Solving For eXistence: Part 5

When Occam’s Razor Prevails

Last time, we got to the actual root of the problem and realized thought/consciousness is a legitimately metaphysical thing. This time, we take one more step before finally answering the big question. We’re still on the bus, and we’ve got two stops left.

I remember a video by Youtuber Rationality Rules where he presented a one-size-fits-all definition of consciousness that got me rather frustrated. I don’t think he was deliberately creating a straw man argument for consciousness, but that’s what he accidentally did. He wanted to tackle the creationist assertion that consciousness can’t be explained as an emergent property of existing. Rationality Rules argued that we can, and kicked off his rebuttal by defining consciousness as the condition of being aware of the environment and responsive to it.

He’s not wrong, but he failed to acknowledge different degrees of consciousness, of which there are at least the following three:

1. General Consciousness: Aware of and responsive to the environment..

2. Sentience: Aware of the environment, others and the self, and responsive to each.

3. Sapience: Aware of the environment, others, the self, and higher levels of abstract reasoning, with perceptive, nuanced responsiveness to each.

Sapience is a peculiar branch of consciousness. It imbues the user with abstract reasoning that has little or nothing to do with survival. Consciousness at this level can ask why there’s stuff. The prior levels of consciousness can’t.

No matter how intelligent your pet dog or cat might be, it will never recognize that your quality time with it every evening revolves around the beauty of sunset. All they know is that you spend time with them on the porch every night at this hour. And if you point to the moon, your pet will only stare at your finger. That is sentience, not sapience.

The reason we make these distinctions is because we can’t simply say human beings are conscious. Our thought ability goes vastly beyond simple awareness of and responsiveness to our surroundings. And at the opposite extreme, we know better than to claim protozoa contemplate the meaning of life. Yet, both we ourselves and all protozoa qualify as conscious. Clearly, the distinctions are necessary. This was left out of Rationality Rules’s argument, and his argument is insufficient because of it.

Yes, it might be possible to explain general consciousness as an emergent property of existing. However, it’s not possible to claim sapience as a naturally emerging property. How many human beings have allowed themselves to be killed for a cause instead of doing everything they could to survive? This perplexing behavior works directly against survival of the organism, and it’s solely the result of sapience. Such behavior is impossible for general consciousness and sentience alike. Sapience does not behave according to survivalism. Instead, sapience employs a level of reasoning that can’t be accounted for unless we directly interrogate that thinker’s values and thought process.

Sapience is the only level of consciousness with such depth of response, and it actually operates against the individual’s survivalism. This is to say, sapience doesn’t make sense from a survival of the fittest perspective. it doesn’t appear to conform to evolution’s best interests, so it doesn’t make sense that it would emerge naturally within a survivalist environment like ours. And this is precisely what Rationality Rules’ argument overlooks. This is why it comes across as a straw man argument, whether it was meant to be or not.

If existence is materialist and arises from a survivalist paradigm, there would be no place in it for sapience. Sapience breaks naturalism’s guiding principles, so the odds of it being the result of natural evolution are nil.

Does this mean human sapience was engineered? No. That would only lead to more infinite regression. After all, if our sapience had been engineered, we’d be forced to explain the sapient engineers who did the deed. No, what we’re realizing is, the higher levels of consciousness don’t behave like emergent properties of a naturalistic environment.

Now let me phrase that in a different way so you see what I’m getting at. If existence is accidental and simply ‘happened’, then sapience would serve no useful purpose in it. It would have no reason to emerge.

On the other hand, if existence is metaphysical and has a non-material origin, then sapience is easily explained. In fact, this is the most straightforward way to explain it, because sapient reasoning is predictable if we’re dealing with a disembodied yet self-aware state of being. A state of awareness with nothing else to do won’t even be able to help itself but use higher reasoning. Such a consciousness would naturally reflect on the nature of its own existence and wonder why existence is a thing. This is because a primordial consciousness would have absolutely nothing better to do. It has no surviving to get done. It doesn’t need to build a shelter or search for firewood. it doesn’t need to hunt and cook. It has no need for defenses and protections to surround the camp with. It has no concept of mating, or even keeping company. The only thing it has to do is think, and it has an eternity in which to do it. Higher octaves of reasoning would be the automatic outcome of such a condition. It wouldn’t even be able to stop itself. There’s literally nothing else for it to do.

It follows that if primordial consciousness were to invent a universe that contains sapient beings, those sapient beings would also spend time contemplating. It’s a straightforward case of like parent, like child.

We can see how easy it is to explain consciousness this way, no ‘hard problem’ involved. But how do we account for a primordial consciousness if it didn’t come from something earlier? Infinite regression is raising its hand again, but maybe this time we have an answer.