There are some people who would see every element of humanity as a result of natural selection. Currently, I am one of them. If something is unexplicable in terms of natural selection, I will simply assume all that is missing is a good explanation and some supporting data to show that it probably does exists as a result of natural selection. “Opposable thumb?” Good for climbing trees and grasping tools. “Language?” Great way to communicate with members of the group who you are probably working with to help proliferate common genes. “Consciousness?” Ahh, that holiest of human traits. “There’s this being and it can wonder,” my high school ethics teacher would proclaim. “Only humans have consciousness” he would boast. And whether he is right or not is not something I’m prepared to go into at the moment. But what I will attempt here is to tie consciousness with evolutionary theory.

There is much discussion surrounding consciousness. The scientists will address it on a neural level and the New Agers describe it on a metaphysical one. They speak of “higher consciousness”, implying that it is not a black and white state but more a leveled one. Their language remains vague and superficial. Even the evolutionary biologists and psychologists are at a loss to explain consciousness. They have no data to support its existence. “Everything humans do could be done without consciousness”. But I have a hard time believing that.

Why Consciousness?
Why should consciousness grow and evolve? As Dr. Robert Ornstein ponders in his book “The Evolution of Consciousness”, “why should human beings ever have evolved the ability to know what their mental systems are doing, any more than we know what our pancreas is doing?” He believes that we actually do not have the ability to know what our mental systems are doing. But I would content that the clear motivation for consciousness is its ability to improve the workings of your mind. I can’t improve how my pancreas works through thought (aside from the general health benefits of positive thinking). But I can improve how my mind works through thought. Look at how many people are interested in how their mind works. We don’t just think about it: we read about it and take courses on it. Every human has at least an instinctive minimal interest in how his brain works and if the things he is thinking are in line with reality.

Unlike organs like the pancreas, our minds are the only body part involved in cultural evolution. An evolving consciousness allows us to better adapt to our cultural environment. Our brain has stopped evolving on an individual level, but without consciousness, we would not be able to evolve on a group level. Just as the biological world has genetic winners and losers, so does the cultural world. Those best able to succeed on a cultural landscape hold a better chance of passing on their genes. And it is consciousness which is the key adaptation to facilitate this success.

Our brains must have the ability to evolve culturally. And this ability is consciousness. And we have been evolving on a cultural level for some time now. Most scientific accounts will end biological evolution about 10,000 years ago. Cultural evolution, this is: humans learning from each other, passing on information to each other, and working together in social groups, has been going on for hundreds of thousands of years. And it is that overlap in which consciousness, as a biological part of the brain, evolved.

If we’ll assume that consciousness is an adaptation, ie a result of evolution, then here we will try to work backwards to the possible cause. Though we like to think of our motives as noble and dignified, especially in light of cultural evolution, let’s not forget that cultural evolution is simply a group-level extension of biological evolution, whose sole purpose is procreation, so we start our thought experiment with sexual strategies. We’ll start with a set of observations and conclusions, and we’ll address men and women separately since their GPSs are so different. (read more on GPS here). And for clarification, when we talk about men and women, we are actually referring to them as they were 10,000 years ago - since this is the time for which their brains and bodies were built.

Men
To generalize, there are several types of men in the world. Please refer to the GPS article to get more details on each. But suffice to say here that while some men play more on the physical level of GPSs, being the dominant male in a group and physically controlling the pool of available females, other men have been forced into less dominant positions and have had to be creative in their pursuit of females to mate with. It is widely agreed that the speed of human evolution, particularly that of our intellect, in the last hundred thousand years or so is largely attributed to intra-species competition (man against man) rather than interspecies competition (man against tiger). In my article “Why Your Girlfriend has Such Bad Taste in Music“, I discuss the predicament weaker males have found themselves in during the course of human development and the options that were made available to them in the form of technology and culture. In this respect consciousness in males can be seen as “thinking outside the box”. The ultimate question to be answered being “how can I get these chicks to sleep with me”? The dominant males don’t need to ask this question. But the weaker males who were best able to step outside their own biological patterns and develop new ways of thinking and doing which helped or united their community were awarded rank and prestige, the cultural equivalent of strength, and thereby were able to acquire mates. One could conclude that these weaker males are born with a higher consciousness than their physically stronger counterparts.

Women
Whereas men use consciousness as a vehicle for status in the group, women have developed consciousness for other reasons. Consciousness in women can perhaps in part be seen as the proverbial “women’s intuition”. Indeed women do have a heightened awareness of their surroundings beyond that of men. My wife may buy a new vase for the living room which will escape my radar for days. Women posses a great attention to detail in their surroundings. Evolutionary psychologists conclude that this mystical sensory perception developed as women needed to know if their suitors were lying to them - falsifying their credentials, as it were. It is no surprise that women choose men who are either of high genetic quality, ie good looking, or who can support them using various resources, such as money or status. The former is hard to fake, while the latter is somewhat easier. Pretending to be a man of wealth and status is a treasured pastime for many men. So is lying about one’s commitment to a woman. Women have hence developed intuitions to help them cut through male BS. Also, while it is more commonly known that men compete with each other, women also compete with each other for the most “attractive” men, but they do so not with aggression but rather with more subtle and social tactics such as gossip, backstabbing, and “mind games”. It takes a sharp wit to play on that field, and evolution has helped women right along by developing their senses for greater awareness of their environment. This seems to be the seed of conciousness in women.

With this logic, you might see consciousness is an adaptation. Everyone has it, but similar to IQ or running speed, not all people are born equal. Some people are born with a greater capacity for consciousness and others with a lesser capacity. If you think of consciousness as any other physical attribute (or mental one for that matter), just as a person may be built with strong arms but does not exercise, he may still be weaker than someone who was built with weaker arms but trains regularly. By the same token, a person may be born with a high capacity for consciousness, but may have less of a conscious life than someone who was born with less capacity for consciousness but who regularly…yes, practices.

Practicing consciousness
You can practice consciousness. Buddhist monks have done it for ages, and now the mainstream public is seeing the mental and physical benefits of meditation and mindfulness. We learn, we reflect, we ponder, and it all raises our level of consciousness. We can step out of the car for a minute and kick the tires, check the oil, etc. This is the great gift to be gotten from therapists and coaches - they are consciousness trainers and, just as a fitness instructor at your local gym, they will pump up your self-awareness muscles. Before you know it, you will have a clearer idea of who you are, what you are doing, and why you are doing it. These being some obvious benefits of consciousness.

The burden of consciousness
But consciousness isn’t all roses. Consciousness for many is experienced as a burden. Think “self-conscious”. Being constantly aware of the world and yourself in it can create a level of fear, insecurity, and alienation in an individual. The head cases in the world are often the most conscious individuals. The ones who seemingly glide through life are often less conscious of their surroundings and of themselves. So, how then is consciousness a benefit worthy of passing through natural selection? Sadly it does not always work out to be a benefit. If consciousness is an adaptation mean to help groups evolve, they why are the most conscious people usually the outcasts of a group? We can understand how a normal degree of consciousness is necessary for minimal creativity and innovation, but are high levels of consciousness worth the added weight? High consciousness can lead to loads of self-doubt and insecurity and those with a very conscious mind often find it hard to relate to others. Indeed high levels of consciousness were probably not favored 10,000 years ago. It was only when art, culture, technology, and innovation became worthy displays of power that highly conscious individuals found their niche. Consciousness is like big stick you have to carry around. If you don’t know how to use it and you may not enjoy your experience with it. But if you know how to use it, understand it, and can take advantage of it, you’ll enjoy the benefits.

Bookmark