Richard Dawkins and the birth of consciousness.

Posted by Robert De Vos on 12 February 2010 | 2 Comments

I thought I would post this correspondence with myself and “The Forum” on Richard Dawkins’ website, on the Scimednet forum and see whether I get more intelligent discussion.   

 

{My original post to the forum ...}

 

“I sent this to Richard a week or so ago and have not had a reply, so I thought I would post it here and hopefully initiate some discussion.

Dear Richard

I heard you speak to Kate Turkington on Talk Radio 702 South Africa on Sunday evening and was very interested to hear you say that "consciousness" may have evolved in much the same way as physical life (bacteria, cellular structures and eventually large animals like humans). I think I have the context correct.

 

Have you investigated this to any degree? I am aware that just the term "consciousness" is fraught with many definitions, interpretations and philosophies, but if one sticks to the perhaps simplest, which I would think of as "having an imaginative/creative faculty which is capable of self investigation in areas of emotion and reason", there must have been a time (or defined stretch of time) between year zero at the "big bang" and now when a specific evolving cellular structure (whatever form it was in at that time) suddenly had a vague glimpse of a different ability of perception other than mostly reactive to the environment.

 

This is presuming of course that we possess "consciousness" and are not some highly sophisticated automata!

 

I was impressed with your logical progression of thought in understanding our development from simple to complex physical forms and would be grateful (if this is not in your sphere of interest) if you could point me to any relevant fields of research into evolution of "consciousness" from a purely scientific viewpoint. If it is an area of study for you, have you written or published anywhere where one could read further?

 

I think (with my presumed "consciousness") that this could be the "missing link' between biology and "rational" philosophy and would be a very interesting area of study.”

 

{A FEW WEEKS LATER, THIS IS THE ONLY REPLY TO MY POST}

“According to this Wikipedia article, it's to do with thought process being split between the left and right brain. Communication between these semi-autonomous regions being responsible for the perception of consciousness. It's not so much the difference between the human brain and the lower primates as in in the degree of differentiation of brain processes.”

With a reference to this wikipedia link:-

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

 

{MY REPLY .......}

 

Interestingly Prof Dawkins says of Julian James's book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, to which this link goes ~ "It is one of those books that is either complete rubbish or a work of consummate genius, nothing in between! Probably the former, but I'm hedging my bets."

 

James theorises that "human brains existed in a bicameral state until as recently as 3000 years ago," 

 

I (and a number of others) find this a very tenuous link. Nothing distinctly significant seems to have occurred on a social level specifically around this period in history. And this does not address the long history of global primitive rock art beginning at least 40,000 years ago, which must have required some element of conceptual reasoning, imagination, structural memory and belief in abstract entities. 

 

The idea that the human mind (the definition of which is still open to debate) suddenly made this jump, in some way analogous to the understanding of perspective in Renaissance art has no real basis.

 

"Brian McVeigh maintains that many of the most frequent criticisms of Jaynes' theory are either incorrect or reflect serious misunderstandings of Jaynes' theory, especially Jaynes' more precise definition of consciousness. Jaynes defines consciousness — in the tradition of Locke and Descartes — as "that which is introspectable***." Jaynes draws a sharp distinction between consciousness ('introspectable mind-space') and other mental processes such as cognition, learning, and sense and perception — which occur in all animals. This distinction is frequently not recognized by those offering critiques of Jaynes' theory."

 

****Using this definition and taking the development of primitive art into account, consciousness would have emerged some 30-40,000 years ago. 

 

Thanks to Wikipedia for these references. (Have you donated to Wiki to help keep us informed about almost anything?)

 

Mind ...... is the aspect of intellect and consciousness experienced as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination, including all unconscious cognitive processes. The term is often used to refer, by implication, to the thought processes of reason. Mind manifests itself subjectively as a stream of consciousness.

Theories of mind and its function are numerous. Earliest recorded speculations are from the likes of Zoroaster, the Buddha, Plato, Aristotle, Adi Shankara and other ancient Greek, Indian and, later, Islamic philosophers. Pre-scientific theories grounded in theology concentrated on the supposed relationship between the mind and the soul, our supernatural, divine or god-given essence. Most contemporary theories, informed by scientific study of the brain, theorize that the mind is an epiphenomenon of the brain which has both conscious and unconscious aspects.

 

and epiphenomenon........

In philosophy of mind, epiphenomenalism is the view that mental phenomena are epiphenomena in that they can be caused by physical phenomena, but cannot cause physical phenomena. In strong epiphenomenalism, epiphenomena that are mental phenomena can only be caused by physical phenomena, not by other mental phenomena. In weak epiphenomenalism, epiphenomena that are mental phenomena can be caused by both physical phenomena and other mental phenomena, but mental phenomena cannot be the cause of any physical phenomenon. (my italics) I find this difficult to understand as my blood pressure and respiratory function usually change when I think of Penelope Cruz; sometimes I may be so distracted as to stumble into coffee tables.

 

The physical world operates independently of the mental world in epiphenomenalism; the mental world exists as a derivative parallel world to the physical world, affected by the physical world (and by other epiphenomena in weak epiphenomenalism), but not able to have an effect on the physical world. Instrumentalist versions of epiphenomenalism allow some mental phenomena to cause physical phenomena, (the Penelope Cruz effect) when those mental phenomena can be strictly analyzable as summaries of physical phenomena, preserving causality of the physical world to be strictly analyzable by other physical phenomena.