Self-awareness

One thing in Emergence by Steven Johnson that stuck in my head was the idea that, in evolution, the human species turned self-aware as a result of first having become aware of others – or, in other words, that human individuals became aware of their own minds first after having become aware of the minds of others.

I don’t know how well established this theory is, but as I understood it from the book (which I have returned back to the Oops library, so I can’t quote) there are several researchers that argue that this is how it happened. And as a parent of an eight-month-old, it seems likely that children should develop a sense of their own self as a result of becoming aware of the other, surrounding selves.

The theory is that first comes the ability for an individual to make theories (however unconsciously) about the motives of other individuals – such as whether they are friendly or want to cause harm, or, if they are unfriendly, what their next move might be – that is: should I fight or flee? Next comes the ability to make theories about your own motives, to be conscious of them.

In his book, Johnson uses this theory to explore the question of whether computers or the Web will ever turn self-aware. If self-awareness arises from awareness of other “minds” – that is, the minds of the users, which the computer is programmed to learn the patterns of – perhaps computers can get self-aware, after all?

But this isn’t the reason the idea has stuck. Although a fascinating idea, the self-awareness of computers isn’t something I’m inclined to ponder about. Somehow, this idea seems to be relevant to something; I just don’t know to what yet.