The ontogeny of the ego and the self emerges in childhood in the third year of life. before, the child Looks at itself in the it-Form ( he, she, it-Form and says e.g. Dominik doesn't want to go to bed. All of a sudden the child says in the 3rd year of life: "I do not want to go to bed!" This is the maturation of the I and the Self. The human child has a Long Phase of education. The maturation of the will in childhood and the difficult Age is dealt with in the book Kornhuber HH & Deecke l (2012) The will and ist brain. An appraisal of reasoned free will University Press of America Lanham Mariland USA ISBN 978-0-7618-5862-1 Page 55: The very Long childhood with high plasticity of the brain structures through learning, and the influence of culture , above all of the Family, is a decisive strength of man. A chicken can run jmmediately after hatching, it can peck and sees the grains. A child needs 3 years to use a spoon without spilling something and even longer to develop ist will. One can say as a fundamental evolutionary Statement: The larger the brain, the longer the childhood. A Orang Utan Baby in Sumatra stays 10 years (!) with ist mother. Now further with the human child: Similar as preveously when the child was happy to learn toddling, running and throwing and exercised this with pleasure; it now exercises ist will, partially so by saying “No!“ This is contrariness, and now the child is in its difficult Age. Children who are weak-willed at 6 - 7 years have – in 80% of the cases – not experienced this phase of negation according to Hildegard Hetzer, 1987. In the difficult age, where the will is seeking its way, this will may not be broken, it must be

encouraged and steered with love, example and firmness towards reason and sincerity. A ‘sensible phase‘ like this must be captured, if it is missed there may be a ‘hole‘ for life. The child has to discover that self-control, carefulness, a sense of responsibility and strength of decision are virtues that bear reward in themselves. Areté, virtus, virtue, Moral fitness have been named, which means: the basic position for the will to be good. Here the shafts are pulled, whether e. g. an egoistic or selfish will develops, only searching for the person‘s own profit or an ethically well-balanced and reasoned will is emerging. This is a will filled with insight, a will led by ratio, a good will, a will to be good. With this mind-steered will we are able – of course within the borders of our possibilities of decision – to act and decide in freedom.

And now comes again the Negation: We can above all do not do something, refrain from doing something (Veto, cf. Libet). The frontal brain‘s most important task is inhibition. It exerts inhibitory control predominantly on our emotional brain which remained since the anthropoid apes much more primitive than our Cortex. This is why Kornhuber and I say: Descartes‘s cogito ergo sum is correct, Damasio is in error. Antonia Damasio wrote a book entitled 'Descartes's error.' The big Evolution is however the Cortex, the association Cortex. Cognition in man also governs Emotion. The frontal lobe does it. Our emotional brain including the limbic System has basically not changes anatomically after the anthropoid apes. Apes have no real ego although they can recognize themselves in a mirror. The Ego, the Self, however, is an evolutionary Advantage coming with human Evolution.

Best wishes Yours Prof. Dr. Lüder Deecke Vienna    

How does the subjective consciousness of self emerge?

I am and I can experience this very well but what is going on to create such a consciousness of myself in early childhood. 

This question by Wilfried is very interesting and important in the field of consciousness. Based on my research and self observations of deep breathing by a technique called "Pranayama" an ancient yoga method of meditation I have explained how thalamus integrates our vision, all senses and emotions. Feeling of self is generated by maturation of subconscious  cardio-respiratory activity by limbic system as perceived by cortico-thalamic  feedback loops. 

First, it is necessary to define what is meant by the self. If, like Julian Jaynes and David Martel Johnson, you define the self as the component of mind that can differentiate objective from subjective then the self is a cultural construct that evolved perhaps 4,000 years ago and is taught to our infants through, for example, the use of indexical pronouns. I would call this the modern self and it would appear that classical autistics and people with advanced cases of Alzheimer's do not have them.

The self is much more commonly thought to have evolved around 50,000 BCE and is marked by replication in artwork and, for example, the Achaean axe. A self is implied by entities that are capable of such abstractions but without the notion of an objective reality implied by the modern self. 

 Then there is the mirror recognition shared with great apes. Such a self is not learned but inherited.

In summation, at one level the self is a feeling. At another level it is an answer to a question as in "Who is it that is replicating this good stuff, let's call it 'me" (I think I borrowed this from Demasio). At a third level, the self that is structured to contain elements of volition, constancy, uniqueness (James), productivity, intimacy and community to be combined with an earlier heritable "feeling of self" is a learned cultural evolved construct that was so successful it became largely cross-cultural (in my research it is found in both individualist and collectivist cultures but the weighting or valuing of particulars varies).

Lüder,

The young child (lets say Robert) alsways hear his mother , father and everybody calling him: Robert do that, Robert comes here, etc.  It is normal that Robert tell other that Robert wants that or this.  He uses the word Robert as pointer to him , like he uses the word ''tree'' as refering to the tree category.  It is wrong to interpret the beginning of the use of the ''I'' as the beginning of his ego.  It it the beginning of explicit signaling in the laguage sphere of this ego.  The baby just being born screaming is screaming his ''I'' in the more primitive language of the new born.  There is no doubt for anybody around the screaming baby that he feels his ''I'' even stronger than anybody around.  Lets not confuse feeling and languange skill.  The young bullies are very week in language skills but affirm their will with their muscles and nobody around them doubt this a second. At the moment of conception as soon as the biological development of the new organism is under its control a first self emerge, a first center of growth.  During development and all life in the case of humans, the center of growth will move from different realm of experience to the next.   A self, a consciousness is a center of growth in interaction with the world.

The social enculturation process will guide the child towards a socially accepted will.  But the social world is not unified with this respect, I would say totally contradictory messages are out there.  The video game is rewarding the child by the amount of kills per minute.   The entertainment industry for kids is not financially rewarded by the enculturation value of their products but by the number of sells and that it.  If a product has a psychopathic effect, so be it.  In fact, nobody really want to know in the industry because they know that the more they would learn and the more restraints to profit they would have so they do not want to know and who do not know is not responsible, in all sense of the word.

So, from what I have heard from you Luder and Lloyd, there are two aspects to self, a sort of Attribution of Agency where the individual recognizes that they are an agent, and a segregation of responsibility where the individual learns to take responsibility for their own decisions. It follows then that you can't have the second without the first.

The end result is that there is a "time of life" at which the capability to hold attribution of agency is a sweet spot that this sweet spot hits at an age between 2 and 3 makes it seem co-located with Autism.

The terrible two's is a period between 2 and 3 when the baby learns self control and responsibility. Until there is a sense of Agency there cannot be a rebellion and an attempt to place the individual agent above the place of other agents. There is no reason before then, to learn to say NO, nor is there a reason to take responsiblity for your actions. Thus the Terrible Two's are the watershed for a well developed "Will".

This is where nature and nurture combine, in that the parent is tasked with lovingly guiding the child through the perils of learning to take responsibility for themselves, and can by simple failure at this early stage, either spoil the child, by giving in to them too early, or by having too rigid rules, force the child into being a follower instead of a leader.

To understand how  consciousness or "self " emerges one needs first to identify the main carriers of  "meaningful" information in the brain

See the paper "Two arguments for a pre-reflective core self ...." on my RG page. for a discussion of the relationship between the core self and the self image (the phenomenal self model).

Thankyou Wilfred for this deep and complex question. (A lot of the questions that come up on RG are quite trivial/technical, so this is refeshing.) I do not claim expertise on this subject, but I do claim some degree of meta-expertise. It is fascinating to see, in just a few responses, the breadth of frames of reference - from embodiment centered traditions (Pranayama) to the psychoanalytic to cognitivist. My instinct is to query the premises of the question...

First I am dubious about the overprivileging of 'consciousness''. I prefer to think of consciousness as an epiphenomenon - the cognitively important stuff probably does not distinguish between conscious and unconscious.

"How does the subjective consciousness of self emerge?" I think it is important to emphasise that this may well be a gradual process with many aspects, each of which matures at a different speed. For instance, the prefrontal cortex does not mature till around 25 years, and this part of the brain appears to be associated with functions such as empathy and social responsibility. If so, this explains adolescents and some of the things my students do or think is reasonable :)

"what is going on to create such a consciousness of myself in early childhood. " Again, this question may be too general to be answered. The newborn bites its hand and some kind of sensorimotor feedback loop is established or reinforced, saying - 'this is part of me'- this is a Piagetian idea. Lacanians will emphasise the mirror stage. But I feel that my 'consciousness of myself' continues to change.

I would have said 'grow' but it must also change due to loss of faculties. I recently met a guy recovering from a brain hemorage. He was in a coma and lost the ability to speak for months or years. Surely his 'sense of self' was constantly changing?

I hope you can forgive me if I mention the brain equation, as described in much pictorial detail in the book "Neosentience - the Benevolence Engine" by Bill Seaman, and in "Chaotic Harmony," of which book I am also a co-author.

Yet why the only consciousness that definitively exists for me is miraculously attached to one particular brain machine, at one particular moment in its time, is an eternal enigma. Emil Duboisreymond said "Ignorabimus" - we cannot ever know.

In other words, here religion is a safer conclusion than science. Nevertheless, Descartes saw that the "lever" of consistency allows you to act fairly in the sense of his follower, Emmanuel Lévinas, and to thereby prove that the assignment is benevolently done - as long as the machine world is mathematically consistent.

Here the theory of quantum mechanics acquires an existential role. If "primary chance" exists, as Pauli called it, we are lost. Dirac was kinder and more likely correct. Everett is the third big guy here. He alone can causally explain the beautiful EPR-Bell transluminal influences. So Descartes is still unfalsified, and so is a good outcome of the Jacobian fight with the angel.

 The "brain equation" is welcomed and I really like the book title since  chaotic dynamics do occur in the brain. They become persistent  about 2min  right before the seizure generation in the epileptogenic foci, it may alter the conscious state

Wilfried,

There is a question closely related to this one on another thread relating to childrens' ability to attribute intentional states to other objects - "Could anyone recommend some relevant literature regarding young children's ability to attribute intentions to other agents?" asked by Gala Stojnic

I believe that the ability to attribute intentional states must necessarily involve the concept (or sense) of other. Also, because I cannot make sense of the concept of 'self' without the concept of 'other', I believe that 'self' and 'other' must emerge as a conceptual dichotomy.

The following is the answer that  provided:-

I gave a talk for the Indian Institute of Technology three years ago, part of which, addressed the question of the emergence of the concepts of 'self' and 'other'  which are necessary for the attribution of intentional states. I presented a slide that showed a group of intelligent social animals and drew the audience' attention to their eyes. If you examine the eyes of animals with a very well developed sense of self/other you often discover that they are highly patterned and exhibit a high level of symmetry. The importance of symmetry to the process that leads to cognition is well known. 

Implicit in the behavior animals and, in particular, the behavior of their eyes is another point of view - evidence of other intentional states.

Following on from these observations I suggested the importance of eye contact between the parent and the very young child as being important for the development of the self/other conceptual dichotomy. Of course, this is a very contentious area! What I might be construed as implying is the possibility that some percentage of autistic cases may be attributable to a breakdown of the normal modes of physical communication between parents and child. 

I concluded the talk with the suggestion that babies placed in incubators should be accompanied by ipads with recordings of their parents' faces along with their voices in a place that can be easily seen and heard by the child. This should, in part, counter the problem of a poverty of stimulus at the crucial time in the child's development and reduce the possibility of autism.

With these thoughts in mind I should not be surprised if children were more likely/able to attribute intentional states to objects with features that may be mistaken for 'eyes'. Indeed, if the ability to attribute intentional states can be measured then I would expect children to be more readily able/likely to attribute intentional states to objects that have features like eyes compared to objects that have features that may be taken for ears or arms, for example.

Additionally, because cognition is essentially "functional" (it is conceded that this places a particular and potentially contentious emphasis upon the term 'intentional") and the most obviously functional objects to be observed in the environment are living things, I suggest that a child is more likely to attribute intentional sates to objects that have an obvious functional form and which are dynamic - cars, airplanes, etc, rather than irregularly shaped and functionally inert objects.

Additionally, I wrote:-

Many of us feel a deep sense of unease at the sight of animals like spiders and snakes. Some thinkers have attributed this to evolution. However, I believe there to be another explanation. 

When we watch someone walking down the street and it happens that they suddenly and unexpectedly slip and fall, it is often the case that we, as observers, suddenly feel a sense of disequilibrium. It is well known that neuron activity associated with our own physical dynamics also occurs when we are observing other people. This does not occur with autistics!

I suggest that our sense of unease at the sight of creatures like spiders and snakes arises as a consequence of, on the one hand, recognizing the animal as being 'intentional', and, on the other, having difficulty in interpreting, or reconciling, intention with the physical form and dynamics of the animal through which that intention is being expressed. There is no 'structural empathy' - in other words, it is an embodiment problem! 

Following on from the above:

Although, I still stress the importance of eye motion with the development of the self/other conceptual dichotomy, the importance of the form through which intentions are expressed should not be underestimated . Consequently, I would expect children to be more likely to attribute intentional states to objects that are topologically similar to their own bodies.

All this assumes - and is supported by my own research, t- hat the 'I' is not a programmed step in the developmental process but emerges as a consequence of that which is implicit in experience. 

Anyone who has experience of babies development quickly learn to distinguish the change in the sounds that a child makes when there is a transition from pure conscious distress or contentment to the willful utterances that occur when the child begins to become aware of 'other' and self. This early development in the child's consciousness should not be confused with the subsequent development of the more complex form of ego that emerges as a consequence of language and self narrative - what some people might refer to as the super-ego.

Lastly, the correlation between the development of self/other and vision is (to a degree) supported by the increasing body of literature exploring the relation between autism and blindness. In this regard, it might be interesting to do some research with dogs. Dogs are born blind and so would seem to be an exception to the thesis implicit in the above argument and observations. However, it might be argued that the primary sense of dogs is not vision but smell (and hearing?). If my reasoning is correct then dogs that are born without a sense of smell (or perhaps hearing) should be more likely to exhibit autistic spectrum disorders.

Christopher,

thanks for your interesting and long post. I agree in all you said. The social aspect and the eye contact are good arguments. I am sure like you, if we are able to discriminate different persons we must have a self concept. This is also interesting if we have a look to animals living in social and structured groups.

The Makapansgat pebble, or the pebble of many faces, (ca. 3,000,000 BP) is a 260-gram reddish-brown jasperite cobble with natural chipping and wear patterns that make it look like a crude rendition of a human face. The pebble is interesting in that it was found some distance from any possible natural source, associated with the bones of Australopithecus africanus in a cave in Makapansgat, South Africa.[1] Though it is definitely not a manufactured object, it has been suggested that some australopithecine, might have recognized it as a symbolic face.

Five levels of self-awareness as they unfold early in life

Philippe Rochat

http://www.psychology.emory.edu/cognition/rochat/Rochat5levels.pdf

Abstract:

When do children become aware of themselves as differentiated and unique entity in the world? Whenand how do they become self-aware? Based on some recent empirical evidence, 5 levels of self-awareness are presented and discussed as they chronologically unfold from the moment of birth to approximately 4–5 years of age. A natural history of childrens developing self-awareness is proposed as well as a model of adult self-awareness that is informed by the dynamic of early development. Adult self-awareness is viewed as the dynamic flux between basic levels of consciousness that develop chronologically early in life.

''The poet Arthur Rimbaud claimed that ‘‘I is some one Else’’ (‘‘Je est quelquun d'autre’’),suggesting that we conceive ourselves through the eyes of others. It appears indeed that by 2–3 years young children do start to have others in mind when they behave. ''

Interesting. Basic theory of mind is the the unconscious self-enactment of the other.  Ceceiving ourselfes through the eyes oif the others would amount to self-enact a person that self-enact ourself  and act accordingly to this objectivation of ourself. Adults do even better than that we even detect when someone is too much self-conscious because that person see too much herself in the eye of the other. Or our judgement of a good or bad actor.  We judge an actor as bad if we are not convinced that he is feel being the caharacter, that he did not forget his own self.  An actor is doing externally what we all do internally when observe other: we impersonate them. 

Christopher:

The fear of snakes is common to all primates. And the snakes are important characters in many mythology.  the snake's staring is probably part of our fear of the snake.  Staring being fundamental to our theory of mind. Given that staring is central to primate attention and their proto-theory of mind, the snake being venimous predator with such obvious attention method for primats including ourself.  Dogs have evolved from wolves by adapting to humans in part of it is to have learned (they are sneaky!) to highjack/manipulate our sympathy or theory of mind by intensely staring at us to make us sympathise.  

Louis,

Nice to hear from you!

Personally, I have no fear of snakes - spiders on the other hand.....Horror!

I have never been convinced by evolutionary theories of phobic responses. 

It is interesting what you said about 'staring' and snakes. Many of us have had the experience of feeling deeply uneasy before we discover that someone in the room is staring at us. This seems to be related to the same feeling that we get when we feel that we are being followed. When we sense that the 'environment' is responding to us rather than the other way around it seems to have a very potent and unusual effect upon the 'unconscious'.

I find something deeply confusing about explanations of the 'self' being rooted in a 'Theory of Mind' - it probably stems from a misunderstanding on my part. Nevertheless, it seems to me to be a step too far - do we need a theory of boxes BEFORE we can see a box? Chicken and egg? This approach seems to lead to an identity between cognition and theory and so a radical change in the way we understand the concept of 'theory'.

Also, given that all that we ever experience is consciousness, has anyone ever suggested that what must come prior to our concept (or sense) of self/other is a theory of 'not-mind' - a theory of the inanimate?

Extending this idea: - perhaps we should consider the possibility that mind/not-mind also emerge as a conceptual dichotomy and that the theory of each is implicit in difference between them. Are all concepts ultimately rooted in dichotomies (or differences)???

This is where I suspect that things get very complex - I am probably out of my depth.

Christopher,

One of the reasons we use the theory of mind as a milestone, is that we know that there is a natural milestone associated with it. No one has ever experimented to find the milestone for thinginess, how could they?

With theory of mind, you can tell whether a baby has it, by gaze angle determination.

In the standard test, When the baby's gaze goes to the angle that indicates it is anticipating the discovery of the object in the location it was before the last location, then you know the baby has a "Theory of mind", because it is anticipating what the test subject knows, not just what happened.

This involves the ability to pretend that the subject knows something different from the observer.

Thanks Graeme.

Christopher,

''I gave a talk for the Indian Institute of Technology three years ago, part of which, addressed the question of the emergence of the concepts of 'self' and 'other'  which are necessary for the attribution of intentional states.''

This capacity to attribute of intentional states is what is called a theory of Mind.  They are two major type of models: theory theory and Simulation.  In the simulation model the theory of mind is a self-enactment of other.  One of the first philosopher to point to the existence of a simulation theory of mind is Dilthey.

For Dilthey, Hodges argues, "it is a fundamental characteristic of mental life that in one way or another it expresses or “objectifies” itself: " and "expression is the medium through which we know other minds.” He offers the following instance:

''. . . I see a human figure in a downcast attitude, the face marked with tears ; these are the expressions of grief, and I cannot normally perceive them without feeling in myself a reverberation of the grief which they express. Though native to another mind than mine, and forming part of a mental history which is not mine, it none the less comes alive in me, or sets up an image or reproduction of itself (Nachbild) in my consciousness. Upon this foundation all my understanding of the other person is built.

.....This power of expressions to evoke what they express is the basis of all communication and all sharing of experience between human beings. It is not an inferential process. When I see the stricken figure I do not begin by recognizing the attitude as the attitude typical of grief, and conclude from this that the person before me is experiencing grief. The mere sight of the expression awakens in me an immediate response, not intellectual, but emotional, feeling arouses feeling with no other intermediary than the expression itself. Dilthey remarks that what happens in me on such an occasion is the same as what happens in the other person whom I understand, only as it were in reverse. In him a lived experience has externalized itself in an expression. in me, a perceived expression has internalized itself in the shape of a Nachbild of the experience expressed. Guided by the other person 's expression, I live over 'again (nacherlebe) his experience in my own consciousness, and this is the essence of understanding. “To reproduce is to re live" (Nachbilden ist eben ein Nacherleben).

.....When I thus re live someone's experience, the Nachbild of his experience in my mind both is and is not a part of my own mental history. It is, in the sense that it is I who am conscious of it, it belongs to my unity of apperception. It is not, in the sense that it is not my personal response to circumstances affecting me personally, but a reflection in me of someone else's response to circumstances affecting him. It is, so to say, distanced from the stream of my own life, eingeklammert or bracketed off', and ascribed by me to the other person. This again is not an act of deliberate judgment. I do not begin by observing the presence of a feeling in my mind and then judge that it is a reflection of something in his, but it is immediately projected and perceived by me as his. This projection Dilthey calls a “transposition of myself “(Uebertragung, Transposition, Sichhineinversetzen). It means perceiving the other person as possessed of an inner life essentially like my own, and so “rediscovering myself in the Thou " (das Verstehen ist ein Wiederfinden des Ich im Du). (Hodges, 1949, 14-15)

Source: http://c-cs.us/configuring/Dilthey.html

The discovery of mirror neurons has been a major breakthrough in the understanding how human theory of mind.

This is a good and interesting question which brings up many different facets.

First I am not sure that the subjective consciousness of self is the same for all people. Let me explain, traditionally in Africa the tribe was more important than the individual self. I am sure their also applies to different traditional societies as well. The individual self as different from all others is, I feel, a unique experience of Westerns who are trained in certain way of seeing the world. In the West it is a highly prized way of viewing the world and also enhanced by a world where thinking rather than feeling predominate.

I can remember as a child drawing people and other living beings with light flaring out around them. I was given a paint by numbers so I could learn that the world finished in the physical.

In spirituality, people that meditate on the Self (with a capital S) start experiencing an ever enlarging sense of self until one day "cosmic consciousness" is experienced. At last the little self - the ego self, is transcended. Investigations into this way of experiencing the world is the subject matter of Transpersonal Psychology and Consciousness Studies. My intuition tells me that the baby is very close to this expanded consciousness and slowly gets trained in different ways by different cultures to perceive themselves and the world that surrounds them in a certain way. Training youngsters as being separate from everyone and of nature herself, is very much prevalent in our society.

Maybe by social interaction with the other. S. Freud has an answer.

Louis,

I think a better translation of the sentence "“To reproduce is to re live" (Nachbilden ist eben ein Nacherleben). " would be: To reproduce (simulate) is to re experience.

Wilfried,

"“To reproduce is to re live"

To reproduce (simulate) is to re experience

The two translations conveys the same meaning for me because

Living and Experiencing means exactly the same thing for me.

With this reproduce conception of how a human can understand another human from its expression , the observer self-enact its interpretation of the other.  Some primate researchers are convinced that bonobos have this capacity. This is almost what is needed for art and language: communication through expression.

Assuming that at some point of evolution of the hominins , the only thing that is required for language and art , or communication through expression, is to get this capacity to self-enact under conscious control and to move your body (face expression in particular) as in the self-enact narrative. The other observing human will know that what you are doing is not normal behavior but expressive behavior.   

This distinction between normal behavior and expressive behavior split from the world a  world of culture or symbolic world within it.  What render it possible is this conscious control of the self-enactment of an narrative experience. This is memesis.  Language is just a little modification or extension of the theory of mind.  We should not be surprised that all human language are anthropomorphic given that they are based on a purely anthropomorphic control of one actor: the  self-enact self.  It is why humas first invented mythic/anthropomorphic understanding of the world.  

As soon as the primitive capacity to consciously self-enact and mimic a narrative then many personna can exist in these narratives but one of them is yourself distinct from all others.  In fact there is only actor: yourself.  Prior language , the self is not conscious but implicitly there.  After language, it is still implicty there but can also be represented in theis expressive narrative as the ''self'' the persona that is ''ME''.

Once the capacity to consciously self-enact a narrative is there, thinking is there, the capacity to self-enact multiple possible scenario and to choose the best is there, time and space travelling in narrative is there.

Consciousness is not an emergent property.

One can prove it does not exist. 

So it is the only obvious miracle since it exists, nonetheless.

It shares this property only with the Now, which likewise is not demonstrable in an objective - now-independent - way.

In Newtonian terms (laws, initial conditions), it is a third category, that of "assignment conditions."

But then - compared to the Greek Hades where everything is formally the same except for the "blood" we have up here on the crust of the earth - it has the substance of the "qualia." So the question of consciousness and the question of where the qualia come from, is the same.

Although the Now is a purely formal (relational) element which likewise exists in the Hades. So it is the closest to science. 

 Otto,

I agree with your proposition "So the question of consciousness and the question of where the qualia come from, is the same" if you exchange the position of the expressions consciousness and qualia. Qualia is part of consciousness but not vice versa.

Otto,

the Hades metaphor is interesting. Do we find subconsciousness therein?

Louis,

your answer is a deep view in the evolution of animal and man. I like it.

I miss the social aspect in your answer. The mechanism of the emergence of self is still open. First an individual has to be able to recognize his fellows. This may be a kind of statistical act. The first seen or the most seen objects are his fellows. If an individual becomes able to distinguish these fellows it is the first step for his self. 

Dear Wilfried:

Agreed to both points.

Wilfied and Otto,

'' I look at the table with a red apple on it.''  This is a description/expression of my subjective experience.  ''table'' and ''apple'' refer to object you have have experience. and ''red'' refer to a colour you have experience.  Suppose that you did not know about ''apple'' I can describe an apple to you.  If you did not know a chair, I can describe one to you.  But if you never have experience the ''red'' colour then it would be impossible for me to describe it in term of other qualities.  ''red'' is a qualia, it cannot be reduce to something else, it cannot be described.  I say ''red'' and it is simply a sign that you associate with your experience of ''red''.  

Wilfried,

In a few lines , I provided a theory of evolution of primate to human based on simulation based theory of mind.  You will understand that I had to cut a few corners.  A real story would need to about the whole evolution of the mammalian imagination whose purpose is the maximalisation of learning from experience, sensory integration and sociality. I would have to start with the proto-music for the detection of sound caused by other mammal through self-enactment of motor system.  I would also start with the learning through dreaming which is the first form of self-enactment.  I would aslo had to start with playing which is the beginning of the conscious control of the mammalian imagination.  Then I would have to come with the increase of the sociality in the primate social life due to the necessity in these society to understand social alliance.  This would push the development of the already existing self-enactment capacity for  use in theory of mind and the development of facial expression and eye contact.  Then the transition from a male domination like in Gorilla and Chimp to a female domination like in bonobos and like in our first hominin ancestor.  This was a crucial step for becoming human.  Only under a female domination based on physical love and empathy that a first social religion: communal singing dancing for emotional control that would create the passage to art and language and to humanity.  

I had to cut a few corners. 

Louis,

there is no doubt in your answer of "what is a quale" (for example the color of red). I fully agree. 

Louis,

your project 'evolution of the mankind' looks hard because there are so many 'corners' out of round but it is interesting to think for substantial questions. 

Wilfried,

Empathy was a topic only explored by philosophers in ethic and by theologians but with the discovery of the mirror neurons empathy is being explored in animals and humans and from many scientific point of views: evolutionary, social, neurological, psychological, linguistic, etc, etc.  

I think that I subconsciously began this project:  Know Thyself   Know thy History when I was 11 years old (44 years ago) and will following it until either my grave or my sanity whatever come first.  The first time that I clearly saw that I had such project I was 17 and I found it so crazy that I did all I could to forget it but it keep coming back so I decided to embrace it although the chances of success are nearly null.

Louis,

similar like you i am thinking my key questions less or more than 5 years later but longer than you. So I am understanding you very well. Our questions are not the same questions but I think they are not far from each other. Let us stay curious for long.

Wilfried,

In two sentences, what are your key questions? and when did you consciously knew about them?

From my observations from your posts in different threads, I would guess:

What is intelligence , How did it evolve , and how can we create machine intelligence? 

I remember a thick cover Paris Match Special Magize special (1956) that I was continuously reading :  ''Le monde d'ou vient-it?  Ou va-t-il?

The first part was about astronomy, the cosmos and the most advance theories of the time: steady-state model, Big Bang and Lemaitre and Fred Hoyle with continuous creation, Einstein relativity, black holes, Mont Palomar seeing at 1 billion light year on the frontier of the cosmos at the time.  The second part was on our solar system, our sun and fusion at the core of our star.  The third part was on the geology of our planet, volcanos, craters, meteorite, continental drifts, and space exploration, Then the part on life, its origin on earth, Oparine, Rostand,, Pasteur.  Then evolution of life on earth, Darwin,Lamarck, opposition between the two.  Then it was a chapter on human evolution, anthropology, apes, cave arts.  Without knowing all these themes were imprinted in me at the time (1967).  We are all imprinted in a young age by our socieites.  Mine was one that was totally religious and so I was previously totally religiously imprinted.  It is the conflict between these two opposite imprinted and my refusal to settle for one that has be fundamental for my journey. I early on realizized subconsciously that these two could only resolved through a new unified understanding of evolution of everything. I knew that before I could even study seriously any of these topics but when I did I had a purpose. It was unconscious but acting and it  took me a long time to realize what is going on and to put the puzzle together.

You could find an answer in S. Freud writtings.

Louis,

"From my observations from your posts in different threads, I would guess:

What is intelligence , How did it evolve , and how can we create machine intelligence? "

When I was 15 years old, I saw a simple robot build with transistors, resistors a.s.o. (no IC's) I was fascinated or imprinted. I read books about Cybernetic later than AI. In this time I found some books about consciousness in philosophy. And today I am still interested in such problems. 30 Years ago I started with the question of the behavior of animals in a strange environment. I found Levine's psychological force very interesting as an physician. In the context of this question occurs all the questions you can find on RG and there are surely some more on my way. I try - if I have some minutes time - to solve the puzzle picture of fragments which I have found yet.

Hello Wilfred and Louis,

I see you are both hovering around the same questions. I too was interested in these but I approached it a different way. My topic at university in the seventies was consciousness but I decided that how could I ask another about different states of consciousness if I had not experienced them myself. So I left University and started a quest to understand consciousness but working through meditation (which in really means deep inner pondering) under the guidance of an Indian yogi. The quest to know the Self or the "nature of Nature" is a quest that goes back thousands of years. But the yogis of old went about it differently from modern science, they turned their attention inwards. They felt that if they discovered their own nature they would know the "nature of Nature". They are referred to as "inner scientists". Science, on the other hand, turns its attention outwards. I am sure in the future these two approaches will meet……

These days I am completing a circle by bringing back into Western science what I have learnt  and continue to learn from explorations into my inner world.

I wish you both well on your journey and your explorations.....

Tina,

I know this was too but it is different not only by experience or method but also in the result. I would like to know the mechanism of life (or consciousness) and the yogi gets the experience of knowledge. In this point there are different interpretations possible. First - the miraculous possibility: The yogi has access to a metaphysical level. It would be great and is not to discuss.

Second - the scientific possibility: The yogi is able to depress his left half brain and the right on becomes conscious. He is connected with all in the universe in total harmony.

Both would be interesting and has influence to our life.

Wilfried andTina,

I also began daily meditation in 1973.  It makes you experience other state of consciousness which also provide many mentally heath benefits like exercicing the bodies on a regular basis is of necessity for fully functioning.  Meditation allows to get a certain control on our attention and to naturally quite down the stream of conscious thought.  It also help us to pay attentiion to what we are doing in a way that has a certain level of detachment.  At some point in my Ph.D. when I decided to drop my initial research project and then when I intensily searched for an aspect of visual perception that would be very significant and fundamental I then intensily focus my attention to my own visual awareness.  I think that my 25 years of meditation really paid off.  Since that time my approach was lead by the phenomenal insight as guiding my exploration of the history of philosophy and science on the topic and my own theoretical investigation.  For the first time my intuition was not guided by my intellect but my intellect guided by my intuition.  Very hard to explain to someone that never experience it.  It is only vacuus words for someone only guided by his/her intellect.  It is something that all of us experience in our artistic activity where the intellect does not play much of a role but in science it is not common to let our intuition like in the art lead the way.  

So I see the benefit of the art and meditation for my scientific quest but a scientific thesis is pne that necessarily belong in its form to the machine world , the objective world, that is the only one that the intellect can understand.  All else is necessarily eliminated.  It is an intrinsic limitation of both the intellect and the scientific mode of expression.  So I do not see any possibility even in the far futur for the scientific view to even come close to consciousness, intuition, agency, creativity, etc... Although all of this is totally necessary to produce this scientific view.  So I am for developing a pluralitty of approach to reality.  Science being the one that explore the objective world.  Phenomenology explored living experience, etc, etc. and to explore the area of intersections and to get inspiration from multiple viewpoints although each viewpoint has its own method because of its different access to reality.  The blnd man and the elephant story.

Hello Wilfred and Louis,

I see we are all working from a similar basis. What I am not sure of is the two can´t be combined even while doing science. I use the phenomenological approach of Goethe while doing science - and am applying it to the PhD in Consciousness Studies I am doing at the moment. (By the way Goethe predicted he would be better known eventually for his method of doing science than his poetry). This method really does turn up gems and is incredibly entertaining and enlightening to the person doing the research but at the same time it is able then to comply with the requirements of science. (all this  is also led my the intuitive method of meditation I practice).

So smile and sit tight - with a bit of luck and much Higher Guidance,  in spring next year I will be able to share the outcome of this investigation with  you.....

(PS it does include the metaphysical level!!!)

Hello Louis,

By the way thank you for sharing how you work - yes being led by intuition is such a different experience....maybe if more scientists discovered how to do this consciously, many of the problems the world faces today could be solved.

Tina,

In the year I had my personal breakthrough in my research on visual perception (The Perception of the Image World) , before being an intellectual breakthrough(the content of the thesis) whichcame in the following years, I had this change in my personal approach to science.  Then I searched in the history of philosophy and science for concepts which would matched what I was now searching for and I found many philosophers that were thinking along the same lines.  Most of these were the romantic german philosopher and scientists (a lot of them in the austro-hungarian empire) and searching a bit more I traced their common denominator in Kant and Goethe.  When I read Goethe's the growth of plant and his delicate empiricist ideas, not only I realized that it corresponds to my phenomenological approach to vision, getting direct insight form my own visual experience but the set of theoretical ideas I was developing on vision that would come a bit later actually support Goethe's scientific approach through the sense, beginning to theoretically explain why it works.  Haeckel was a biologist who was inspired by Goethe and which posited that ontogeny recapitulate phylogeny.  I discovered in my image analysis approach that visual perception is a continuation of the ontogeny in the 1/10 sec time scale and that visual ontogeny recapitulate the ontogeny of the object surface.  For example, you look at a human body (preferably nude for maximum information) and in 1/10 of a second, the process of visual recognition has to proceed to detect first the most fundental topographic image structure which do correspond to the first surface structure formation during the ontogeny of the human body and the recognition will proceed and has to proceed along the same sequence.  It is perfectly understable in term of the differential geometry of the image surface which has hieararchical structure defined by the key formative events which are fossilized (first in the past of this planet, a few years ago in the ontogeny of this individual, and now on the optical plane of your eye) in the symmetry breaking point/event of the topography of the image.

I will leave the details but from there I could move from image analysis, to visual perception and from there to imagination.

Not speaking German, I knew Goethe only as the name of a great poet.  A totally vacuus information.  Now my Goethe, the Goethe I know is  the prophet of a new method of learning that is both scientific and poetic that make use of the intellect but is leaded by the more sophisticated instrument of understanding on this planet: the human body.

Thanks again Louis - it is so exciting to find a fellow traveller who has found how enriching it is to do science inspired by the method of Goethe.

In your last phrase I am not sure if I would attribute the  "more sophisticated instrument of understanding on this planet" to the human body. I do fully recognize that "body consciousness" is closer to Pure Consciousness" than the thinking mind but the body without the living vital force, soul or what ever we want to call it is just "materia". Maybe I would replace "the human body" with human organism.

Tina,

I do not use the expression of ''human body'' as a materialist would use it.  I include in it all what a materialist would include in it but it is not limited to what science can see by its method.  My focus of interest is the interaction.  From a personal perspective of interaction ,  my body is an interaction interface.  You see I use the word as my mind.  But the word mind is plagued with a dualist biased in considerating it separated both from the body and from the world of interaction.  We need to put mind back in the interaction of the body.  But putting mind in the interaction of the body with the world does not necessitate to reduce it to what can be observed from a 3th person perspective and so to what science can know.  We are in the middle of it, we are this interaction so we have more than access we are IT.   If we try to clarify this with concept and model we automatically fall back to science and to materialist.  Nothing wrong with this.  Whatever can be reduced to scientific model should be.  But it is obvious that the 3th person perspective reduction cannot reach deep into the interaction and it is obvious that being the interaction is more than access.  There is a false conflict between materialism and those like me that materialistic reduction (science) is limited.  I am not talking about a limit to the progress of science. There is obviously no limit for the progress of science.  I am talking about the limitation of science to all it can explore by definition of its mode of access which define what science is.  It is obvious that human beings have other mode of participations that come from the fact that we are the interaction and which do not at all depend on 3th person knowledge and which will never enter a 3th person knowledge.  Just walking.  A baby do not need any phisiological 3th person physiological knowledge of its body to learn how to walk.  A lot of experiential work from the baby's part but in about a year of exausting experiential work the baby walk.  Science cannot fully access the center of this experience not by lack of knowledge and progress but by definition of what a scientific knowledge is.   A materialist will contest such limitation imposed by the method and will demand on my part that I provides a proof of the existence of such limitation. For a materialist, such a proof will need to be a scientific proof.  But you see, such a proof would not be a proof of the limitation of science because if somethind exist outside what can be expressed within a scientific framework then by definition it cannot enter it and be given as proof.  So the scientific world extended to all of what is discoverable in the far future by any intelligent being in the cosmos is closed to what is not scientific.  When someone locate himself in this framework there is no other choice to be materialist.  As a scientist I necessarily am a materialist but contrary to most materialist I do not think that this framework of expression encompassed reality or is our unique human mode of interactions.   A materialist is like someone that has learned only one language, his native tongue and that is convinced that all that can be said can be said in this language.  Somone of another language that is bilingual tries to convince him that he can say in his foreith native language (language B) things that it cannot say in language A.  But the speaking of language A ask a proof in language A of the truth of this affirmation!!!!  Obviously a proof in language A of the limitation of language A cannot be provided.  One need to learn another language in order to experience such a proof.  Another example is someone living in flat land asking someone living in 3D space a proof in flatland of the existence of 3D space world.  All it can see in flatland is the projection of 3D space world and not such a proof can be contained in flatland.  Finally when I say ''I AM the INTERRACTION'', I do not mean the interaction as seen and projected in flatland/material world but reality of it projecting in the material world.  The location of this projection in the material world is the location of its creation when the body grow, where the interaction change, but at that location will only see novelty fossilizing but never see in the material world what produce this novelty, you will only see the novelty when it appears like from nowhere to be seen, and this location is ME, my consciousness, it project very very partially in the material world, the world of the intellection, is experience fully in all our human worlds.

It is interesting to see how you are interpreting the implicit memory as being the body, Louis. Many people misjudge the implicit memory because it is transparent to our conscious minds, but yes it is more powerful than the conscious awareness because it is truly parallel in operation.

Graeme,

Any memory is part of the body.  The implicit memory is immediatly active and as you said it is transparent like the rest of your body.  I type this answer with my fingers but do not really notice what my finger actually do , I only notice the word appearing on the screen as I wanted and so I do not care about my fingers, they transparently convey my will to send this message. And you on the other end reading this message do not care how actually rapidly direct you gazes all over this text, you do not care about that and so use your body transparently for understading the message.  What is transparent is invisible and the visible is visible because of all this invisible body making it visible.

Did you read about the theory of tacit knowledge of Michael Polanyi?

Louis,

it would be better if you write with a pen. You will memorize much better than typing because the bodily action is more intensive.

This is a very nice series of postings.

A tribute to the kindness of humanity.

smile ...

Louis, you must be careful when describing implicit knowledge to keep the different sources of it, separate. The cortex Implicit knowledge is quite different from the cerebellar implicit knowledge and the basal ganglia implicit knowledge but they are all transparent to the conscious mind.

When you describe how your fingers "Know" how to put information onto the line, you are talking about a combination of cerebellar and basal ganglia knowledge which is separate from the implicit knowledge coming from the cerebrum.

In today's celebration of the cerebral cortex, quite a bit of brain function is simply ignored.

Graeme,

Implicit knowledge correspond to the whole body. Your hand an implicit memory of handling.  All your body part, all the part of your brain gives specific skills: these skills are all implicit memoty of some capacity.  Some body part you acquire at 2 days, some you acquire 1 second ago, the whole of you is  this implicit memory, is is your capacity of doing and yes you can decomposed it in a lot of body systems but remember that all of them are interacting system and none of them can be understood outside their interacting context and in the case of what belong to the neuro-motor systems half of what is involved in the interaction is outside the physical body.

Hello Louis - what leaps out for me from your post is the word "interacting" - I feel that science generally takes an analytical point of view but in reality, as you state,  we are a living organism where all the different systems interact and each contribute to our "being" in some specific way.

Tina,

I have an image in mind of any organism as an interaction.  I imagine a kind of spiral of interaction with a singular nexus of growth and I locate the individual consciousness as this nexus of growth where the indivisual is constantly being created.  But this interaction spiral is not bound by the skin otherwise it is not an interaction.  The individual is a singularity but within the spiral, with what affect the growth there are the other individuals and the world there are forming and creating.  Notice that we are not really separated, the singularities are separated but there singularities are one with the interacting spiral.  So others and the world is part of your world.  It is a modern version of Leibniz's monadology.

The main difference between human interaction and other mammal interactions is about our method to grow this interaction and it is primarily based on how social interaction, interaction between humans is taking place.   We create worlds of interactions by mutual social conventions and become through enculturation/exposition to the social conventional worlds participant/actors in these world as other mammals learn to participate in their unique natural world.  We create all kind of worlds and we live in them, the myths we live by.  Instead of mostly adapting to a natural world we became mostly building of social or theatrical worlds.  These conventions are seriously enforced and it is a taboo to discuss anything that could compromise what the social forces are currently building.  I can say anything on this forum because it has no realm impact and so as long it is remain so I am free to say what I want.

Hello Louis and hello Wilfried,

What I am enjoying about research gate is that each participant has the space to clarify how they see the world and this is great. Your answer overlaps to quite a large extent with how I see an "interacting organism" but maybe you put more emphasis on the social self outside. This is an addition which I had not really delved into, but as you say it is very reminiscent on how people live today. I also feel that we can spiral into our inner worlds and then the outer world changes in many ways.

I also feel that the nexus of growth is the "I conscious awareness" ( I think we share this perspective) and when we can identify this, it is or becomes the true self who then decides how I (we) choose to live our lives. And maybe this helps throw some light on the original question of Wilfried. Maybe we are pushed/educated into being/becoming a social self when we are young but then as we mature after losing our way, we eventually turn inside and discover the true self……..

Hello Tina,

Lets pay attention to the original question. Wilfried's question is about the emergence of ''self-awareness''' in human infant development.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_cognitive_development

''The most common technique used in research for testing self-awareness in infants a mirror test known as the "rouge test.[18][19] The rouge test works by applying a dot on an infant’s face and then placing them in front of the mirror. If the infant investigates the dot on their nose by touching it, they are thought to realize their own existence and have achieved self-awareness. A number of research studies have used this technique and shown self-awareness to develop between 15 and 24 months of age.[20][21] Some researchers take language such as "I, me, my, etc." as an indicator of self-awareness''

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

''From the age of 6 to 12 months, the child typically sees a "sociable playmate" in the mirror's reflection. Self-admiring and embarrassment usually begin at 12 months, and at 14 to 20 months most children demonstrate avoidance behaviors.[45] Finally, at 18 months half of children recognize the reflection in the mirror as their own[46] and by 20 to 24 months self-recognition climbs to 65%. Children do so by evincing mark-directed behavior; they touch their own nose and/or try to wipe the mark off.''

''in chimpanzees, the species most studied and with the most convincing findings, clear-cut evidence of self-recognition is not obtained in all individuals tested.[7] Prevalence is about 75% in young adults and considerably less in young and aging individuals.''

One of the 3 tested elephants showed mark-directed behaviour, however, the other two did not.''

''Killer whales (Ocinus orca) and false killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens) may be able to recognize themselves in mirrors.''

''The Eurasian magpie is the only bird to have passed the mirror test.''

Dear all,

Merry Christmas to you and a happy new year.

I had answered already to this question: Self consciousness - Self awareness is introduced in ontogeny when the child is about 2 1/2 to 3 years old. Chimpanzees have self recognition in the mirror, Rhesus monkeys not!. Dolphines have it  such as Orcas (already said). Back to cjild development. Prior to the Age of roughly 3 years the child Looks at itself in the it-form, and typically says Dominik doesn't want to go to bed. Then the maturation of the ego and self comes, and with roughly 3 years the child says: "I do not want to go to bed!." The maturation of the I, the self is essential for the development of the personality. The human child has a Long period of education (16, 18 21 years). This is a matter of the complexity of the brain. A Urand Utang Baby stays already 10 year with the mother. The human child develops seld awareness and at the same time the maturation of the will occurs and this Expresses itself in what is called the "difficult age." We deal with this in out book: Kornhuber HH and Deecke L: The will and its brain. An appraisal of reasoned free will. University Press of Amerioa, Lamham, Maryland, USA (2012) ISBN 978-0-7618-5852-1 on page 55. Merry Christmal Yours Lüder Deecke