06/06/2013
If self awareness can be synthesized in nature, ho natural selection might have chanced upon it?
Explore the idea with a simple example - While walking to a park, the road splits into two. I decide to walk the road that goes left. The decision is taken by referencing my knowledge about both roads. We could have had muscle memory that decides to take the better road. But, in order to accommodate large number of variables, mental simulation of the walk down both roads are perhaps cheaper and more effective against the comparison hardwired into muscle memory. Mental simulation is nothing but thinking. For this to be effective, one should have sense of self, cost and benefits of possible actions with respect t o that self. Can this thinking and ability to take a decision by weighing in the cost and benefit be effective without sense of self i.e self awareness.?
The ability to think abstractly about various situations by not having to be in those situations (future, past, a imagined surroundings) requires a sense of self. Everything is seen with respect to that sense of self. All the thinking and sensing used in survival in the midst of uncertainty calls for flexibility in action. SO, a large number of variable have to be accounted for. Each against the backdrop of other variables. So, this sensing and thinking processes will have to communicate with each other. Hence the natural selection of thecentral nervous system. So close to getting to self awareness. I can still imagune a thinking decision making organism with out a sense of self.
