Brain Evolution

Very good question. But it begs for a definition of consciousness and assumes it's a brain-development thing. Maybe it isn't. Maybe consciousness is a state of mind, not a part of the brain. Maybe two humans differ in their respective states of consciousness on the grounds of their perceptions of reality. Maybe one person says consciousness is being closer to God, while another says it is being closer to nature. When Pat Roberston said that New Orleans was punished by Katrina because it fostered gay behavior was he more conscious than a NOAA weatherman who said it had to do with global warming?Consciousness is a measure of correctness in reality perception. But whose reality? Was Einstein more conscious than Gandhi? Is Barack Obama more conscious than George Bush? Is a human SCUBA diver more conscious than cuttlefish in its reef?I'm not at all sure that consciousness is an "evolving brain" thing. For humans, it's more like an "evolving symbolic language? thing. For cuttlefish, it may be more like a "evolving color pattern" thing.”HM

Perhaps the kind of consciousness you're talking about is carried through our symbolic language. I am suspicious of that. Now, perhaps the parts of brains that engage symbolic language are where consciousness manifests logistically. And perhaps symbolic language is just another tool for survival, which may also be what consciousness is.If this is germane: A walk with my dog through the woods is all I need to show me that his "consciousness" and mine are two different things, and that his may be a whole lot more perceptive than mine in that environment.”HM

Hi, onfire. A question: Do you think Helen Keller gained more consciousness after she was trained to use a symbolic language? Or was her human consciousness innate to her and fixed from birth?”HM