Three levels of consciousness
I read a useful way of dividing our consciousness into three different levels. The idea is from the book "Visions" by Michio Kaku.
First level:
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The lowest level of consciousness is the ability of an organism to monitor its body and its environment. By this definition, even a thermostat has some consciousness since it monitors the surrounding temperature.
Examples of this level:
a) Bacteria going away from higher temperature area or going towards food.
b) Humans taking away the hands when accidentally kept on a hot surface.
c) Babies moving hands and doing other things when born.
These are mostly hard-wired functions.
Second level:
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The second level is the ability to carry out well-definted goals, like survival and reproduction.
Higher up on this second level lies the entire animal kingdom. Once the primary goals ( e.g., finding food and mates) are preprogrammed into the animal brain, they determine the complex plans to carry out to fullfil them.
Examples:
a) Foxes planning how to hunt and capture rabbits. ( Most are hard-wired )
b) Rabbits planning how to avoid foxes. ( Most are hard-wired )
This level is the dominant one for human activity. Most of us do not spend inordinate amounts of time asking philosophical questions about self-awareness and pondering the paradoxes of the meaning of existence. Although we are reluctant to admit it, we spend most of our time thinking about survival and reproduction, much like animals. (Our jobs are mostly for survival)
And when we are not thinking about survival and reproduction, we are usually thinking about entertainment and fun.
The more sophisticated the goal and subsequently the plans necessary to carry them out, the higher the level of consciousness. In other words, there may be thousands of subcategories of consciousness within this broad level, depending on the complexity of the goal.
Third level:
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The third and highest level of consciousness is the ability to set one's own goals, whatever that may be. Questions like "Where did the universe come from?", "How is consciousness produced?", "How is life formed from non-living things?" are some which when we think about, we are in this level.
We do not spend much time in this level. I also see that many of the people do not have any goal in their life. Also for many people their goals are set by somebody else and they simply accept it not knowing what they are doing.
First level:
-------------
The lowest level of consciousness is the ability of an organism to monitor its body and its environment. By this definition, even a thermostat has some consciousness since it monitors the surrounding temperature.
Examples of this level:
a) Bacteria going away from higher temperature area or going towards food.
b) Humans taking away the hands when accidentally kept on a hot surface.
c) Babies moving hands and doing other things when born.
These are mostly hard-wired functions.
Second level:
----------------
The second level is the ability to carry out well-definted goals, like survival and reproduction.
Higher up on this second level lies the entire animal kingdom. Once the primary goals ( e.g., finding food and mates) are preprogrammed into the animal brain, they determine the complex plans to carry out to fullfil them.
Examples:
a) Foxes planning how to hunt and capture rabbits. ( Most are hard-wired )
b) Rabbits planning how to avoid foxes. ( Most are hard-wired )
This level is the dominant one for human activity. Most of us do not spend inordinate amounts of time asking philosophical questions about self-awareness and pondering the paradoxes of the meaning of existence. Although we are reluctant to admit it, we spend most of our time thinking about survival and reproduction, much like animals. (Our jobs are mostly for survival)
And when we are not thinking about survival and reproduction, we are usually thinking about entertainment and fun.
The more sophisticated the goal and subsequently the plans necessary to carry them out, the higher the level of consciousness. In other words, there may be thousands of subcategories of consciousness within this broad level, depending on the complexity of the goal.
Third level:
--------------
The third and highest level of consciousness is the ability to set one's own goals, whatever that may be. Questions like "Where did the universe come from?", "How is consciousness produced?", "How is life formed from non-living things?" are some which when we think about, we are in this level.
We do not spend much time in this level. I also see that many of the people do not have any goal in their life. Also for many people their goals are set by somebody else and they simply accept it not knowing what they are doing.
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