Once an organism can see (even rudimentarily) I think that it can reasonably be argued that it is to some extent aware. And once it has developed a highly sophisticated eye it can reason-ably be said that it possesses a high degree of awareness - one that's nudging towards the middle to upper end of the scale of awareness levels, a very long distance from the base level occupied by primordial single-celled organisms.
Having said that, although the eye may be a signifier of high awareness, a few paragraphs ago I likened its workings to those of a digital camera, an object that isn't aware in any manner that is comparable to that of living things. All that can be said of a digital camera is that it reacts to light, in a mechanistic manner. This observation seems to open the door to the question of whether or not that's all that an eye does too - that vision, with all of its attendant workings of the brain, is nothing more than a sophisticated reaction to the world.
So is awareness ever anything more than just a complex reaction? Would a highly sophisticated robot, for instance, with cameras as eyes, be aware? You could argue that robots and cameras shouldn't be hauled into arguments like this as they have been created by creatures that are most definitely aware, and thus they don't conform to the same rules of development and complexity that life has to. The robot's camera eyes simply ape our sense of vision (which is only possible because an ape constructed them in the first place). But then, should that matter? After all, why should robots have to go through millions of years of evolution? We did the evolving, so they don't have to.
As you can see, it turns out to be quite hard to pin down the exact nature of awareness when you look at it closely - and that on top of this it could be argued that awareness in and of itself isn't necessarily a signifier of life at all.
Perhaps it could actually be argued that the only reason that complex life is aware in a complex (and thus seemingly meaningful) way is purely because everything about complex life is complex.
Fortunately, mechanistic reaction to sensory input isn't the only manner in which most higher living things interact with their surroundings: many of them possess extra levels of reaction that overlay this basic response. A look at these reactions should help us to get out of the definitional quagmire into which we seem to be sinking.
These sophisticated reactions are the forms of response that are manifested as feelings.
Some of these feelings are quite abstract and exist in the arena of higher mental processes - feelings such as love and hate, aggression and compassion - the realm of the emotions. I'll touch on some of these types of feeling later, but to begin with we'll take a look at a feeling that's much more basic, physical and visceral in its expression.
We'll start with a stab at pain.
Why do we feel pain? It's such an unpleasant sensation that you may think that we'd be better off without it.
If you do think that, think again. To understand the reason why we are burdened with such an unpleasantness let's imagine a world in which it doesn't exist.
It sounds almost too good to be true, but just look at the implications.
Let's look at a hypothetical fish that lives in this mythical pain-free world (Figure 68).
Imagine that this fish is blissfully swimming around in its delightful ocean, when a predator sneaks up behind it (Figure 69, left) and starts gnawing at its tail (right). It's a very small but vicious predator, as you can see.
Due to the larger fish's anatomical makeup, it can't see its own tail, so it can't see the predator.
Before the big fish knows it, the predator has nibbled away all of its tail (Figure 70), leaving the fish seriously handicapped. The fish may only realise that it is tailless when it notices that its swimming abilities are perplexingly impaired.
If you were the big fish you'd probably be glad to have a method of noticing the fact and you were having your tail gnawed off, so that you could swim off before it became serious.
You'd need alerting to the situation.
A vague tickling sensation in the tail region may make you aware of a problem in that area, but you may be rather slow to respond to such a fuzzy feeling, giving the predator time to get its teeth stuck in. What would be much more useful would be a stimulus that really made you shift - and thus got you out of danger as soon as possible.
Anything that could speed up the reaction to a nibbling predator, or any other bad bodily event, is a useful addition to an organism's danger-avoidance arsenal. Thus it is that the useful "prod" of pain developed.
In higher animals - ones that are capable of learning from their actions - the threat of pain, once experienced, will also act as an effective disincentive or deterrent that stops the creature repeatedly getting into situations that give rise to pain.
Thus organisms that register pain are more likely to survive and reproduce than those that don't. As a result, pain is universal in higher animals. Pain is a good thing.
(Pain unfortunately has to be unpleasant. When organisms were first starting to evolve an ability to register sensations due to predatory attack or similar corporeal violations it's quite likely that for some of the organisms the initial, tentative sensations experienced would have registered as pleasant rather than painful (due to random variation), however, creatures that experienced a pleasing sensation when attacked didn't react in a manner that was conducive to survival, hence the tendency was nipped in the bud.)
It'd be awful if we lived in a world were pain was the only sensation. Fortunately we don't.
What's the opposite of pain? Pleasure, of course.
But wait. Pleasure and pain are normally yoked together as being equal and opposite sensations - but that doesn't necessarily mean that these sensations developed at exactly the same time, in tandem. Pain is a motivating signal for repulsion, while pleasure is a signal for attraction, and there's really no reason why the two should have developed in parallel. You may recall that earlier I described how attraction shouldn't necessarily be thought of as the opposite of repulsion (where I described how for single-celled organisms the capability for being repelled from entering an inappropriate temperature zone would have preceded the capability for being attracted to a habitable zone, because by definition the organisms would have to be in a habitable zone to begin with) - well, the same goes for pleasure and pain (and for similar reasons). It's quite possible that pain developed before pleasure, as it's more important to be repelled from bad things than to be attracted to good things.
The principle that states that pain preceded pleasure works something like this: you will die if you're not immediately repelled from bad things such as predators that intend to eat you, but you can bide your time waiting for good things to come along. You can stumble around for quite a while looking for something nice to eat for instance (until the pain of hunger kicks in that is, by which time any old food will do).
Pleasure as a spur possibly first developed because in any particular population of creatures of the same species any creature that possessed the trait had a competitive advantage over fellow creatures that lacked it - for instance, a creature that had the positive incentive to eat something because the experience was pleasurable was more likely to get the food than a fellow creature that would eat the food when it just happened to come across it. Pleasure, in other words, may have developed because of internal pressure within a species rather than due to external pressure from predators or suchlike.
Pain is a visceral reaction to an unpleasant stimulus, such as a poke with a sharp stick. Pleasure, however, is something slightly different. Its nature lies somewhere nebulously between the physical and the emotional. Although the simplest of pleasures are highly physical and immediate, many forms of pleasure seem to involve several higher levels of information processing, involving a more highly developed nervous system.
For instance, pleasure is often actively sought, implying that the awareness of the sensation can be stored and can be apprehended over time, while it's quite possible for pain to be experienced only at the moment of its application. Pain therefore can be experienced by creatures that only live "in the moment" and that only possess relatively basic, reactive nervous systems that make their possessors jump when they're prodded.
This seems a bit unfortunate for lower life-forms, as it implies that the most significant sensation they can experience is pain (But then, maybe that was a good spur to make some of them evolve into higher life-forms).
Gradually creatures became more complex, becoming equipped with various senses such as sight and hearing, and feelings such as pain (and if they were lucky, pleasure).
As the interactions of these functions became more complicated, creatures would automatically develop ever more intricate "information-processing systems" in tandem (This wouldn't be a consequence of the increasing complexity as such - it would be an integral, inseparable part of it). These information-processing systems would be in the form of ever more elaborate nervous systems. In the most advanced cases this would culminate with the development of the acme of organic information-processing systems - the brain.
With the advent of brains, and the concomitant advance of the neural processes within them, there would be the emergence of higher levels of information-processing activity - in the form of mental states.
Take the following situation, as just one example of the process in operation: the evolution of the mental state known as alertness.
Before the existence of alertness it's quite possible that predators simply sidled up to their prey and took a chunk out of it. Pain may then kick in and prompt the prey to retreat - if it was still capable of doing so - but this would be very much a case of shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted. The prey would have a much better chance of survival if it happened to possess an early warning system that could announce the approach of the predator, so that it could react before rather than after it felt the pang of pain caused by the predator's attack. Thus the mental state that manifests itself as alertness evolved.
The possession of alertness would allow a creature to react to things in a way that over-rode simple physical reaction, and the creature would therefore be more likely to survive than a creature that lacked the facility.
You can see the alert facility at work today simply by looking out of a kitchen window and observing the behaviour of birds. If you watch blue tits or similar birds feeding on nuts put out for them in a garden you'll see that they spend a noticeable amount of time glancing around in a startled manner - almost more time than they actually spend feeding. Then as soon as they glimpse you looking at them through the window, they're off.
The alert-reaction coupling here seems to be quite straightforward. The birds are alerted by a disturbance, and the reaction is to make a hasty departure in the opposite direction.
It's important that the reaction to the alert mechanism needs to have a sensible threshold at which it kicks in - after all, if it was triggered by any old movement then even the rustling of a leaf in the wind would provoke the flight reflex, which would have no point at all. When a stimulus is particularly close to the threshold level certain additional mental processes may be necessary in order to decide whether to react or not - the stirrings of the concept of alternatives may be born.
You may think that a blue tit's alert-reflex mechanism is set a little bit on the over-sensitive side judging by how readily they flee the garden at the slightest movement in your kitchen. But then, considering how few blue tits survive for more than a single year, perhaps it isn't.
Alerted (and thus fleeing) prey causes a problem for predators - it makes their meals harder to catch. Predators therefore needed to evolve their own reciprocal alert system that would warn them when there was a potential prey creature in the vicinity, giving the predator a chance to capture its prey before the prey retreated to safety.
The predator's alert system would have to work in a more complicated manner to that of the potential prey creature. While prey species only needed the automatic reaction of fleeing when a disturbance was noticed, for predators a different reaction to movement or disturbance was necessary. No carnivore worthy of the name would flee in the opposite direction whenever it heard a rustle in the undergrowth. In fact in some ways the exact opposite reaction may be much more appropriate - to pounce on the object that was causing the rustling, as it may be food. But what if the rustling turned out to be caused by a bigger predator? It's quite a complicated business for a predator to react to a rustle. Firstly it has to try to discover what it is that's doing the rustling; then, if it turns out to be potential food it may have to stalk it; then finally it has to strike or pounce - all done as much as possible without the prey being aware of its approaching fate until the last moment.
As a result, carnivores have had to develop more complex and agile mental processes than those possessed by herbivores - in other words, they have to be more intelligent.
Herbivores have to be reasonably intelligent too in certain circumstances. For instance when a herbivore such as a gazelle approaches a water hole it has to hold in its head at some level the fact that the hole is a good place, as it contains thirst-quenching water, and that it's also a potentially bad place, as the water may also attract a gazelle-eating predator such as a lion. But the gazelle doesn't have to be as intelligent as the lion.
The relative intelligences of carnivores and herbivores can easily be compared today by simply observing a few domestic creatures that live side by side with humans. Observe a cat or a dog (carnivores) to see their keen interest in their surroundings (except when they are asleep on the sofa). Then look at a cow or a sheep (herbivores) to see their relative lack of mental agility in action. Admittedly these creatures are not representative of the animal kingdom as a whole, as cats and dogs are intelligent enough to be domesticated, while sheep and cows are perhaps unintelligent enough to be domesticated. (For this whole business of the comparison of the relative intelligence levels of carnivores and herbivores to be valid the creatures involved have to be in the same ecological stratum. I think that it can be safely said that a carnivorous worm isn't as intelligent as a herbivorous donkey.) So it was that creatures had to become more alert and aware of what was going on in the world around them, either in order to eat or to avoid being eaten. The development of the brain was encouraged by the fact that life eats itself.
It's an intriguing thought, that if all animal life had been vegetarian perhaps we wouldn't be here now thinking about these things.
For herbivores and carnivores the sound of any rustling in the undergrowth in their vicinity prompts relatively straightforward mental reactions. For the herbivore: "That may be a predator - I'd better go." For the carnivore: "That may be food - I'd better have a look." Things are much more complicated for a third category of creatures however - the omnivores.
For these creatures the rustle of another creature nearby could signal either a predator or a meal.
To run for safety or to stay and eat? The answer may usually be dictated by the nature of the rustle - if it sounded like a big creature, run: if it sounded like a small creature, stay.
The appropriate response may thus be a relatively straight-forward knee-jerk reaction. However, in certain special circum-stances the best course of action may not be quite so clear-cut. What if an omnivore hears the rustling of a big animal (meaning that it should run), but the omnivore happens to be extremely hungry at the time (meaning that it should perhaps try its chances at getting a meal)? This predicament can create the need for very complex mental processes - where the concept of alternatives is amplified to new levels of complexity and urgency because the alternatives have to be compared ¬and weighed up against each other - the concept of choice is born.
The need to confront this dilemma was possibly a key factor in the rise of humanity, as I will explain later.
Following on the heels of the sensations and mental states outlined above, the "true" emotions gradually developed. These emotions are, like pain, pleasure and alertness, prods that make their possessors act in specific useful ways.
Emotions are complex mental processes, requiring a decent sized brain in which to operate.
They are types of mental process that prompt their possessors to act in particular ways that are appropriate to the situation. For instance, it's common for a creature that possesses emotions to have a particular emotional reaction when it comes across an attractive member of the opposite sex (lust), while if it meets an attractive member of the same sex it will often experience a different emotion (envy). You may not like the idea that these emotions are the workings of a decent brain, but there you go.
Many large-brained creatures use emotions to guide their day-to-day actions for them.
Even humans, the most intellectual of animals, use emotions to guide their actions most of the time. Despite what we like to think, people frequently don't intellectualise things at all when they're working out what to do next. They usually (or perhaps always) do things on the basis of what they feel like doing, and then rationalise their actions later.
Sometimes, of course, rationalisation isn't necessary.
If you saw a gigantic dog rushing towards you barking, you wouldn't intellectualise about what to do next - your emotions would kick in and take the decision making right out of your hands. It would just feel right to run like hell.
Which brings me to the scary subject of fear.
Fear makes those in its grip run away from what are potentially dangerous situations.
As a result it's a top ranking survival emotion.
Few other emotions are up there with fear when it comes to the basic task of keeping their possessors alive.
To illustrate this, let's pick a few other emotions at random for comparison. Let's take envy for instance.
You'd die if you didn't flee from a lion, and what's more, you'd die pretty soon, so it's a good job that fear gets you up and running - but you'd survive if your friend was more successful with the opposite sex than you were, no matter how envious you became. Envy's main use is perhaps to act as a prod to make you become more presentable to potential partners, which isn't a survival issue as far as you're concerned personally, but may make a big difference to the likelihood of the production (and therefore survival) of any offspring.
As a result I think it's safe to say that envy is a secondary emotion when compared to fear, and that fear no doubt evolved long before envy reared its head.
Similarly, the emotion of aggression is secondary to that of fear, and probably developed later, although the two are linked. The reason that aggression is secondary is that in a dangerous situation there's generally a stronger chance of survival by fleeing rather than by fighting - hence the truth of the "fight or flight" adage: "He who runs away will live to fight another day." So it is that the most important emotions and feelings are those that deal with immediate survival issues rather than with speculative future benefits. If emotions were compared to car components it would be like saying that it's more important for a car to have an accelerator pedal than to have sat-nav.
In some ways fear operates almost as an emotional equivalent of pain, because both are devices that encourage the possessor to avoid immediately disadvantageous situations. Unfort-unately, in nature, this is the main category of event that creatures need to react to, with the result being that their lives are significantly coloured by pain and fear (although they may only experience these states occasionally, spending most of their time in a state of relatively neutral complacency until they need a prod).
With all of the negative feelings and emotions that seem to be dominating this section of the book, things don't sound good. Perhaps we'd better not dwell on them. Let's move on.
What comes next?
Can we find a ray of sunshine that will lessen the bleakness implied by the seemingly inevitable inheritance of pain and fear as primary feelings and emotions? Not yet, I'm afraid.
This is because creatures not only have to be on constant alert for potential life-threatening danger, for which pain and fear are useful avoidance incentives, but they also have to constantly deal with significant though less urgent problems that come their way.
Very few creatures live in a state in which they don't have to react to incessant low-level adverse pressures simply in order to stay alive: there are almost bound to be demands placed on them purely due to minor day-to-day variations in their immediate surroundings (such as temperature fluctuations, changes in rainfall and so on). On top of this there are pressures due to the constant need to find nutrition which is often in short supply (If a creature fortuitously finds itself in a situation where food is available in seemingly boundless quantities you can bet your bottom dollar that the creature will then thrive and have so many offspring that this situation doesn't prevail for long, due to the inevitable fact that the offspring will quickly eat all of the surplus food).
For most creatures this constant exposure to minor negative situations is a way of life. As a result, for most creatures reacting to slightly bad things is one of their most important and time consuming activities.
Reacting to bad things takes precedence over reacting to good things because bad things tend to be more immediately demanding of attention than are good things. This is along the same lines as the principle that it's more important to be able to feel pain than to feel pleasure (or, as in the case of the primitive single-celled organisms that I introduced earlier, that it's more important to be able to react to water of the wrong temperature than to be able to react to water of the right temperature).
In order to react efficiently to low-level or non-life-threatening bad things it's a good idea to have an emotional prod to help override any innate inertia or tardiness that would otherwise hinder reaction.
This emotion can broadly be described as being the one that we refer to as dissatisfaction.
Here's an example of how dissatisfaction works at a simple level.
Imagine a moose, standing in the middle of a clearing in the middle of a forest. In the middle of a blizzard. The moose would feel a strong sense of dissatisfaction about the presence of the raging storm. This feeling of dissatisfaction would prompt the moose to do something rather than just carry on standing there feeling generally miserable.
But what to do? The answer is to go and find shelter.
In order to be prompted to move to a position of shelter the moose has to be aware that this is a possible action - that there is an alternative to just standing in the middle of the blizzard getting cold and wet.
The feeling of dissatisfaction prompts the realisation that things could be better - that there is at least one situation that could be preferable to the present one. For the moose in the blizzard this situation would be to be under some trees.
When a creature is not in a state of dissatisfaction, what state is it in? One of satisfaction, perhaps? Unfortunately, I think not.
In the case of my moose in a blizzard, when the blizzard is blowing the moose may feel miserable and dissatisfied due to the prevailing meteorological conditions (which motivates it to do something about it), but when the weather is just right the moose probably doesn't even notice the weather at all. There's no need to. The moose would just stay put, which is what it ought to do in the circumstances. (If the moose ever did feel pleasure at being in "just right" weather conditions it would probably only be when such weather first arrived after a spell of inclemency - and the feeling may then subside disappointingly quickly.) When a creature is not in a state of dissatisfaction it is normally in a state of neutral complacency, with no particular urges one way or the other.
Again, this is very like the situation involving the primordial single-celled organisms in their pool of water, described in Chapter 13 (The Dawn of the Dawnings), where being in the "just right" zone prompted no reaction. The only difference is that now we've got added emotions to govern the responses to the situations rather than simple automatic physical reactions.
Bearing in mind that things are very rarely "just right" for any living thing, the default mood of any thinking life-form is probably one of mild dissatisfaction.
A sad thought indeed.
In fact, one that I believe provokes mild dissatisfaction itself.
Humans, you may have noticed, have a huge capacity for dissatisfaction. This fact isn't necessarily as bad as it sounds though, because it is this tendency towards dissatisfaction that has been crucial in the development of our species, as I'll describe now.
It's what I like to call evolution by natural dejection.
