Gerald M.Edelmann
A UNIVERSE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
How Matter becomes Imagination
Basic 2000
Observer Time
In this section we continue our journey into the depths of the brain and the richness of conscious phenomenology to take up several related subjects at the center of human concern. We have considered the neural mechanisms that are essential to the evolutionary origin of primary consciousness. We extended this view with specific hypotheses about the neural basis of conscious experience that can account for its most general properties. But we have not yet explicitly confronted the relationship of consciousness to language, thought, and the limits of knowledge.
This relationship is based on higher-order consciousness, which, as we have shown, allows for the development of concepts of the self, the past, and the future. To untie the world knot or at least to retie it in a less tangled form, we believe it fitting to end with reflections on these large issues. They relate to science, as well as to philosophy, and prompt some further insights into what we may and may not expect from a scientific view of consciousness.
Higher-order consciousness is obviously necessary for a scientific exploration of the properties of the conscious process. It is a paradox that as conscious human beings, we cannot fully rid ourselves of higher-order consciousness, leaving only the ongoing event-driven rush of primary consciousness. That may, in fact, be the state toward which mystics aim their devotions. Let us aim ours toward a brief exploration of some subjects related to higher-order consciousness: language, the self, thinking, the origins of information, and the origins and reaches of knowing. It is time to ask what we can expect of the scientific observer who seeks to understand the conscious process and report on it to himself and to others - it is observer time.
pg. 191
Keywords:
Language and the Self - ...neural changes that lead to language are behind tbe emergence of higher-order consciousness - aspects of the evolution of speech - Consciousness of consciousness - a key step in the evolution of higher-order consciousness was the development of a specific kind of reentrant connectivity, this time between the brain systems for language (see figure 15.1) and the existing conceptual regions of the brain. The emergence of these neural connections and the appearance of speech allowed reference to inner states and objects or events by means of symbols. The acquisition of a growing lexicon of such symbols through social interactions, probably initially based on the nurturing and emotive relationships between mother and child, allowed for the discrimination of a self within each individual consciousness. - narrative capabilities emerged and affected linguistic and conceptual memory, higher-order consciousness could foster the development of concepts of the past and future related to that self and to others. At such a point, an individual is freed, to some extent, from bondage to the remembered present. If primary consciousness marries the individual to real time, higher-order consciousness allows for at least a temporary divorce, which is made possible by the creation of concepts of time past and time future. A whole new world of intentionality, categorization, and discrimination can be experienced and remembered. As a result, concepts and thinking flourish. Relationships that promise positive rewards can be fostered, resentments can be nourished, and plots can be laid. Scenes are enriched by symbols. Value connects to meaning and intentionality and can itself be modified in more richly adaptive ways by evolving neural systems that link individual learning back to the alteration of the value systems themselves. - reconstructing the evolutionary origins of language
Keywords:
What goes on in your head when you have a thought? - ...to take into account that a subjective domain is embodied in each person: Whatever thought I entertain, fragments reflecting my past history are likely to be at the fringe of my consciousness. Given the number and kinds of processes that are going on in parallel in any individual at a particular moment - perceptions, images, feelings, beliefs, desires, moods, emotions, plans, recollections - Is the expression of a thought ever isolated, or is it always accompanied by images, perceptions, sensations, and feelings? To answer this question, let us designate the products of primary consciousness as mental life I and those of higher-order consciousness as mental life II. - With the emergence of a higher-order consciousness through language, there is a consciously explicit coupling of feelings and values, yielding emotions with cognitive components that are experienced by a person - a self. When this coupling occurs, the already complex events of mental life I become intercalated with those of mental life II, which is even more complex. A true subjectivity emerges with narrative and metaphorical powers and concepts of self and of past and future, with an interlacing fabric of beliefs and desires that can be voiced or expressed. Fiction becomes possible. -
pg.207
Keywords: qualified realism - ...include the conclusions that there is no judge in nature deciding categories except for natural selection, that consciousness is a physical process embodied in each unique individual, and that this embodiment can never be substituted for by a mere description. Our embodiment is the ultimate source of our descriptions and provides the bases of how we know - the proper concept of the branch of philosophy known as epistemology. The insistence on embodiment as a critical factor carries with it the need to pay heed to how our brains actually develop. Detached philosophical thinking is not sufficient; it must be complemented by an analysis of brain mechanisms. - Higher-order consciousness, which includes the ability to be conscious of being conscious, is dependent on the emergence of semantic capabilities and, ultimately, of language. Concomitant with these traits is the emergence of a true self, born of social interactions, along with concepts of the past and future. Driven by primary consciousness and the remembered present, we can, through symbolic exchange and higher-order consciousness, create narratives, fictions, and histories. We can ask questions about how we can know and thereby deliver ourselves to the doorstep of philosophy. - biologically based epistemology
consciousness is embodied uniquely and privately in each individual; that no description, scientific or otherwise, is equivalent to the experience of individual embodiment.
There is no judge deciding categories in nature except for natural selection; and that the external description of information by the observers as a code in the brain leads to paradox.
These issues pose a challenging set of problems:
how to provide an adequate description of higher brain functions;
how information arises in nature;
and, finally, how we know & why - the central concern of epistemology.
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