The five levels of consciousness

[Finn_Mac]

I have been thinking about the hierarchy of the natural universe and have come up with a few basic points. I would appreciate some feedback though I apologise for some of the grammar:

Level 1: Beings that act instinctively: This category could include any type of living thing that doesn't possess consciousness but still lives and reproduces ranging from plant matter such as flowers and trees which have a life cycle but do not possess a consciousness and act out their life cycle, to animals such as bacteria and insects who act purely on instinct.

Level 2: Beings with a basic level of intellect: This category covers animals which possess the ability to communicate, embrace basic feelings and rationalise to a certain extent. This category extends from animals such as fish to more complicated beings such as monkeys, Dolphins and forms of humanoid such as Neanderthals.

Level 3: Beings that have developed intellect beyond the point of other animals: This category represents beings that can think independently and more broadly and act rationally rather than impulsively and have also developed a more complex way of living such as ourselves.

Level 4: Advanced beings: Beings that have not been identified but have a strong possibility of existing with superhuman capabilities and advancements.

Level 5: Godlike being(s): the highest form of being capable of existing. This being is so much more refined and intelligent it could have the capability of creating life on immeasurable scales such as the known universes. This type of being is relatively incomprehensible to the human imagination and has been interpreted by humans for centuries.

[Keshavkant1995]

Is it possible that it can be the stages of the evolution of living organisms or may be stages of life-cycle of a human?

[Felix]

Is it possible that it can be the stages of the evolution of living organisms or may be stages of life-cycle of a human?

Only the Level 5 beings would know for sure.

-- Updated Sun Oct 23, 2016 3:25 pm to add the following --

I accidentally hit the "submit" button... or maybe a Level 5 being did it.

Beings that have not been identified but have a strong possibility of existing with superhuman capabilities and advancements.

Perhaps they can only be identified subjectively, or only wish to be, I've gotten that impression.

[Sy Borg]

I quite like it, Finn, although I'd add non-biological levels of systemic organisation before #1 for completeness. Viruses and prions, stars, planets and moons and crystals come to mind as the kind of systems that predated the systems of our consciousness.

Like many, I've wondered about #4 - the next advancement over human consciousness. Our greatest limitation IMO is the problem of other minds, beautifully illustrated by Nagle's What Is It Like to Be a Bat essay. That is, our perceptions are very local and individual, despite the breadth of our thoughts. This mental opacity limits the empathy we might have if we truly understood what others experienced, and ultimately leads to tragedies of the commons.

So the next logical step may be multiple human perspectives working in concert. At present, multiple human perspectives are codified into culture, law and science, but these entities are obviously not thinking, feeling beings as we (or dogs) are. They are basically formulas and algorithms - abstracted representations of the collective mind - but not a collective mind in themselves.

To some extent our global communications systems are narrowing this gap somewhat, allowing people unprecedented access to others' minds. I suspect that direct access to multiple humans' brain activities, perhaps via advanced implanted mobile phone networks, will eventually lead to the next step of consciousness - a cohesive meta-perspective that filters and organises all of the networked multiple perspectives into a cohesive whole.

The process of organising multiple people's brain activity might be analogous to the way our own brain filters and organises highly complex sensory and internal processing information into a cohesive whole. The meta perspective of a million minds would be as difficult for us to comprehend as it would be for testicles and ovaries to comprehend adult human consciousness. In fact, it may seem godlike in its level of empowerment, awareness and understanding. Then again, in the next trillion years the universe may yet throw up beings that seem godlike even to that "godlike" meta-perspective - perhaps an intimate network of multiple meta perspectives ...?

[Burning ghost]

Trees and insects communicate. Also, we are in no position to conclude that insects don't have "emotion" (in some primative sense). Bees can certainly "rationalise" in a sense.

You have a good place to begin your investigation from. Pick a level and then continue to dig (obviously lvl 4-5 os speculation so you only have 3 to work with.)

[Felix]

Burning ghost: Pick a level and then continue to dig (obviously lvl 4-5 is speculation so you only have 3 to work with.)

Not entirely speculation, we may have had living examples of the next stage of human evolution. For example, Mother's Agenda is a window into a broader nonlocal sort of subjective awareness. See: https://goo.gl/awrNmi

So, taking Greta's example, rather than imagining what it's like to be a bat, one could subjectively become a bat.

I've been meaning to start a thread based on statements that Aleister Crowley made in his autobiography regarding communicating with higher intelligences. He said this is the main purpose of magical (occult) training and he gave numerous examples of successful (and unsuccessful) contacts with advanced nonphysical beings in his book(s).

[Keshavkant1995]

Is it possible that it can be the stages of the evolution of living organisms or may be stages of life-cycle of a human?

Only the Level 5 beings would know for sure.

-- Updated Sun Oct 23, 2016 3:25 pm to add the following --

I accidentally hit the "submit" button... or maybe a Level 5 being did it.

Beings that have not been identified but have a strong possibility of existing with superhuman capabilities and advancements.

Perhaps they can only be identified subjectively, or only wish to be, I've gotten that impression.

Won't it be necessary for the existence of the beings with superhuman capabilities and advancements, the existence of humans?

[Burning ghost]

Felix -

Yes, entirely speculative.

[Dolphin42]

I'd try to get another couple of levels in there to make it seven. Seven is always a good number for these kinds of classifications. Like the "seven signs of ageing" in the Oil of Olay ads.

[Felix]

Jeez people, stop being so cynical or you'll never make it to Level 4!

Won't it be necessary for the existence of the beings with superhuman capabilities and advancements, the existence of humans?

Won't what be necessary?

[Keshavkant1995]

The existence of superhuman beings.

[LuckyR]

I have been thinking about the hierarchy of the natural universe and have come up with a few basic points. I would appreciate some feedback though I apologise for some of the grammar:

Level 1: Beings that act instinctively: This category could include any type of living thing that doesn't possess consciousness but still lives and reproduces ranging from plant matter such as flowers and trees which have a life cycle but do not possess a consciousness and act out their life cycle, to animals such as bacteria and insects who act purely on instinct.

Level 2: Beings with a basic level of intellect: This category covers animals which possess the ability to communicate, embrace basic feelings and rationalise to a certain extent. This category extends from animals such as fish to more complicated beings such as monkeys, Dolphins and forms of humanoid such as Neanderthals.

Level 3: Beings that have developed intellect beyond the point of other animals: This category represents beings that can think independently and more broadly and act rationally rather than impulsively and have also developed a more complex way of living such as ourselves.

Level 4: Advanced beings: Beings that have not been identified but have a strong possibility of existing with superhuman capabilities and advancements.

Level 5: Godlike being(s): the highest form of being capable of existing. This being is so much more refined and intelligent it could have the capability of creating life on immeasurable scales such as the known universes. This type of being is relatively incomprehensible to the human imagination and has been interpreted by humans for centuries.

Just curious. Which level would you put Homo sapiens into?

[Felix]

The OP put Homo Sapiens in category #3, "act rationally rather than impulsively and have also developed a more complex way of living such as ourselves." But it is debatable how rational a being is that destroys it's own habitat and decimates it's own species and others. Which implies we haven't attained level 3 yet.

So now we have 6 levels, one more below Level #1 and we'll have the lucky 7 that Dolphin42 suggested. Good idea, we will need luck on our side.

[Sy Borg]

The existence of superhuman beings.

Cosmologist Martin Reese noted that, at the rate of evolution seen so far, what humans could evolve into in a billion years' time would be as different from humans as humans are from bacteria. They would surely qualify as "superhuman", although they would no doubt just feel "normal". Likewise, we humans also feel "normal" (often inadequate!), despite enjoying what other species and young children would see as super powers.

However, children and other species have capabilities and perspectives that we adults humans don't have, especially the capacity to relate with their peers as a peer. The empowered can never draw the personality out of the weak as weak peers can do, just as a major multinational corporation can never understand its individuals. This would seem to reinforce any sense of superiority felt by the empowered. If they are unable to draw out and thus perceive the depths of weaker beings around them, they will have a limited view of the weaker being's potentials. As children we must remember being regularly underestimated by adults. How often do we underestimate our pets? What can we know of the interactions between children or between dogs? Superficialities only.

Super intelligence is not really so "super", so much as different, more empowered. Ever growing empowerment comes with ever increasing obtuseness towards the subtle poignancy of the lives of "lesser beings". In fact, simpler beings will tend to think of greater powers as stupid and "out of touch". Meanwhile, super powers blindly trample over many subtle dynamics that they can control so much more easily than they can understand.

This is not, as some might suggest, an ethical shortfall, at least not in humans insofar as we enjoy "super powers" compared with other animals. Our concerns have become broader and more abstractly complex, and they take almost all of our attention. For instance, the breaking of loving relationships between cattle in a herd destined for the slaughterhouse is largely done blindly, because our focus tends to be more outward than inward. More expansive than subtle. To many species humans must seem like big, dumb, clumsy, dangerous beasts doing pointless, inexplicable things.

Perhaps the moral of the story is that if something seems huge and keeps doing inexplicable and seemingly impossible things, then the chances are it's smarter than you, and probably obtuse as regard the subtleties of your life.

If anyone find this hard to understand, sorry. I'm struggling to get these thoughts into words.

[Felix]

Greta, in this and other threads, you have associated technical progress with evolutionary advancement. The fact is, they can be antithetical. Man's reliance on technical tools can cause him to rely less on his natural abilities, such as reason, memory, and empathy, which may then atrophy through disuse.

For example, before the advent of printing and the widespread dissemination of books, humankind mostly passed on their knowledge orally, which developed the powers of imagination and memory. The book and later the digital hard-drive came to replace the brain as the main repository of information, information began to be mistaken for knowledge and eloquence faded.

A more current example: children growing up communicating primarily with others via electronic devices such as smart phones. As a consequence they may fail to develop primary interpersonal and critical thinking skills. Image is mistaken for substance: that guy your teenage daughter met on Facebook seemed so genial, how was she to know he was a predator?

So I wouldn't expect technology to be mankind's evolutionary savior, it could instead become the instrument of his destruction.

Perhaps the moral of the story is that if something seems huge and keeps doing inexplicable and seemingly impossible things, then the chances are it's smarter than you, and probably obtuse as regard the subtleties of your life.

Intelligence is not wisdom, there is nothing more destructive than ingenuity without sensitivity.