A general theory of consciousness I:Consciousness and adaptation

Abstract

This paper examines how cognitive processes in living beings become conscious. Consciousness is often assumed to be a human quality only. While the basis of this paper is that consciousness is as much present in animals as it is in humans, the human form is shown to be fundamentally different. Animal consciousness expresses itself in sensory images, while human consciousness is largely verbal. Because spoken language is not an individual quality – thoughts are shared with others via communication – consciousness in humans is complex and difficult to understand. The theory proposed postulates that consciousness is an inseparable part of the body’s adaptation mechanism. In adaptation to a new environmental disturbance, the outcome of the neural cognitive process – a possible solution to the problem posed by the disturbance – is transformed into a sensory image. Sensory images are essentially conscious as they are the way living creatures experience new environmental information. Through the conversion of neural cognitive activity – thoughts – about the state of the outside world into the way that world is experienced through the senses, the thoughts gain the reality that sensory images have. The translation of thoughts into sensory images makes them real and understandable which is experienced as consciousness. The theory proposed in this paper is corroborated by functional block diagrams of the processes involved in the complex regulated mechanism of adaptation and consciousness during an environmental disturbance. All functions in this mechanism and their interrelations are discussed in detail.

A general theory of consciousness II: The language problem

“…As such, the senses and consciousness are inseparably bound. Sensory images are both the source of cognitive activity and the means of making the cognitive output conscious: the essentially unconscious neural cognitive activity is expressed in conscious sensory images [ 5 , 1 , 6 ]. This mechanism is evident in visual thinkers: they ‘see’ what they have thought .…”

“…For sensory information to become conscious, the role of cognition is essential: if cognition is not involved, we will not experience consciousness and we say that the process is automatic. But in automatic processes too, cognition is in a way decisive as it has shaped the processes in their adapting phase [ 1 ] and consequently determines process behaviour in recent automatic processes as well as in processes established long ago. That the involvement of cognition determines whether or not consciousness is experienced is addressed in Part I.…”

“…In most people, the natural sensory way of becoming conscious is obscured by verbal communication, although parts of it still can be dominant. Interoceptive sensations such as our feelings, for instance, play an important role in human life, although it is not clear whether it is as complex as in those who think completely sensorially [see 1 , Section 7.4]. In those ‘visual thinkers’, the natural way is still the dominant way of becoming conscious of the world and of themselves.…”

“…In this paper, I will try to analyze how we think and what happens when we try to communicate our thoughts verbally to others and to ourselves. In a previous paper on consciousness (referred to as Part I from hereon), I argued that to make us understand our neural cognitive activity, it is converted into sensory images which are fundamentally conscious [ 1 ]. There, the subject was the conscious experience of cognitive activity in general; here, the subject will be what happens when cognitive activity is translated into language – words – which will be shown to be essentially different.…”

“…In Part I, I addressed four main issues: conscious new adaptive processes versus non-conscious automatic processes [see 1 , 3 , 4 ]; what consciousness is and how it is accomplished; how the different functions engaged in the consciousness process may be related and the translation of thoughts into consciousness. I argued that, in animals and humans, consciousness via sense organs is fundamental for the interaction they maintain with their environment while, in humans, consciousness is also achieved through spoken language.…”