Awareness, An Essential Element in Evolution

AWARENESS DEFINED

     Awareness is the essence of our being and is evidenced in all life but like the air around us, it remains invisible and unnoticed. Without physical attributes awareness has, until recently, eluded serious scientific inquiry. Recent investigations into sensory organs, the neurological centers that process sensory information and the evolution of these organs are beginning to expose another aspect of life that is broadening our perspectives. Beyond more limited concepts, like intelligence and cognizance, we are beginning to realize that awareness, as a larger concept, is indispensible to life’s continuance, is at the center of our existence, and defines all of life’s activities. Awareness is the reason the flower opens to greet the sun and the power behind human inventiveness. It is the essential attribute of life that helps to insure its survival, it is the capacity of a living form to monitor and react to internal and external stimuli, and is the essential attribute that gives life meaning. It is produced by and is dependent on life’s physical organs, and although it has no physical attributes, it can be measured, studied, modified, augmented, created and destroyed. It has evolved in concert with life’s physical forms, has an evolutionary history of its own and has been an equal partner to genetic evolution from the beginning. In Man, awareness has gained a dominant position over genetics in natural selection, and if we are to understand evolution in full measure, and maintain control of our destiny, we need to account for awareness as equal in importance to physical forms.

Awareness as an essential element in evolution

     Elements of awareness have been noted and examined for centuries. Human behavior, animal behavior and the emotions of both man and animals fill the earliest of written records. Darwin began to categorize animal behavior as he referred to instinct, reflexes, and emotions as ways in which animals respond to events and situations. Other attempts to give animal and human awareness a base for scientific inquiry include the study of mimicry. Darwin devoted considerable time to giving examples of mimicry and to presenting the views of various naturalists and their interpretations and definitions. A concept for an ephemeral entity called a “mime” was introduced in the twentieth century as the behavioral counterpart of the physical “gene” claiming it was a major contributor to the evolution of behavior. As a deductive starting point this concept held promise but lost momentum when popular writers applied the mime solely to human behavior patterns to promote utopian social orders. In spite of this early set back, the potential for the concept of mimicry to help explain natural selection in advanced life forms remains viable and is worthy of reexamination. To appreciate awareness as separate from biological processes requires a conceptual disconnect from the chemical/ mechanical view of science. Awareness is intrinsically linked to the biological and genetic aspects of life but has its own attributes and contributes to survivability in ways that cannot be explained mechanically. The simple reactivity of single celled life has evolved to become the complex choices of animals and the contemplative moments of man. These advanced states of awareness cannot be explained by genetics or simple reactive responses. Choices made and contemplative conclusions reached within these states impact survival equally or more strongly than genetically imparted autonomic responses. The advanced complexity of cellular form, advanced sensory organs, and the growth of neurological centers for the processing of sensory inputs, has produced a level of existence that exceeds its mechanical biological state.

     Just as multi cellular life exists at a level above, but not separate from, single celled life, awareness exists at a level above, but not separate from, biological forms. Without awareness, even in its most primitive state, life is not viable. The state of being alive requires more than just the abilities to collect and produce energy, separate itself from its surroundings with a membrane, and reproduce. Life requires the ability to interface effectively with its surroundings in order to collect the nutrients and energy needed for sustenance and this interface, in its simplest form, is the progenitor of awareness. Awareness at its most primitive level is only chemical mechanical reactivity. Add sunlight to a chloroplast and living energy is produced. Drift into an area of chemical nutrients and thrive, drift out and die. Develop the ability to survive periods without sunlight or nutrients by becoming encysted, or by suspending certain internal processes, and survivability is improved. These reactions require the ability to sense changing conditions, either by an internal or external monitor, and the ability to react. These simple reactive changes of state are primarily chemical/ mechanical responses, but they are also the first evidence of an ascending level of awareness. Each small improvement in a living form’s ability to sense and react to changes in its environment improves its chances of survival, and promotes the natural selection of advancements in aware states.  The ability to sense and interpret, chemical surroundings, the intensity of light, vibrations, temperature, electrical fields, magnetic fields, motion, and one’s internal conditions, all have the potential to improve survivability. Evolved organs for advanced awareness are the result of successive small improvements in awareness, accumulating as survival advantages. Awareness cannot be separated completely from the complex biology that produces it, but awareness exists as a new state of existence, created by the advancement of bio-mechanical complexity, to a level of randomness that allows reactions beyond direct bio-mechanical responses, or simple chemical reactions.