Evolutionary Origins of Human Consciousness

[claudiusde]

On Jan 22, 7:25 pm, "Stephen" <stephe...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Why do humans have a consciousness?

It's a direct result of the group/communal selective aspects
of human evolution:

1) A shift in world climate about 8 million years ago. (A
shift in Hadley cells [paleoclimatology--look it up].)

2) Resulting shift from a seasonless rain-forest habitat to a
dry- season dominated monsoon habitat.

3) Patchification of resulting treed habitat near source
of perrenial water into city-sized, town-sized patches
of forest.

4) Emergence of large predators, especially in the surrounding
treeless or less treed habitat.

5) Resulting Isolation of (chimp)/A'pith communities at these
treed patches as a result of #3 and #4 above. (Note:
isolation is essential to the group selective aspects of
this hypothesis. Without it individuals or subgroups of a
community site could [and would] easily escape the dry
season predatory massacres [see #6 below] that links the
fate of the members of a community to one another.)

6) Tendency of the predators to target community sites during
the desperate depths of the dry season that are
impoverished, starving, thirsty, experiencing internal
strife and to ignore those that are healthy, well-fed, and
that maintain internal cooperation.

7) Emergence of large food-competitor species that, if left
unchecked, could and would rapidly deplete the resources in
a (chimp)/A'pith community thereby increasing the
probability (see #6 above) that the community site would be
targeted by the opportunity seeking predators during the
desperate depths of the dry season.

8) Due to the implications of #1 through #7 above, the
emergence of cooperative rock-throwing, stick wielding
behaviors in (chimp)/A'pith directed against inmigrating
food-competitor species. The communities that were most
successful in this behavior were the ones that best avoided
predatory massacres.

So, to answer the question, why did consciousness emerge in
humans/ hominids? Because individuals that have
consciousness/conscience are more likely to be members of
communities that are better able to achieve the behavior/ends
indicated in #8 above.

It's that simple.

[Day Brown]

So far, so good. But in addition, the field studies of chimps
reveal alpha and beta males. We see the alphas on the line
defending the group from other alpha gangs or joining together
to present a united front to predators.

Ah... what are the betas there for? Why dont they get off
their lazy asses and help? Well, "Demonic Males" by Wrangham &
Peterson, cites numerous field studies, some done by the
Japanese who dont get any coverage here, reveal that the
alphas are also responsible for rape and 'domestic abuse'.
They have short fuses with fast reflexes. The betas routinely
place themselves between an alpha and any of the more
vulnerable women and kids. Betas are the same size, and can
take the abuse.

But both the betas and the females are always on the watch, at
the body language of the alphas so as to pick up an aggressive
impulse before the alpha even knows he has it. They *INTUIT*
this, and they do so by feeling what it feels like to be
alpha. The alphas have no fucking clue. They dont have the
same sense of consciousness, but are there like the bulls to
sacrificially protect the herd from lions or whatever.

And, when you do the bloodwork, you can spot the alphas. high
adrenalin for fast reflexes, lower serotonin for sharper
senses. They are alert enough at nite to warn the group of
prowlers. But, not having slept well, wake up grouchy. "Dont
bother your father, he just woke up."

Chimps routinely form gangs to go into adjacent territories
looking for a foraging couple. They will murder him and any
progeny she has, kidnap her, and drag her ass back to the
group where she will be gang raped until she is pregnant
again. As a result, the females need to pick up on the pecking
order really quick, and they do this with a much more
intuitive understanding of the body language of others.

It also turns out that the daughters of the alphas abandon and
abuse young. It is the betas, and their daughters, who adopt.
They do this because they have the consciousness to feel the
pain that goes right by alphas. If there are not enough betas,
then not enough young survive, and when the alphas get old,
that's the end of the line. It is the daughters of the betas
who are the competent mothers.

The ability to project the consciouness is eventually
expressed in cosmology. The earliest example I know of is at
the bottom of http:// www.dc-pc.org/artifax/artifax.htm dating
from the Chalcolithic era, IIRC, Vinca in what is now Hungary
or Romania. 7000 years ago.

[claudiusde]

> They dont have the same sense of consciousness, but are
> there like the bulls to sacrificially protect the herd from
> lions or whatever.

Interesting stuff here, Day. I would agree that this thinking
does a good job of describing the foundations upon which human
consciousness may have first emerged. And my hypothesis
describes why it emerged.

Wrangham is more of a realist. Goodall is more of an idealist.

[Day Brown]

On Jan 29, 10:38 pm, claudiusd...@sbcglobal.net wrote:
> And my hypothesis describes why it emerged.
No argument. Related to the predator threat you outline, I can
see that individuals would want others to be looking at them.
If somebody is looking at you, they also see what is behind
you. This mutual attention also evolves into the sense of what
threat *another* individual is subject to, that is, 'feeling'
what another would feel.

Whatever else 'consciousness' is, it includes this sense of
future risks & benefits, moving the awareness out of the
immediate, shall we say, 'animal experience' to some point
which is outside of the current set of sensory input.

Chapstick is correct to cite the Bonobo, with which the
hominids share many more attributes that Wrangham &
Peterson list. 1- hominid & bonobo males are 20-30% larger;
the other great apes are 200-300% larger than females. 2-
hominid & bonobo have thicker dentine by far because of the
tubers in the diet (that have grit on them). a- they both
carry around digging tools to get the tubers. b- the sharp
bone shards Bonobo carry would evolve into weapons. 3-
Hominid & Bonobo females dont have an estrus flush or odor
to indicate fertility. The males dont know which females
they need to control access to. 4- hominid & Bonobo females
engage in Lesbian sex. They also use sex for bonding which
great apes dont so.

The hominids spread further, faster, and are found in widely
varied population densities. Where the tribal density is high,
as reported by LeBlanc and Diamond, warfare goes on all the
time, which necessitates more aggressive alpha males in the
gene pools. Where it is low, as with the Inuit, aggression is
limited to periods of resource shortage. Where the population
is high, there are vigorous efforts to monopolize access to
females. Where it is low, genetic diversity becomes more
important, so the females are wanton and there is little, or
no, effort to control them.

I had a work on European hill forts, leant out that never came
back 8- ( ... but anyway, they noted that hill forts first
emerged 5500BP, were common for a thousand years or so, then
were abandoned. Then, after a long series of centuries, they
appear again, and then are abandoned again, and so on right up
to the Roman era. Why?

The civil engineering of Roman Sewer & water systems, which
they inherited from the Greeks, who inherited it from the
Minoans, would have been a way to control pandemics like
cholera and dysentery. The natural alpha male instinct to
band together in ever larger numbers for greater military
advantage, eventually results in pandemics. The midieval
plagues completely upset the steep pyramidal power
structures, and made people dispserse in voluntary quaranteen
into the forests.

The aggressive instincts of the alpha males, which are so
necessary for tribal survival in the lower latitudes is
disadvantageous in the small isolated communities where
their aggressive impulses limit the survival of their wives
and children.

But in any case, in any gene pool, the ratio of alphas to
betas varies over time in response to risks of aggression or
disease; hominids have far more complex instinctive behavior
patterns than the apes and this also results in cognitive
dissonance as aggresive or passive patterns in the mind
compete in the decision making process. Societies have setup
various systems, such as "boot camp" to increase aggression
they want to use, but then prisons for when they could not
control what they have created. Some hominids are more or less
adaptable to new behavioral demands, which are more or less
found in different gene pools. The transnational corporate
culture draws into its ranks the most adaptable to its
physically passive ways, and rejects those who are steadfast
to their instinctive tribal traditions.