CONSCIOUSNESS IN EVOLUTION

Yasuhiko Genku Kimura

© 2019

Evolution is Life's thrust for optimization manifesting as ever-greater complexity and ever-higher order in life-forms and systems. It is the expression of higher order-generating syntropy, in contradistinction with disorder-producing entropy. Further, evolution is a synergetic process, where synergy means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by behavior of their subsystems taken separately and observed apart from the whole. Evolution is an open-ended, syntropic, synergetic process and phenomenon.

The evolution in consciousness of the individual and the evolution of consciousness of the species involve that the content of consciousness and the dimensionality of experience become increasingly richer, more complex, more extensive, and more multifocal, multireferential, multilayered, and multidimensional. There is more of the universe contained and held, in an integral and orderly manner, in the consciousness of the humans than in that of the other animal species, in the consciousness of modern humans than in that of primitive humans, or in the consciousness of the cultivated than in that of the uncultivated.

The increasing body of scientific research into the human brain and consciousness indicate a clear link between the brain and consciousness, demonstrating that the evolution of consciousness has paralleled the evolution of the brain. Also, unlike other sentient beings on the planet whose environment is nature, human consciousness is adapted to the environment of culture as well as that of nature. Human consciousness is thus encultured and the biosemiotic mechanism of enculturation has played an essential role in its evolution. Evolution of human consciousness is therefore bicultural.

Human consciousness is a semiotic hybrid of nature and culture, and evolves as a coevolution of neurobiology ('biosemiosis') and culture ('noosemiosis') which comprise an evolutionary double helix. The optimization for which consciousness thrusts in its evolution is the optimization of the experience of wholeness and knowledge thereof. Consciousness wills to experience and apprehend the wholeness of reality at an ever-higher degree of order and an ever-greater measure of complexity. This is Nietzsche's Will to Power, which is his designation for the evolutionary impulse-the thrust for optimization.

Evolution in consciousness of the individual is five-fold: (1) evolution in perceptual acumen; (2) evolution in conceptual complexity; (3) evolution in volitional power; (4) evolution in introceptual capacity, (5) evolution in imaginational degrees of freedom. (The introceptual/Introception will be explained in the next section.)

Evolution in perceptual acumen makes us perceive more of reality in appearance (phenomenon). Evolution in conceptual complexity makes us conceive or conceptualize more of reality in symbolic sematic abstractions.

Evolution in volitional power makes us be more capable of actualizing our intention and executing our will through action. Evolution in introceptual capacity makes us categorically more aware of the self and of the reality beyond appearance (noumenon). Evolution in imaginational degrees of freedom (or dimensionalities) makes us freer in imagination and therefore more imaginative and creative.

Evolution of consciousness of homo sapiens to homo deus will be six-fold: (1) evolution of perceptual capacity; (2) evolution of conceptual capacity; (3) evolution of volitional capacity; (4) evolution of introceptual capacity; (5) evolution of imaginational capacity; (6) evolution of the executive functions of the brain-mind system which corresponds with the evolution of the first five capacities.

Whereas in the evolution in consciousness there is no increase of the basic potential but only in the degree of actualization, in the evolution of consciousness there is a discontinuous mutative increase of the potential and the range of possibility for actualization, concomitant with the complexification or modifications of the brain and its functional efficacy. Since the evolution of consciousness is a bicultural process, a complexification of culture will have an impact upon the brain, structurally and operationally, as well as nature—i.e., biology and cosmology.