The Goal is the Expansion of Consciousness

Diamonte_Hatchling | Follow ~ Greensboro, CT

The Goal is the Expansion of Consciousness

Consciousness is a state of awareness that allows us to close our eyes and picture our childhood home or perform the sort of planning, prediction, and risk assessment required to gauge whether it’s safe to jump over a stream of a given width. It allows us to solve problems by thinking rather than relying on trial and error.

For centuries, scholars such as René Descartes (1596–1650) have argued that consciousness is a uniquely human attribute, perhaps facilitated by language, that allows us to communicate about our memories and feelings, and coordinate plans for the future. In this view, nonhuman animals were regarded as merely cleverly designed automatons with a toolkit of preprogrammed behaviors, each triggered by certain environmental stimuli.