For this essay I want to speculate on what
might the consciousness of this new ‘Home Evolutis’ I discussed in part 1 be
like? Of course, it is impossible to say
with any specificity. The old utopian
and dystopian stereotypes of either a completely brilliant and selfless society,
or a world where a sinister elite controls everyone’s minds, are not helpful
here. Although, I do think the next era
of human consciousness, whatever ‘human consciousness’ may end up meaning at
that time, would be disturbing to us in the present if we were given a look at
it. This is simply because what people
identify as their values in a future time, where consciousness has changed
enough to be considered a new era for humans, will most certainly be different
than ours. And of course looking at any
society that has values that differ significantly from one’s own causes us to judge
that community as inferior or corrupt.
Imagine for a moment how people from past cultures like The Holy Roman
Empire in the time of Charlemagne or the Mongolian warrior clans in the time of
Genghis and Kublai Khan would feel about our modern values of the equality of
all races, political authority coming from the common people through elections
and women having the same rights as men.
However, you do not have to go back in history to see how people from
one era judge the values of another.
Just think of the opinions of parents and grandparents regarding the values
of their progenies’ generation.
Lamenting the depravity of the younger generation is one of the oldest
traditions humans have!
Of course, it is possible that a human
culture in the future will line up perfectly with my values. However, normally the values we are most
comfortable with are the ones shared by those who are the closest to us, most
like ourselves and share the same interests.
Given how people are often uncomfortable with the values of anyone in
their neighborhood who is perceived to be different, let alone people who live
in completely different cultures, it seems unlikely that those who inhabit a
different culture in the future, with at least some significant differences in
the nuts and bolts of cognition, are going to have values that line up with our
own. A new book is out, The Hidden
Agenda of the Political Mind by Jason Weeden and Robert Kurzban, that
addresses how political values are simply a function of self-interest. In addition to the book, they have created a
‘political
calculator’ based on their research. This calculator lets you select various
demographic information and shows the political views that correlate with the
selected demographics. It was fun and
interesting for me to select demographic data that correlated to myself or
people I know, and see how accurately demographics correlated with the
political values of my friends and acquaintances (and myself). This certainly was a strong demonstration of
how a person’s values are a function of their specific circumstances.
One obvious place to start in considering
where consciousness is headed would be to think about how our new reality of
being constantly plugged in to some form of techno-media may eventually alter at
least some of the fundamentals of consciousness. Naysayers feel that a human population that
lives more and more in a virtual reality with everything one wants always at
one’s fingertips is going to make us socially inept and self-absorbed. It is turning out that these critics may be on
the right track. A 2011
meta-analysis by Sara Konrath, et al, has shown that
indeed the current generation of young adults are less empathetic and more
narcissistic than previous generations were at the same point in their lives.
So let us speculate for a moment that
this trend will only continue and eventually we wind up with humans becoming much
more self-centered, with limited social skills, who opt to communicate with
others through some kind of technological interface mainly for self-serving
purposes. In this case, we could imagine
consciousness has become less a place to introspect on what is authentic, moral
and meaningful. Rather, under these
circumstances the point of ‘reflection’ could be simply for preforming
utilitarian calculations for the purpose of meeting one’s own needs and
preserving the system of social relationships and technical infrastructure that
enables the stability of the system. In
a world like this it may be that there is less introspective consciousness as
it is less necessary. It is useful here
to remember that Jaynes
outlined how consciousness was unnecessary for many forms of higher cognition including reason and thinking. The narrowly defined reflective consciousness
that Jaynes believed emerged only 3000 years ago could begin to fade from human
experience as the importance of things like meaning, truth and long term intimacy
are less the concern of people and pleasure, consumption and convenience become
more of the focus.
This sounds like an Orwellian world to
us. However, to those who occupy this
imagined future it could make perfect sense as the logical outcome of a society
founded on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It might seem that people who are less
reflective and more limited in their ability to empathize would wind up in a
never ending selfish battles with others for resources and commodities (even
more than we are at present). As you may
recall from part
1 of this post though, we are getting smarter with each
generation. It very well may be that in
the future our ability to reason will continue to improve even if our ability
to reflect and empathize declines. And
it is certainly reasonable that if you want a comfortable virtual world with no
disruptions to your ability to consume and escape into your pleasures, it will
be quite reasonable to make sure the system is set up so everyone else is
content with their piece of the pie chart and therefore have no incentive to
disrupt the system. Research on sociopaths
has shown that often times they are quite good at understanding what other
people want and need even though they lack empathy. And if fact, therapy with these people often
entails, since their own self-interest is all they care about, helping them to
understand that committing to prosocial behavior is actually in their interest.
This helps us understand how it is perfectly plausible that people in the
future we are imagining here could understand what others want and could use
that information to create a stable society even if they had little capacity to
actually care how others feel.
I certainly am not claiming that the
brief sketch of the future I have created above is the probable direction we
are headed, and I am actually rather skeptical regarding the pronouncements we
regularly hear that Facebook and texting is ruining our youth. My point rather is to help us think about
where we are headed in way that is less driven by science fiction versions of
the future, and more based on where we are in the present. I also want us to realize that such
speculations are not about some distant future.
In light of the insights we have gotten from Julian Jaynes about how
quickly culture and environment change our cognitive/conscious faculties, it
appears the consciousness of the future will be upon us much sooner than we
realize.