I know this sounds like it should belong in the general questions section, but I know this will cause some debate so I thought I would post it here.
Im truly curious as to what the prevailing theory is on when and how humans developed self-awareness. And any ideas on how this trait, if it can be called that, was passed along. I mean was it a gradual thing…or one day did a newborn baby grow with this awareness and pass it along. Is it even possible to tell when such a thing could have happened? I would think if anything being aware of yourself and therefore being aware of ‘death’ would be a detriment to early hunters, not an assets.
I have tried doing some research, but either im looking in the wrong place or there is just not much out there.
Some folks suggest it has to do with the “brain within a brain” architecture of the mammalian brain. Carl Sagan pursued this a bit in his essay “The Dragons of Eden.” We (mammals) are built on a reptilian hind-brain and an enveloping mammalian forebrain…
Take an injured dog… He’s “aware” of his own suffering. He hurts, and he knows it, and he craves emotional support as well as physical support.
Take an injured lizard… It has no emotional dimension to its suffering… It may show behavioral differences (beyond the mere mechanical ones imposed by the limitations caused by the injury, of course) but it won’t exhibit the behaviors shown by (most) mammals…
Another point: mammals dream… Mammals’ brains operate at that secondary level, function-wrapped-in-function…
Yet another note: humans spend a lot of time “modeling” their own behaviors. We “narrate” our own existence, much like Snoopy in an old Peanuts strip.
(“Here’s the pseudo-intellectual, posting an insightful comment on the SDMB, hoping he won’t get caught out by someone who really knows this stuff…”)
Among other things, this is one of the reasons a lot of people are twitchy about standing near the edge of a precipice. In our modeling of our own behavior, we’re constantly evaluating options. “What if I were to say X?” “What if I were to do Y?” One of the options, near a cliff, is to step forward – and fall to our doom. We get really uncomfortable modeling that behavior!
First off, I don’t think awareness of death is detrimental. Avoidance of death would be a useful trait, wouldn’t it?
Why do you assume self-awareness developed with humans? Are primates lacking self-awareness? My WAG is that self-awareness developed long ago in the evolutionary tree and that it became particularly salient in homo sapiens due to our ridiculously bulbous heads (for which the best explanation I am aware of is Robert Trivers’ Cognitive Arms Race Hypothesis, which deals primarily with the development of the emotions to function in the regulation of trade).
I think the big problem here is defining self awareness. Is a primate self-aware? What about an insect with can be demonstrated to act in an algorithmic manner? What is it to be self-aware?
Depends. If you are not “aware” of yourself, or in your own mortality you may do things that otherwise you may not. Take a bird…if a bird could truly realize his own mortality maybe flying wouldnt seem like such a good idea.
Im not sure of the clinical defination, for me tho, I would classify any thing that is aware of its own individual life and its eventual death, and also the ability to recognize it in others.
Chimps an dolphins (and probably gorillas) have been shown to be “self aware”, although not to the point that they are aware of their eventual death. The simple mirror test can be used. Monkeys (no slouches in the brain dept) will treat its own reflection as if it were another monkey. Chimps will use the mirror to pick stuff out of their teeth and examine parts of their bodies that they can’t normally see.
So, it must be that this self awareness came about in stages, most likely starting before the human and chimp line split (some 6M years ago). As for being aware of our deaths, the advantages of complex self-awareness obviously outnumber the disadvantes. Hence the 6B people alive today…
In Gödel, Escher, Bach, Hofstadter cycles back repeatedly to the fascinating idea that a representational system of sufficient complexity is going to be able to express true statements that cannot be demonstrated to be true within the rules of that same system (because you can then represent the equivalent of “this statement is false”); that for a sound reproduction system of sufficient quality and capacity there will be sounds that it cannot play (because there will exist a sound of some frequency and intensity capable of destroying it if it did). In other places, he drew us into Escher’s portrait of a portrait gallery in which an art lover is staring at a picture of a portrait gallery in which he stands staring at it, and referenced recursive routines in computer programs…
Self-referentiality, in other words, just tends to occur when systems are sufficiently complex to permit them to reference themselves.
As soon as we had the hardware (brain) and software (language of sufficient complexity to hold abstract thoughts as concepts and then do more abstract thinking about those concepts as if they were simple nouns), we not only thought of ourselves but even thought aobut the fact that we think about ourselves and considered what that meant, that we could do that.
We really need to be more clear here, I think. There is a certain sense of self aware which we can determine and define by external observation, and then there is the kind that befuddles philosohpers. Self-awareness in the objective sense can be defined by beings complex enough to consider themselves as being part of whatever modelling they are able to do when they consider things like their actions, and the actions of others. Presumably, even fairly simple computer programs can do this. However, the idea of subjective self-awareness, the idea that it is “like” something to be something… well nobody really has any clue even WHAT that is, or even if we are defining the QUESTIONS about it properly. Are the two connected in some way? Maybe. But then again, maybe not: it’s pretty hard to tell given that communication of the experience of having an inner experience of oneself (even if that communication is a programmed lie!) necessarily requires beings complex enough to fulfill at least the objective form of self awareness.
Well, first of all there must be a “self”. What is a “self”?
As far as I can see, ALL aspects of what constitutes a “self” are explained simply by a unique string of memories recorded from a mobile point in space, rather like the stored output of a combined camera/microphone/touch sensor etc. Were that unique string of memories to be place in another “housing”, that would consitiute a new “self”. (It should be understood that the unique string includes “training” which can explain “personality traits”).
Now, what of this “awareness”? When I sit here at my desk and wonder what is the difference between me now and me when I am not “aware” (eg. under general anaesthetic), all that needs to be present is a continual feed into memory from sensory apparatus (even if very little information is present as in a flotation tank), and perhaps some recall from memory. The “flow of time” might be explained by the fact that at each instant, information from the “future”, “present” and “past” is all being processed, filtered and stored in varying “levels” of memory.
So, what more assumptions need be made in order to explain the phenomenon called “awareness”, other than a sensory apparatus attached to several layers of memory? Emotion surely need not be essential. However, language quite possibly might be, particularly with regards to appreciating one’s own death (a concept which would necessarily require complex communication apparatus).
I agree with many others that a hard testable definition is needed for “self awareness” before we could talk about where it came from, and if it is a trait of all mammals, some mammals, or just humans.
The best test for self-awareness I’m familiar with is the mirror test [mentiond above]. Some primates, and dolphins have passed this test. Human babies less than 1.5 - 2 years of age actually fail it. So if by “when” you meant “when for each individual human zygote” - then sometime around 2 years old seems the answer.
Medically - scientific testing has led to evidence that the part of the human brain most likely responsible for this self-awareness is somewhere around the left inferior frontal area. Perhaps if some biologists out there know where up the evolutionary ladder these sections of our brain developed and can compare it to the development of other species (dolphins, primates, etc… ) then we might have an avenue to test and research further. [Perhaps the book mentioned in Mr. Mace’s post approaches things from this angle?]
There is an interesting correlation between the mirror test animals and communication abilities of animals. The animals that can communicate in less than purely instinctive manners also pass, (or come close to passing) the mirror test.
(Primates, Dolphins, Elephants, African Grey Parrots)
Perhaps this isn’t all that surprising. Afterall, a sense of self in necessary for someone to want to talk to another person. Human communication almost always boils down to “I want to tell YOU something.” So you’d need an awareness of both what “I” am and what “YOU” are ahead of time.
That which we call thought doesn’t function without emotion. You could not recognize patterns or make comparisons without emotion, and could not contemplate. You would not possess what we call “awareness”.
AH3:
Can you elaborate on why emotions are essential? You state that they are, as if it were a proven fact, but haven’t offered any evidence other than your opinion. (Not trying to be snide, just genuinely curious.)
I recommend reading ‘The Prehistory of The Mind’ by Steven Mithen. His theories may rely on a good deal of conjecture but I guess that is inevitable in this field. I found his evidence and logic pretty credible - it should at least be read to compare with other models. Check the reviews on amazon.com for a taste of his ideas.
I, like John, am interested as to why you say this, A. Elation and depression can be correlated with psychophysical agents such as dopamine, serotonin, somatostatin etc. and their associated receptors. However, I cannot see any necessary link between “mood” and the simple pattern-recognition or select-compare operations which are fundamental to neural networks.
As for “contemplation”, I agree that sensory input+memory cannot explain every single aspect of this thing we call “awareness”, such as why I don’t like sprouts, but that was plainly not what I was trying to say.
there is no clinical definition. “self-awareness”, in the way i think of it, isn’t a clinical concept.
the mirror-recognition test shows nothing more than a given animal is able to recognize itself in a mirror. or at least that it shows evidence that it does.
to expound some more on what Sentient said, one’s self seems to be, rather than how he phrased it, a set of experiences (memories - the past), the tools to process those experiences and form plans (the present?), and a plan to carry out (the future). the present contains no experiential content. by the time you are aware of something, it is already a memory. so, the phenomenon of self-awareness just seems to be the existence in those memories some indication that the apparatus currently being used to process the past and formulate a plan for the future.
so in order to have self-awareness, something must be sufficiently complex to have content-filled memories, and a monitoring system that gives some indication of the state of the planning apparatus in that content.
by the way, i have no idea what constitutes the content of an experience.
also, i too have severe doubts that “emotion”, by any reasonable definition of it, is required for thoughts.
What is a thought? Is it not some kind of biochemical process that occurs in the brain? And aren’t emotions (whatever they may be) a manifestation of some biochemical process that occurs in the body or brain?
I don’t think it’s such a doubtful proposition that emotions are somehow important in one’s understanding what a thought is (and by implication the connection/relevance of thought to awareness and self-awareness).
This question keeps coming up in one form or another. Here are some of my previous answers (and of course relevant comments by others in those threads):