# Self-Awarness: How, Why, When? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 25, 2003, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271 "2003-11-25T22:24:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Dob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dob)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/1 "2003-11-25T22:24:22Z")
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. Any ideas or info would be greatly appreciated! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/2 "2003-11-25T23:22:11Z")
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! Trinopus ---
**Author:** ![mrsam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5ac83/32.png) [@mrsam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrsam)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2003, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/3 "2003-11-25T23:30:42Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![Dob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Dob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dob)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/4 "2003-11-26T00:06:02Z")
**from msram** > [@](#): > > Avoidance of death would be a useful trait, wouldn’t it? 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. > [@](#): > > What is it to be self-aware? 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. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/5 "2003-11-26T02:03:15Z")
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… Steven Mithen is an author you might want to look into to get some ideas about what current theories are being talked about in scientific cirlces. His book [The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0500281009/qid=1069812055/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-5004249-6937655?v=glance&s=books) would be a good place to start. ---
**Author:** ![raizok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4491bb/32.png) [@raizok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raizok)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/6 "2003-11-26T02:39:44Z")
Its aliens!! aliens did this to us!!! _puts tinfoil hat on_ ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/7 "2003-11-26T03:36:59Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/8 "2003-11-26T05:37:47Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/9 "2003-11-26T11:08:07Z")
What _is_ 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). ---
**Author:** ![Sqwert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9adbd/32.png) [@Sqwert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sqwert)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/10 "2003-11-26T12:29:19Z")
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. Links: Mirror test on Dolphins (John Hopkins Univ) : [http://www.jhu.edu/~newslett/05-3-01/Science/2.html](http://www.jhu.edu/~newslett/05-3-01/Science/2.html) Well footnoted (short) paper on the brain’s frontal lobe and self-awareness : [http://www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/1999/morin.html](http://www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/1999/morin.html) ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/11 "2003-11-26T15:13:36Z")
**SentientMeat** > [@](#): > > 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. Wrong. (i.e., I disagree) 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”. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/12 "2003-11-26T15:29:54Z")
**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.) ---
**Author:** ![Somnambulist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Somnambulist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Somnambulist)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/13 "2003-11-26T15:41:13Z")
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](http://amazon.com) for a taste of his ideas. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/14 "2003-11-26T16:00:19Z")
> [@](#): > > You could not recognize patterns or make comparisons without emotion, and could not contemplate. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Ramanujan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/51bf81/32.png) [@Ramanujan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramanujan)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/15 "2003-11-26T16:21:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dob \* > 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![eponymous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e0b2c6/32.png) [@eponymous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eponymous)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/16 "2003-11-26T16:47:25Z")
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). ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/17 "2003-11-26T16:53:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by John Mace \* > \*\ ***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.) \*\* It’s actually pretty widely known nowadays. Here’s one of the first links I googled: [http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000619/00/Emot\_Decis.html](http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000619/00/Emot_Decis.html) > [@](#): > > Abstract > > Recent research has yielded an explosion of literature that establishes a strong connection between emotional and cognitive processes. Most notably, Antonio Damasio draws an intimate connection between emotion and cognition in practical decision making. Damasio presents a “somatic marker” hypothesis which explains how emotions are biologically indispensable to decisions. **His research on patients with frontal lobe damage indicates that feelings normally accompany response options and operate as a biasing device to dictate choice. …** > > Damasio re-examines the case of Phineas Gage, the victim of an 1848 mine explosion that hurled an iron rod through his skull and brain. Strangely, Gage recovered except for a severe deficiency in practical and social decision making. According to Damasio, the case of Gage and other patients with similar frontal lobe damage offer convincing evidence that the human brain’s regions for making decisions are strongly connected to emotional centers. > > Damasio maintains that Gage and other frontal lobe patients with faulty decision making skills have all the information required to make decisions. According to neurological studies by Saver and Damasio (1991), social knowledge in these patients remains intact. Their experimental subject, EVR, could provide response options to social situations, consider the consequences of these options and perform moral reasoning at an advanced level. EVR had normal or better intelligence and memory. Detailed studies by Saver and Damasio suggest that even with all the necessary information, such patients are unable to implement a choice in everyday life. (1) \*\*For example, EVR would take hours deciding where to dine by obsessing about each restaurant’s seating plan, menu and atmosphere. Even then, he could not reach a final decision. \*\* > > **These neurological studies show that what is damaged in these patients is not memory or intelligence, but the neural connections between the emotional and cognitive centers of the brain.** More specifically, the ventromedial frontal region is reported to be responsible for emotional processing and social cognition through connections with the amygdala and hypothalamus. After a series of tests, Saver and Damasio conclude that **in the absence of emotional input, EVR’s decision making process was overwhelmed by trivial information.** With additional studies, the researchers conclude that EVR had no internal goal representation. In order for goals to remain stable for EVR, they had to be represented externally and repeatedly. Otherwise, “…it was as if he forgot to remember short- and intermediate- term goals… He couldn’t keep a problem in perspective in relation to other goals.”(1985, p.1737). > > … Damasio suggests that patients with frontal lobe damage fail to activate these somatic markers which are directly linked to punishment and reward, and originate in previously experienced social situations. EVR’s decision making defect is explained by an inability to activate somatic states when ordinary decisions arise; by an inability to mark the implications of a social situation with a signal that would separate good and bad options. (3) EVR was therefore trapped in a never-ending cost-benefit analysis of numerous and conflicting options. In the absence of emotional markers, decision making is virtually impossible. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/18 "2003-11-26T17:13:52Z")
\*\* John Mace \*\* > [@](#): > > **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’m on my way out the door for vacation, but: 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): [Are emotions useful?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=120809#post2200061) [Emotions](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=173596#post3214142) [Should you trust your instincts? (kinda long)](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=174326#post3223035) [Should People in the future be genetically designed to be emotionless?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=138176#post2493011) And this thread: [What’s the evolutional reason for most feelings?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=178366#post3305798) ---
**Author:** ![Ramanujan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/51bf81/32.png) [@Ramanujan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramanujan)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/19 "2003-11-26T17:17:11Z")
that there is a connection between human thoughts and human emotion does not prove that a thought necessarily requires emotion. ---
**Author:** ![Ramanujan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/51bf81/32.png) [@Ramanujan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramanujan)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2003, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271/20 "2003-11-26T17:42:07Z")
it seems to me, **AHunter3** , that you define thoughts and emotion so that the two can’t exist independently. that’s not particularly helpful. perhaps i’ve got it wrong, though. what is a thought that it can’t exist without feedback or an assessment of its value? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/self-awarness-how-why-when/215271.md?page=2)