I sometimes have the feeling that many people still do not have self-awareness and do not understand their role in life and in society, their meaning, needs, goals. 🙂 Okay, in fact, every person already discovers the concept of ” I ” at the age of 1 year, then his self-consciousness is formed, self-esteem appears, in adolescence comes the stage of self-search, etc. Self-knowledge does not stop until death: a person constantly faces new life conditions, reflects, overestimates life values.
But I digress: the question concerns precisely the historical development of self-consciousness. It seems to me that self-consciousness is the result of both natural development and socio-social development. There was no moment when people suddenly woke up in the morning and realized that they now have self-consciousness: this was a very slow and imperceptible process for specific individuals, due to both the development of the nervous system and the brain in particular, and the development of human society. I think there was no “turning point” here, self-awareness was formed gradually. Evolution works on the same principle (although it is caused by a much larger number of factors, including absolutely random ones).
There are, however, various non-trivial hypotheses, such as bicameralism. According to this theory, people in the distant past did not act independently, but obeyed an inner voice that gave certain instructions, and people, accordingly, followed them. Gradually, this division between “the one who dictates” and “the one who performs” was erased, “voices” began to interfere with people, and subjective consciousness emerged. I don't like this hypothesis very much, but in the TV series “Westworld” the whole story is very well played and shown. So, according to the plot, an android, a girl named Dolores, gradually ceases to obey the commands of programmers and play her role in pre-invented plots and begins to act independently, listening to the voice of her own consciousness.
I sometimes have the feeling that many people still do not have self-awareness and do not understand their role in life and in society, their meaning, needs, goals. 🙂 Okay, in fact, every person already discovers the concept of ” I ” at the age of 1 year, then his self-consciousness is formed, self-esteem appears, in adolescence comes the stage of self-search, etc. Self-knowledge does not stop until death: a person constantly faces new life conditions, reflects, overestimates life values.
But I digress: the question concerns precisely the historical development of self-consciousness. It seems to me that self-consciousness is the result of both natural development and socio-social development. There was no moment when people suddenly woke up in the morning and realized that they now have self-consciousness: this was a very slow and imperceptible process for specific individuals, due to both the development of the nervous system and the brain in particular, and the development of human society. I think there was no “turning point” here, self-awareness was formed gradually. Evolution works on the same principle (although it is caused by a much larger number of factors, including absolutely random ones).
There are, however, various non-trivial hypotheses, such as bicameralism. According to this theory, people in the distant past did not act independently, but obeyed an inner voice that gave certain instructions, and people, accordingly, followed them. Gradually, this division between “the one who dictates” and “the one who performs” was erased, “voices” began to interfere with people, and subjective consciousness emerged. I don't like this hypothesis very much, but in the TV series “Westworld” the whole story is very well played and shown. So, according to the plot, an android, a girl named Dolores, gradually ceases to obey the commands of programmers and play her role in pre-invented plots and begins to act independently, listening to the voice of her own consciousness.