Various responses to this problem include that consciousness therefore forms a logically separate domain (as my old classmate and friend David Chalmers would hold). Another response is that this shows consciousness in this sense cannot be approached scientifically. I’d be happy if Buena Vista Consciousness could contribute to understanding how one aspect of what we mean by consciousness evolved within animals.

@Fred – I’m not sure I understand your point. If it’s one about the logic of consciousness not being empirically accessible, I could see some part of what you mean about its non evolvability. But, at the very least, we can agree that the biological antecedents — such as, if I’m right, the contemplation of multiple futures — have an evolutionary history.

This is a very important piece of research IMO, because it gets beyond pure speculation based on observable behavior of whether other organisms are conscious.

The best argument I have seen for associating the planning aspect of behavior with actual awareness comes from studies of neurologist and author V.I. Ramachandran, who reported that the ability to experience qualia–which are the essence of the hard problem–is closely associated with the existence of multiple behavioral options. He contrasts responses associated with qualia in humans with the more-or-less stereotyped responses linked to invertebrate vision, which is presumed not to involve qualia. There are some possible criticisms of this conclusion I won’t get into here, but this is an important piece of work that does get at this issue in a novel way.

Yogi-one gets at this issue in noting that AI researchers assume awareness emerges with growing complexity. But this is a very controversial idea, and many philosophers would argue against it. Searle’s Chinese room argument is perhaps the most well known and discussed argument against it.

If one understands consciousness as the experience of what it is like to be something (Nagel)–the so-called hard problem of consciousness–then there is a complete disconnect between ability to plan or any other measure of what in effect is intelligence, and consciousness. Not only could be very complex and intelligent behavior be carried out by a machine that we humans would all describe as unconscious, but conversely, relatively simple organisms could be conscious.

For example a Venus flytrap: it has a simple open-shut mechanism that simply closes whenever there’s pressure on the trap. It cannot even distinguish whether the stimulus is prey or not.

So perhaps there is an even more primary level of awareness that can simply receive information and even react, but not plan for the future.

So then, you would have three levels of awareness: simple awareness, consciousness, and self-awareness.

It would be interesting to explore the boundary between simple chemical reactivity and primary awareness. An interesting question would be whether a single cell has awareness, or it is simply a chemical machine. I think the prevailing viewpoint is that processes at the chemical level are pretty much done with no awareness, they are simply driven by the laws of chemical attraction and repulsion.

But does a one-celled plant or animal have awareness?

And how would you define awareness so it can be distinguished from simple chemical reactivity?

The view for AI researchers seems to be that as a system grows in complexity, it develops awareness. In other words, with enough processing power, and enough memory, you could build a fully conscious, self-aware machine.

This would imply that the idea, beloved by all religions, that something fundamentally outside the known laws of physics is necessary to give rise to conscious living beings, is a fallacy.

In other words, humans have self-awareness and robots don’t simply because humans are orders of magnitude more complex than the robots we have managed to build so far.

Also, the way we process huge amounts of information so fast is due to a technology that has so far evaded robotics. The way human nerve cells actually transfer, store, and apply information has no analog in the computer world.

Perhaps the advent of quantum computing will lead to progress on that front. In other words, humans are quantum computers on a mega-scale, according to this line of theory. Then the line of development from reactivity to simple awareness, to consciousness, and to self-awareness becomes simply a trajectory of rising complexity.

Also, I think that folks need to distinguish between ‘consciousness’ and ‘self-awareness’. Using your definition of consciousness, an animal can be conscious without being self-aware. In fact a plant can be conscious, because it can sense and react to surrounding stimuli.

Awareness of self as a separate entity is a different trait, and probably requires some specialized development in the brain. In humans, this trait of self-awareness seems to develop quite late, like 1-year or more after birth.

In fact, human babies give a good example of ‘consciousness’ being distinct from ‘self-awareness’. Self-awareness, according to this observation, would then be a specialized type of consciousness, but not a prerequisite for consciousness.

a) ‘Animal X’ can sense something from far away, but they are not more intelligent, so you are wrong.
b) ‘Animal X’ is intelligent but lives in water, so you are wrong.
c) I care about starving children, so you are wrong.
d) Starving people exist, so you are wrong.

What I got from the article was that living on land gave good eyesight a chance to evolve. Having good eyesight gave animals more time before they HAD to react to events they saw. Having the time to plan gives planning a chance to evolve. Having the ability to plan gives intelligence a chance to evolve. Having intelligence gives consciousness a chance to evolve.

The article wasn’t saying that any of that had to happen, just that it allowed it. It made it possible. Of course there are other important steps in the evolution of consciousness, but that doesn’t mean moving onto land wasn’t one of the crucial steps.

Let me suggest something. If the author wants to expand people’s consciousnesses, he should advocate widespread use of psychedelic drugs. Note, however, that individuals whose minds truly are expanded while inebriated could not and should not attempt to lead an ordinary life. Their brains are simply not equipped (adapted) to the cognitive upheaval entailed by these drugs. I believe the same thing would occur with an artifice, although it would probably be a lot less fun.

Assuming your premise is correct, there must be a physical limit on the evolution of consciousness, since there is a speed limit on how fast information travel.

I have an idea, Davey boy. Read the article for its scientific value…this has NOTHING to do with politics. If you want to spew your crazy, I’m sure there are ample other sites for you to contribute your valuable insight.

And before I get lambasted for not addressing your points: *if* you make a point, I’ll address it. Tell your friends.

#13 Maggie Lee and #15 William Santiago — I agree with you. This and the other blogs on this Discovery website are exactly “cocktail party chatter”. But they seem to attract lots of chatterers, like – uh – fish to bait?

Take the quote from Malcolm McIver above. Talk about a red herring! As if evolutionary origins of “being aware” have any relevance to some currently inhibited “effective action” against the greed, hunger, scarcity and waste promoted by the global social system politely known as “democratic capitalism”, organized and directed by a global sociopathic power. Maybe an “awareness” debate could be directed toward that awareness-controlling gorilla in the room. But how likely is that — if, for example, Discovery is an arm of the gorilla? And for that matter, who would be in charge of the Artificial Retina Technology? The Church of Bleeding Hearts?

Artificial Retina Technology and your theory about enhanced sensory capabilities to evolve consciousness is directly relevant to our ever increasing abilities to now experience imagery/video everywhere instantaneously through the web, mobi phones, ipads, video (YOU TUBE), broadcast and ever more emergent communications technologies….augmented reality, etc. It seems we seek this. Here we are now only one step removed…from direct wiring into the brain. Close. As our visual and sensory capacities increase let us hope that our empathy and compassion evolve as quickly. Ethical actions should follow concurrently.

Check out FUTURE MIND by Jerome Glenn and the evolution of the TechnoMystic. A must in today’s ever evolving whirled….

This article reminds me of one of those sci-fi stories where the aliens are about to destroy earth but they don’t because the human heart’s ability to love is just so awesome. Hey, I guess that’s one way to play to the audience, but it’s self-indulgent to think that other beings are not capable of complex states of mind that equal our own.

Back to the sandwich, I don’t necessarily think that expanding our consciousness to include all suffering is a good thing. We tend to *feel* the suffering of those we see suffering. That much stress is not a good thing.

Too much exposure would likely harden us and turn us sociopathic (in terms of a lack of empathy) in the long run. I know I feel like quite a different person after I’ve been in a big city too long.

My father spent some quality time in India 40+ years ago. He was apalled that local poor people would target foreigners for begging, but ignored (and were in turn ignored by) wealthy locals.

On the home front, how many of us shun or distance ourselves from the homeless?

Therefore, I’m not sure that merely being aware of and in proximity to poor people, is enough. I’d suggest that some additional factors are needed to make their plight relevant to ourselves:

- would helping another threaten or disadvantage ourselves?
- do we feel that our intervention would in fact help?
- do we believe that, although an individual may be helped, a larger situation exists that will not be significantly changed?
- do we believe that the needy individual is responsible for, and could correct, their own situation?
- does the need meet our level of moral sensitivity? I’m reasonably certain there is a threshold of perceived need that is highly variable. Fail to meet that threshold and aid will not be offered.

@Teresa – I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Re face-to face – I’ve had similar experiences to your own. As much as we try (and sometimes succeed) to extend moral concern through reading and viewing information, nothing can match the transformative power of something entering into your ambient, body-fixed awareness.

Teresa Mishler
Programming Director
Lifespan Seminar, LLC

That really depends! What if I were a child and in the same position (both starving children about to die), would I be expected to share my sandwich still? What if instead of a child, we find an elderly person? I find the use of the word ‘child’ here interesting because we’re all people. If starving children deserve to eat, shouldn’t we all deserve to eat too?

“If you think through the various possibilities, the only answer you eventually come to is that the starving child is too far removed from your state of awareness to really matter to you.”

No! Stop trying to take my damn sandwich. Granted, that a person far away from me is much easier to ignore than a person that is near me, but with enough effort it can be done! I’ve seen it before. There was a man last summer with a sign that read, “No Food.” He was standing near an intersection by a fast food place. No body stopped to give him a sandwich.

Just because something can be seen, it doesn’t mean that it will automatically generate concern. In fact, it might lessen one’s concern. I think that people tend to be more worried about the things that they can’t see readily, than the things they can. There’s a beautiful morning sky above me, but all I’m concerned about to day are deadlines I have to meet. The cars coming from over the hill that I can’t see worry me more than the ones that are parked that I can see. (I had to learn that moving cars are dangerous though. Otherwise either state probably wouldn’t scare me.)

Life is difficult and complicated. As humans, it might be easy to boast about having “higher consciousness,” but I think it only came about because we were so weak and fragile that we needed to band together.

If we decide to feed the starving child, we might justify it saving potential. “He or she might grow up to be a doctor some day.” If I were a starving child on the verge of dying, I might give my sandwich up to another child because I’m ready to die and I don’t really want to be a doctor anyway. “I am fed up with being fed and not fed. Finally I can be free of that. Go ahead, you can grow up to be the doctor.”

A nice future ‘toy’ that would be great to have if it could be built: a consciousness simulator. A machine that allows one creature to experience being another creature. A human could explore how it feels to be a fish. the human consciousness in this machine would process what the fish feels and how its brain processes the information and a fish could experience what it feels being a human and have vast brainpower.

The very most this suggestion provides is a basis for the insertion of a moment of hesitation between stimulus and reaction. As others have pointed out, the vibration-sensitivity of sea-going creatures also long-distance perception–long enough to allow for the insertion of that moment of hesitation for reviewing possibilities. The author’s reply that sight is far more sensitive than these other modes of sensation is simply false. Recent work has shown that at least some fish are sensitive to the lowest chemically possible level of chemical concentration for certain compounds important to their survival–very long-distance indicators of an approaching threat or opportunity.

@Colin – birds are much more intelligent, particularly the corvids, then we’d thought. It looks like they do planning. Whether birds of prey can as well is not yet studied. The spaces they work through offer fewer choices compared to terrestrial ones, due to the lack of obstacles in the air (mere range alone is not enough – you could be driven reactively to attack a distant object if there was no selective advantage in choosing between different routes to the target). I don’t know enough about dinosaurs to comment on your other point.

@maggie – of course we can define consciousness. Many people do and there are many arguments as to which definition, if any, is valid. It’s an active area of both scientific and philosophical work. I was careful to define the sense I was using since there are a lot of definitions around, just as there has been and continues to be for many phenomena folks work on, like autism. Your point about Save the Children misses the point entirely, which is that if we were more acutely aware, we’d have to be moral monsters to not share the sandwich we eat on a daily basis. That millions do via charities does not satisfy the argument – you’d have to show me that everyone but admitted moral monsters are contributing, which is manifestly not the case. Awareness via images and words helps, but it isn’t as forceful as awareness in its bodily original sense. Finally, I wish I went to the kind of cocktail parties you go to!

We can’t even define consciousness, so there’s not much way to develop a theory of that emerging. At most, this article is a few idea about how one aspect of the functioning of our neural network might have developed.

“If you think through the various possibilities, the only answer you eventually come to is that the starving child is too far removed from your state of awareness to really matter to you.”

And yet, millions of people are donating regular amounts of income every month to Save the Children and other charities to do exactly what you describe: have someone closer buy a sandwich for a starving child. So, there are other answers we come to. In humans, and other species, there is a group level of awareness and action. In fact, it can be argued that this quality of mutual awareness and communication leading to action as a group is the basis of consciousness and what leads to individual self-awareness. And you don’t have to go to science-fiction to study that phenomenon, or even to higher primates. In fact, you can observe it in fish as well as all manner of land animals.

“Consciousness does seem to be for one being at a time.”

This whole article is like cocktail party conversation, I can’t imagine why Discover decided to put it here.