In this article, I will be dealing with Consciousness, as you are now experiencing it (right now, at this moment, whilst reading this). I will be examining and exploring how the thing you call "I" may have originated and how it possibly operates. It will, of course, be impossible to deal with such a wide-ranging subject comprehensively, which is why I am emphasising the "I" as a current event (an effect), for which I will seek to trace a few possible causes.

Time And Its Influence On Consciousness

It appears to me that one way to view what we call "I" is as a type of wave through time, because although we are aware that we cannot actually travel backwards or forwards in time, we are also aware that we are in touch with the past and able to expect future events with some varying degrees of certainty.

One might object that we do, in fact, travel forwards in time, growing older as we go, but I would argue that, although we move continually towards the future, like a traveller on a treadmill, we only ever "arrive" - are only ever fully conscious - in the present. The perceived instant of the subject (the instant and the perceiver) appear to be that which comprises the current "I". The present moment and the perceiver are one, and are experienced as Consciousness (in its fullest sense). The human "I" is the product of a complex organism through time, and time both motivates consciousness (by continuous presentation of change) and also influences the proceeding evolution of consciousness (new data modifies and interacts with the old, which is already part of the perceiving, current consciousness). This gives time both an objective and a subjective existence.

Objective time (in the sense of changes in the spatial relationships between objects) is subsumed to become an internal driving force for the further development of consciousness. As things change through time they are perceived, initially creating a simple, ill-defined sort of consciousness. Later, the same process, together with physical development, evolves and clarifies the existing simple consciousness into something more complex and self aware.

Of course, a prerequisite to perception is the ability to deal with sense data. However, any one of our senses can be enough to promote consciousness, where originally there is only an innate capacity.

One facility of consciousness is the ability to gather data and process it in such a way as to take it into account when arriving at a decision as to how to act to achieve an aim (processing the data so as to convert it into knowledge, which is stored for future reference - knowledge being defined as stored data which is made accessible through some sort of order). Another facility involves imaginatively adapting the knowledge to new circumstances (applying it to a different context to that in which the stored data was originally captured). We can facilitate this capability through the use of logical fictions, which are the result of innate capacities for the perception of pattern.

This definition may seem to include life forms such as insects, but it should be remembered that inbuilt reactions to stimuli are not regarded as being proof of consciousness in the human sense. If an insect hides away from a shower of rain, it is because its genes have an inbuilt reaction to wetness which results in an automatic turning away. This is the result of past generations of insects with such behaviour having survived to breed until (over time) only descendants showing such behaviour are left to continue the species (the others having drowned or caught the insect equivalent of pneumonia). I do not regard this type of behaviour as evidence of any more than a rudimentary consciousness, which is rather better described by the word instinct. Instinct is automatic behaviour which is useful for survival (or behaviour that used to be useful for survival before conditions made it redundant).

In short, I regard a brain - sorting and storing data and deciding on action according to a comparison between that stored data and outside stimuli - as essential to a human consciousness. The everyday "I" demonstrates such experience-based choices, as opposed to instinct. We can choose to get out of the rain or not, as the mood takes us. A feeling of discomfort appears, which is not a matter for choice, but which we can reinterpret, in the light of our knowledge of context. For example, if we know that we cannot avoid getting wet in the rain, we can go further than simply becoming resigned to getting wet: we can determine to enjoy the unavoidable, rather than merely enduring it. And this can, in fact, become a habitual way of interpreting the sensation. It also appears to be possible to "tone down" the experienced sensation itself. Apparently, this is more difficult to do when the discomfort reaches the level of pain, but it is not utterly impossible even in this area. Yogis appear to be able to "lower the volume" of pain to a considerable extent, by concentrating on and developing this capacity for conscious control over feeling.

Such conscious control, I think, is not generally available to the rest of the animal kingdom. On the other hand, perception itself is indeed shared by both complex and simple forms of life. The insect must be aware of the raindrops which threaten it in order to keep moving away from them. But perception, in this context, is no more than an awareness, which triggers a type of genetically inherited behaviour, programmed in.

This is to say that, although there can be perception without the type of consciousness here dealt with, there cannot be this type of consciousness without perception: yet it should be remembered that "triggering" sense data may come through a very narrow channel (a single sense, perhaps). It should also be said that once a consciousness is established it need not be continuously stimulated to continue to exist. Sensory depravation does not lead to the vanishing of consciousness, although it can lead to the loss of that objective sense of time derived from our observations of surroundings, in favour of a subjective one.

The Concept Of Potential And Innate Capacities [Top of the page]

So far as innate capacities are concerned, the relationship between capacities and their activation through stimuli must be examined. A line must be drawn somewhere, otherwise we could posit an acorn as a potential table with perfect credence. Where a choice has to be made before a long chain of events will be initiated towards the achievement of an aimed for result (say, a human being chooses to make a table), it would appear to make sense to draw a line at the moment of choice, providing the materials to achieve the aim are already in existence (providing an oak tree has already grown to a suitable maturity). Before that moment potential is purely a mental conception, and only one amongst many, equally valid mental conceptions, while after that moment the potential becomes more "meaningful", we could argue, (although still remaining purely mental and contingent, until the table is actually made). This means that an acorn is no more a potential table than it is a potential chair, the resulting multiplicity of potential fates for the potential tree, which may or may not grow to maturity, ruling each other out. In other words, when we speak of potential, we are simply revealing contingent plans or decisions, or predicting events which may or may not come about. The same holds true in biological development, I believe. The foetus is capable of development to full maturity but it should not be claimed that every sperm and every egg has the potential to produce a fully grown human being. The probability of non-fertilisation is much greater than that for the reverse, and surely all potentials are equal until the moment of choice initiates an actuality (the moment of chance would be more appropriate in this case). However, in talking about potential in practical matters, pragmatism helps us to arrive at decisions. If we cannot track each sperm or egg and we cannot decide which is the combination which would produce a fully fledged human being, then it is ridiculous to worry about the morality of contraception on the grounds of potentiality, just as it is ridiculous to label one acorn a potential chair and another one a potential table. Most sperms and eggs miss their appointments, and therefore when the Potential becomes the Actual is a matter of chance: it relies on an intervening hit-or-miss process taking place first: just as the acorn must first become a tree before it is worth considering as a potential table, because the potentiality is simply impossible to take into serious account due to the element of chance which is to come.

The same view can be taken as regards innate capacities and their activation. Given normal development, many basic capacities will become active as they are "chosen" by chance (by the individual's experience of reality), but some from amongst these, may come to be chosen by the individual as "talents" which are worth concentrating on. In other words, we achieve a biological maturity (comparable to the mature oak tree), but following this, the decision to make a table is attributable to the perceiving "I" which has evolved to a point where it can assess its own performance in any particular mental or physical activity. If its own assessment proves to be mistaken, it can refer to the assessment of others. It would appear from this, that there is no point in talking about "Little Johnny" as a potential astronaut, seeing as the attributes required of that profession can only appear in him with the passing of time and the acquisition of experience, after which, grown-up Johnny may come to the decision to be an astronaut, but will only succeed if he has correctly assessed his own innate capacities as being up to the job.

The Time Limited "I": Causality And Prediction [Top of the page]

Returning to the initial proposal of consciousness as a wave in time: if we imagine a deck of playing cards spread in a line across a table, with half of each card overlapping the next, and we then pick up the Joker and use it to ripple the rest of the deck so that each of the cards turns over to reveal its obverse face, this is similar to the wave through time which is the process of the type of everyday consciousness I am thinking about, with the "I" itself being represented by the contact point between the moving Joker and the turning cards, with each turning card representing the smallest unit of time possible for human perception, which may vary from subject to subject, according to mood, physical circumstances, and so on. But, as previously suggested, this gives time a subjective/objective existence, indicating a dual nature for time (time as perceived by human beings and time as an objective part of the process of reality). We have, then, both an internal sense of time (as in sensory depravation) and an "acted-upon" or observed, objective, event-related experience of time (as measured by the observed movement of the hands of a clock, for instance). Both would appear to work in tandem, the Subjective sense of time holding more sway over periods when there is little to objectively observe as to the passing of time, the Objective dominating the rest of the time. However, it should be remembered that the observer bases his or her judgement concerning conscious observations on previous observations, which would appear to give some influence to subjective time even while observing the current event (i.e., the current event will be compared with the time needed for previous events of the same type which have been observed). In addition, if we do nothing but watch the clock, the lack of interest we have may appear to slow the mechanism down, suggesting that the internal sense of time, the less reliable of the two, may make unexpected incursions. Time may appear to stretch out when we are bored, and we may be surprised to see how little time has passed when we are in such a condition, even though a train timetable is not run on such internal chronology. I will return to this matter of Interest and Attention later.

Of course, each of our playing cards rests on its predecessor, and each serves to begin the turn of its successor. If there is a limit to the speed of human consciousness, we can only be fully conscious of the current contact point, as delineated by the limits of the human ability to perceive, the previous instant being something like an "after image" which serves to give the seamless continuity of the stream of consciousness we experience while conscious. But what of the card to come? The instant to come? I think we could claim the turning of this coming card to be the ability of the conscious subject to anticipate causality through time.

Yet, how can a consciousness limited by time be able to anticipate causality in this way? Well partly, no doubt, through remembered instances of the same or similar events. But what is this based upon - this ability to compare and contrast remembrances with the present and to expect repetition? I would argue that this ability is based on the instinct to perceive patterns, an ability which is time independent. Which is to say that, although it is a facility which has been developed through evolution (and hence through time), yet even so, it is now established as a normal physiological function of the brain and arises naturally from the patterned organic structures therein. It is difficult to see this facility evolving further into something completely different (although the ability to comprehend more sophisticated, complicated or subtle patterns may well be expected to continue to develop). But all that aside, it is, so to speak, inbuilt as a result of evolution, having proved its survival value. As with most things, pragmatism tends to win out.

In fact, I propose that the innate assumptions we have regarding reality are what enable us to reason inductively (or indeed at all). I mean that the Presence of an object can only be perceived if we make such inductive assumptions, for if we did not, how could we have any expectation of an object persisting from moment to moment, even whilst we are observing it? Without this very basic expectation, we would be unable to function, save in the current instant.

For example, if there is an essential power cable which must be strung across my room's doorway, at ankle height, because some workmen are doing repairs, and I absent-mindedly trip over it (in spite of earlier warnings), I will tend to learn from this experience. The next time I use the doorway, I will tend to step over the cable, carefully. The time after that, a little less carefully. And if the cable is there any length of time, or if I am using the doorway frequently, this action of stepping over may become automatic, allowing me to be just as absent-minded about coming and going as I was previously. In fact, I may even "step over" after the cable's removal.

This habit of expectation concerning reality is what allows us to deal with reality and to learn from it. Not simply, the learning from experience part, but the automatic part of it. The habit formed frees up the mind for other jobs. Imagine how difficult life would be if this where not so. We would be made a prisoner of the current moment, unable to turn to any other matters of concern. Referring back to the example, for instance, I would have to step over the cable every single time with the same degree of conscious care. Of course, one could argue that this approach to reality would eliminate the assumption implicit in habituation (I would never accidentally "step over" a cable that wasn't there, for example) but it is obvious that the strategy which has evolved must have been more beneficial in ensuring survival, and it is also equally obvious that without such assumptions, the presence of the cable would be just as great a surprise each and every time I encountered it.

This tends to suggest that it is not just the brain's "I" entity which is involved in such matters, but the whole of the body. In dealing with reality, the brain "I" can be seen, much of the time, as rather like the emergency services: instantly available and on call to take charge of the situation, but for much of time, leaving routine matters to the habitual methodologies developed in concert with bodily experiences expected to repeat. I am not suggesting that the body acts totally alone, of course, I am suggesting only that the subconscious parts of the mind, as distinct from the "I" we experience, play an important role in allowing us the freedom of introspection. It therefore follows, that the gene-built mental strategy for such automatic response has played a great part in creating a context for the development of the "I" entity.

Of course, in tripping over the cable in the example, one factor is never questioned: our feeling of certainty regarding its being something to be wary of. The emotions we experience - embarrassment, anger and so forth - all rest upon a tacit, gene-derived feeling of certainty that one should be wary of being taken by surprise, and that a surprise demands our instant attention.

But if we can remember and compare, are we not, in a sense, travelling in time? Yes, but only "in a sense". The ability to sort and be selective of memories appropriate to the current situation is part of consciousness and helps dictate action. But, once again, this comes back to the ability to perceive pattern. Memories will be significant, and therefore memorable, because they are patterned - which is to say, they appear meaningful either subjectively or objectively. Objective data are sorted and classified in the neurone network, though in a far more subjective way than the most eccentric library. It is rather like an web page in which every single word leads to other related information, each page being created in accordance with personal experience and/or reflected-upon personal experience, so that eventually everything relates (at some remove or other) to everything else in a personally meaningful way. It is this subjective linking which generates the unique "I" which perceives. It arises from human consciousness and time as a natural result of the ability to pattern. The objective part is the common, inbuilt ability to perceive similarity (the dredging up of appropriate material for comparison and/or contrast) because, if no similarity or contrast is perceived by anyone else, the physical or verbal action resulting from the "I" in question will be considered inappropriate to the situation by others (although original solutions are not ruled out - something which works is always approved of - remember pragmatism).

Such patterning is the root of science, religion and art - of any structured activity. All planned actions (however anarchic) have pattern, although in the case of insanity the pattern may only be perceived by the subject.

This claim would seem to demand a definition of "patterning".

Patterning [Top of the page]

A pattern is a perceived repetition (but not necessarily a duplication) within sense data. In dealing with such perceptions, we have an innate capacity to abstract parts which can be approximated more than once in the examined object of perception, such an abstracting ability also allows the creation of a corresponding ideal model for storage. We can also abstract a part or generalisation which can stand for the essence of an object which can be referenced with regard to another object which may then show a similar essence, whether in the ideal model or physically present in the object. It requires a recognition, on the part of the perceiver, of similarity in things or events. In the case of contrast, we look for departures from the abstracted essence or part. Causality, the recognition of a chain of events which follow each other under the same circumstances, is also a repetition, and therefore, a pattern. Some philosophers have questioned the assumptions behind causality (why should the same thing be assumed to happen under the same circumstances?) and have placed science on the same footing as religion and art because of this, claiming the basis of all three as nothing more than belief, or faith. I would say that Popper has answered such criticism adequately with falsificationism (a scientific claim can be objectively tested by the scientific community and proved defective, whereas artistic and religious claims cannot be so tested). I think the confusion arises because so much distinctly Human activity derives from the same root - the ability to perceive pattern (although the ability must be present in animals to some degree, as Skinner's work proved).

But how subjective is this perception of pattern? I would argue that it's subjective only in the sense that the articulator of perceived pattern will be a human being. Behaviourism, for example, is the product of human observations in the laboratory and what is perceived as significant is therefore decided by the interest of human science. But whether you agree with this or not, there are more persuasive and objective criteria available for countering charges of human subjectivity in this area. For instance, the observation of the patterning of sand on a sea shore, left by the wave action of a retreating tide, can have no intrinsic human interest (it would appear to have no application useful to human beings). This appears to be objective (which is to say, really part of the nature of the universe quite apart from human bias), but the pattern here is not a simple repetition, it should be noted, but a similarity. The sand is not identically shaped by the retreating waves as the tide goes out, but the resemblance is close enough to be striking. The same resemblance is apparent in the symmetries we observe throughout the natural world (the left and right sides of a face or body, for example). The natural world is full of patterned behaviour which has no discernible bearing on human interest (the animals appear to have their own aims and objectives to deal with), whilst the physical patterning we see is certainly there for all practical purposes (as in the case, say, of natural camouflage).

But, once again returning to our original image, it should not be supposed, because of the nature of the deck of cards metaphor, that I think consciousness is deterministic, or that reality is actually a series of discrete instants (we simply reason about it that way, I think). The image has served well up to now, but to go any further into the subject we need to turn to another metaphor. For instance, the nature of attention is not determined just by the effect of time, but of interest. The interests of the individual, the individual's mood and physical condition must influence the ability to focus on any particular datum presented. In other words, there is the original "tabular rasa" to consider.

The Tabular Rasa And Talent [Top of the page]

I should state at once that I do believe that we come into the world as blank as Locke could wish, as regards distinct ideas: however, the quality of the material from which the "blank tablet" is composed is a unique genetic amalgam. Just as there are different grades, sizes and qualities of paper (or tablet), there are as many (more, in fact) unique variations on the human brain coming into the world every day, and this must influence the individual's ability to focus the attention. Just as a signet ring impresses wax with an impression, so experience will help to shape the perceiver, and therefore the consciousness, but the colour and fluidity of the biological "wax" is a matter for chance, through the conjunction of the biological elements contributed by particular individuals who happened to meet and produce the offspring.

The combination of hand and eye co-ordination required to make a good snooker player, for example, must arise from physical and mental attributes already present, and the honing of such natural talents comes about from an abiding interest in playing the game and improving. Such interest is part of the quality of the mental paper, so to speak. The champion becomes the champion because he or she discovered their natural bent and then worked at it. A better image than the tabular rasa, might be a sponge, with all the holes filled with jelly. Experience finds holes and washes out a little of the jelly to indicate a natural bent in the direction of the triggering experience. This will prompt practice, which will remove more of the jelly and deepen the hole in the sponge. But practice does not and cannot make a bigger hole. The talent is there from the beginning. Practice merely reveals more of it. If the correct triggering experience never comes along, then the natural bent will never be revealed.

Language And Self [Top of the page]

One very important element in the evolution of the human "I" has not yet been considered. The invention of a distinctly human trait: Language. Of course, I am referring to language as distinctly human, not because other species have not developed forms of communication, but because the level and sophistication of our language is, I believe, unique in the animal kingdom. Access to this tool has allowed us to examine, share and pass on knowledge in ways which have brought much of the natural world under our control. It appears to me that no small part of this dominance was due to the influence of language on the development of the human "I".

How could such a facility as language have come about? Well, it appears unlikely that our non-speaking ancestors could have been totally without thought. How could language develop at all, if there was no thought to precede it? It seems quite likely that our early ancestors had the ability to imagine, to visualise, to anticipate. For instance, I can quite imagine one of our ancestors going to sleep, with an image of the rising sun in their mind. The words to express this sense of anticipation would have come later, of course.

It may appear difficult to account for the development of concepts and generalisations from this. It may appear impossible to develop such things without a language already being in existence. But it seems to me that general concepts can in fact be contained in gestures, such as pointing, for example. Might not pointing be considered a general gesture, a gesture which conveys a concept? It does appear to me that thought without language is possible, although I would admit that it would be unlikely to be subtle and complex thought, by our current standards. Whether it would amount to being aware of one's own awareness, is a moot point. I don't really see how we can progress beyond speculation on that matter. However, I can imagine the perceiving "I" gradually evolving, coming into focus, until a stage was reached where self-awareness was obtained.

It does appear to me that language must have evolved from simpler forms of communication, such as gestures and facial expressions - these being set against a background of mental visualisations derived from a shared context of objective reality and a shared body form (allowing, in particular, the formation of the same sorts of sounds). After all, to originate language, one would have to be motivated by an awareness of things to be communicated, and would have to have a belief that the communication's content had some chance of being grasped. This appears to only be possible because of the context of a shared human experience of an objective reality.

The most intimate form of communication is that which takes place within one's mind, when weighing things up, when considering the merits of this or that action. I take it that this is a type of reflective thought we would wish to associate with language, but I can't help thinking that we do have some grasp of such thinking (when it is our own), even without language; although it would not be so well clarified in our minds (more associated with emotion and physical sensation, perhaps). If our definition of reflective thought is to be strictly associated with more advanced concepts than these, then language is necessary. But I am looking here more to the origins of language, the way it was brought into existence; and I believe that language probably came about through reflective thought (of the intimate, internal sort just outlined). Once language was in existence, of course, a refining process would begin, which would feed back into the reflective thought processes, clarifying and expanding it into new areas. For this, language does appear to be required. Language is the expansion of the consciousness beyond the individual, and this reflects back on the individual (always supposing accurate communication and a good vocabulary, of course).

Thought - in the sense of weighing things up, in the sense of perceiving patterns and regularities in behaviours and events, so as to decide one's action in response - I believe preceded language. It appears to be only logical. I think that in order to originate language, one must have a feeling that one wishes to communicate something which cannot be communicated without language. If not, why did we invent language?

Of course, meaningful verbalisation is composed of an agreed set of sounds which "stand for" things. I don't suppose that universal agreement concerning the audio symbolism of language would happen quickly and easily. Indeed, as we can still see, the process is not complete, and perhaps never will be. But once the written form of language came into existence, this expansion beyond the individual, this awareness of the minds of others, could be better preserved and more widely disseminated, to be enhanced and developed even further, as more minds came to bare.