If we accept consciousness is a subjective experience arising from the dynamics of our body, how do things find their way into consciousness?
We are constantly taking in information about the world from our senses, yet not all of this becomes conscious to us. You are likely to have had an experience, where music was playing in the room but when your attention is drawn to something else, you are no longer aware of the music. Our senses might still be registering aspects of the world, but we are not conscious of them. Remember the concept that one of the primary functions of the brain is prediction and simulation and the ideas of transparency and breakdown. Something comes into consciousness when we become aware or attend to something.
Our simulations are formed from our distinctions and stories shaped by our core concerns. Our very basic concern is survival.
Human beings have evolved cognisant and cognitive structures and processes to survive and perpetuate in many varied environments. We have five senses and instinctive responses, and our attention is automatically drawn to motion, sounds, smells and so on that might indicate danger. We also have automatic ways of protecting ourselves from predicted danger such as the ‘fight or flight’ response and the ‘startle reflex’.
Such predispositions exist in us all, but our instinct for survival does not end with our biological being. One of the key aspects of our use of language is the creation of our worldview and the stories we hold about how the world is for us. These stories provide us with a sense of certainty about how things are, regardless of how well aligned these stories are with reality. They include our sense of who we are, how people are and define how the world in general is for us. We also have stories about how we and the world could or should be.
These stories are precious as they help us navigate through life. They not only create some sense of certainty; they create a sense of continuity. With this in mind, our survival instinct does not just relate to our physical being but to our linguistic being. We seek the survival of our physical being and our worldview – how the world is for us. We defend our ways of being.
The extent to which we feel threatened will impact on our structure and predispositions together with our ongoing worldview. When we feel threatened, survival is paramount and other concerns are forgotten until any threat recedes. This does not mean that a threat completely disappears, and someone feels entirely safe, but they feel safe enough that other concerns surface.
When we are able, human beings also seek opportunities to enhance our ways of being – how the world could be for us.
This instinct for survival and enhancement of our physical and linguistic ways of being draws our attention to things, feelings and thoughts and brings them into consciousness.
As to what specific instances become conscious and the process that creates consciousness, well the jury is still out. One theory that may carry some weight takes us back to the predictive brain, particularly the idea of prediction error or breakdown.
Consciousness may have evolved in part to help us deal with breakdowns that cannot be rapidly resolved by providing a space in which we can explore our breakdowns in a more effective manner through language. This may address one of the key philosophical challenges brought about by the predictive brain and our predispositions to act – whether or not we have free will.
This issue arises from the concern that our conscious decision is an afterthought. Remember, Libet’s research. If this were the case, it would imply that human consciousness and therefore language would have little or no evolutionary advantage as they are literally an afterthought. This makes little sense.
Another way of thinking about this is, in terms of consciousness, language can play three roles. Firstly, as a feedback loop related to our predisposition for action – when we become aware of something, we can distinguish it and what we are predisposed to do. Secondly, language provides the means of vetoing our predispositions – this speaks to the idea that we initially have ‘free won’t’ rather than ‘free will’. Finally, once a veto has been triggered, we can use various language patterns, what we term ‘conversations’, to direct our action. This implies that language provides further feedback loops on which we can draw.
With that in mind, we can conclude that human consciousness is indeed special. Unlike other creatures, we have a sophisticated linguistic ability and with it our inner voice. We have the capacity to overcome our structural predispositions and direct ourselves down a different path. We can become more than creatures of habit.