo-Sapiens the computation power, at the time of the emergence of the Neocortex, was exceeding the contextual demands which encouraged the use of that available power for further experiments. After growing a Neocortex, to answer changed contextual settings, the available computation capabilities were used to power a societal shift from the archetypal model of small-bands with populations in their low tens, to the archetypal model of tribal societies with populations of 150 members on average.
The organization of larger societal groups was eventually attained by enriching the communication abilities of early Homo-Sapiens which allowed them to share abstract ideas through visual signs and language. This rapidly enlarged the circle of grooming to the larger populations of tribal societies. -
This adaptation of the brain, to the necessity of answering the changing contextual settings, boosted the brain’s consumption of energy and resources which unleashed a corresponding reflex of the nervous system to reduce this consumption by activating a primitive mind
The fact that science does still not know, how the mind evolved awareness, does not contradict the chain of events that emerged at the intersection of biological and societal evolution. On the contrary it opens our field of vision and helps us pinpoint when and how awareness emerged. We are here in the territory of explicative hypotheses to help fill the void of meaning that characterize our approximations of the conscious mind’s reality. -
Feeling and thinking → desire to alleviate suffering → the source of the human reflex to acquire knowledge
The reflex of the nervous system to reduce the consumption of resources by the brain, is reinforced by the trilogy, that I unbounded from Kant's “tripartite structure of the soul”, — the complementary polarities of feeling and thinking : suffering and pleasure — the desire to avoid suffering and to gain pleasure — the thirst to alleviate suffering and gain pleasure was the source of the human reflex to acquire knowledge. -
A warming climate during inter-glacial-periods boosted population levels destabilizing their form of organization and calling for the experimentation of new archetypal model of society
The process of knowledge formation, that small-bands delegated to their less physically able individual, was so successful that their model of society got destabilized creating thus the conditions for a shift to the new archetypal model of tribal societies during the Eamian inter-glaciation-period that lasted from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago. The process of development of the conscious mind converged with physical fluctuations in our neck of the woods in the Milky way that resulted in abrupt climate variations in the habitat of life on earth.
The formation of knowledge that had started in small bands eventually boosted their populations and destabilized their model of society. By 130,000 years ago an abrupt climate heating melted the ice and boosted already larger small band populations. Their organizational model crumbled and gave eventually way to the archetypal model of tribal societies.
About 17,000 years ago a new bout of climate heating boosted the population levels in the Tri-Continental-Area which destabilized its tribal model of organization and ushered a transition period that eventually concluded with the successful reproduction of power-societies around 5,000 years ago. Different contextual settings in East-Asia allowed for a continued development of “Tribal-Cultural-Confederations” that imperceptibly shifted into “power-Confederations” sometime around 5,000 years ago.
These two consecutive physical fluctuations in the habitat forced 2 consecutive shifts in archetypal models of societies. The differentiation in regional contextual settings gave way to the same kind of archetypal model of power-society but their form was nevertheless otherworldly and remain so to this very day.
1.3.2. Life-brain-mind: a summary
The trilogy “life-brain-mind” indicates an evolutionary process of life that emerged in the right set of contextual settings and then evolved biologically to the point when the biology of Homo-Sapiens led to a process of knowledge formation that eventually initiated a new archetypal model of society which added the derivative path, of societal evolution, to biological evolution.In the process of societal evolution the nervous system shifted part of the brain’s computation to a virtual brain that we call the mind. Here follows a summary of the evolutionary process of life that led to the emergence of the conscious mind :
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Emergence of life
Life emerged at the intersection of a given set of organic matter and a given energetic context. That intersection drove a particular re-arrangement of organic matter in single-cell molecules that reproduced over the long haul and that later eventually assembled with other molecules in multi-cell-organisms thus evolving into more complex life forms. -
The objectives of life
Once emerged life is driven by its two First Principles of preservation (conservation) and complexification (change) which are the polarities of the Principle of Life. -
The brain, or the probabilistic computation, that is instrumental in the preservation and reproduction of life
The necessity of preservation unfolds a biological technique, or an instrument, that will take care of the execution of this principle. That instrument is the brain and the technique is predictive or probabilistic computation. Note that, in order to preserve their existence, all living species are equipped with a version of such an instrument, and its technique, that may vary in its biological evolution. -
The command of orders to the body, by the probabilistic computation of the body’s processing machine, is an energy guzzling process
The processing of data by the body’s processing machine, in which the brain plays a leading role, is consuming a lot of energy and resources. This puts the body’s processing machine in competition with other bodily functions for the usage of energy and resources. -
At a certain threshold, of new contextual settings-stimuli, the brain evolves a new layer that uses computation principles to solve the unanswered contextual stimuli.
The innate reflex of the nervous system is then instilling in the individual a mechanism of self awareness that takes over some of the tasks undertaken by it which saves a further quantity of energy.
Self-awareness, in turn, leads to the formation of knowledge which uses the saved energy to power the unused computation power contained in the newly evolved brain-layer. In other words self-awareness saves energy and brain-power that so gets freed to increase societal complexity. -
Biological evolution enfolds societal evolution
In 4 and 5 biological evolution enfolds societal evolution which generates its own stimuli demanding computational answers. Societal evolution will also use any unused computation power to experiment new paths such as evolving knowledge formation that leads to ever more societal complexity. -
Awareness evolves into consciousness
At the intersection of biological evolution and societal evolution, when the brain reaches a certain threshold of computational power, awareness transforms into an arising consciousness. Science is still not able to explain how this operates but I feel confident that an answer will eventually be found and that it will fit this presentation. -
The evolution of consciousness into wisdom
Consciousness then unleashes the search for more knowledge as a means to further alleviate suffering and eventually to gain pleasure. The thirst for knowledge formation, to alleviate the suffering of their fellow tribesmen, was the process that set the animist (wo)men of knowledge on a path toward ever increasing consciousness that eventually resulted in wisdom.
Points 1 to 5 have already been verified by science. Point 6 to 8 are still being debated by scientists but as I just wrote I feel confident that the answer procured here fits the following description :
This description opens our field of vision to the true nature of consciousness which acts like a ladder :“At the intersection of biological evolution and societal evolution when the brain reaches a certain threshold of computational power awareness arises and after reaching this threshold it transforms into an arising consciousness that engages the (wo)men of knowledge in a process of learning which procures them increasingly higher levels of comprehension and consciousness that some rare Sages among them will grow into wisdom.”
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Increased awareness that knowledge alleviates suffering
The individuals become increasingly aware that knowledge alleviates suffering which boosts the thirst of some individuals for novelty. And the adoption of more novelty by societies increases their complexity which, in turn, fosters an increased awareness that knowledge is at the core of development. -
The primitive mind is an innate reflex of the nervous system
The brain is using a high portion of all the energy available to the body. And in an innate reflex the nervous system intervenes to discharge the brain from repetitive answers to similar inputs by the body’s sensors.
To discharge the brain from repetitive answers the nervous system connects its memory, of past computations and commands to the body, with repetitive inputs by the body’s sensors which results in reflexive commands of orders to the body.
The individual unconscious transforms gradually into a conscious awareness of the repetitive answers of the nervous system to data collected from the bodily censors. And this newly gained conscious awareness gives rise to the conscious mind which discharges the nervous system and thus further reduces the energy consumption of the body’s processing machine. -
Sapience, or the interrelatedness of the individuals’ consciousness, integrates the parameters of the contextual settings in the habitat
At a certain threshold of consciousness the individuals gain an awareness about their interrelatedness with the contextual settings in their habitat and the necessity to avoid deranging its balanced state which sustains their lives. This is called the path to sapience and sapience arises when the entire species gains the consciousness of its interrelatedness with the contextual settings in its habitat.
Imbued as they are with the exceptionalism, of their cultural field, Westerners think that their species is on the top of the ladder of sapience. But “the Great Convergence of the multitude of side-effects of-Modernity in this late stage of Western Late-Modernity” is starting to awake them to their illusion.
Day after day it becomes indeed more evident that Western-Modernity is irremediably destroying the habitat of life on earth. Homo-Sapiens have now reached a cross-point. Or they watch unperturbed the sacrifice of their habitat in which case their species will soon be extinct. Or they decide to act as a species to remedy the causes of the destruction of their habitat in which case they would finally do justice to the anthropologists who named their species. -
Universal consciousness
The highest ever possible level of consciousness is the universal consciousness that animism defined as “seeing through the eyes of the universal spirit” which Buddhism qualifies as being the absolute consciousness.
The archetypal model of power-societies, and their paradigm of Modernity, have unfortunately broken this idea of absolute consciousness while they converted the individuals to the illusion of happiness though material possessions. But what could this ultimate consciousness be all about ? Might it be that it comes with “seeing through the eyes of the universal spirit” as is implied in the animist tradition ? And if this proves to be true will it eventually reconcile humanity with the Whole and its own particulate nature ?
<2>Notes
1. “Brain Energy Metabolism. An Integrated Cellular Perspective”, in American College of Neuropsychopharmacology “Psychopharmacology – The Fourth Generation of Progress”, by Pierre J. Magistretti, Luc Pellerin, and Jean-Luc Martin
2. "Plato, Freud, Nietzsche, the ‘soul’ and the question of human finitude”, Phronimon: Journal of the South African Society for Greek Philosophy and the Humanities, Vol. 13 (1), 2012, pp. 77-9, by Bert Olivier. 2012-01.
3. "The Critique of Judgement", translated by James Creed Meredith, by Immanuel Kant. 1790.
4. “The trilogy of mind: Cognition, affection, and conation”, Journal of the History of the Behavioral 16 (1980): 107-117, by Ernest R. Hilgard
5. Check Robin Dunbar’s publications. The following are available here : "Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language" by Robin Dunbar. "How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Dunbar's Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks" by Robin Dunbar
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