In the last year, I’ve been getting deeper and deeper into meditation, mindfulness, and working to build a practice to eliminate my sense of self. Not only to better understand myself but also the true nature of reality. While I’ve always gravitated towards the subject of consciousness I’ve lately found myself going deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.
While reading and meditating on many different theories and ideas regarding where consciousness springs from, I find myself drawn to this idea of complexity as consciousness.
We’ve likely all heard the phrase ‘lizard brain’. Psychology Today defines the lizard brain as such: “In 1954, the limbic cortex was described by neuroanatomists. Since that time, the limbic system of the brain has been implicated as the seat of emotion, addiction, mood, and lots of other mental and emotional processes. It is the part of the brain that is phylogenetically very primitive. Many people call it the "Lizard Brain,” because the limbic system is about all a lizard has for brain function. It is in charge of fight, flight, feeding, fear, freezing up, and fornication".
In short, the term encompasses our basic nervous system reactions to stimuli; our drive to eat to live, fight in the face of a threat, procreate to continue the species, etc, all based purely on genetic impulses. Humans typically view animals as having varying degrees of consciousness, with the lowest level consisting purely of reactions to stimuli as opposed to the other end of the spectrum where an organism is able to have a deeply thoughtful, morally based, and measured reaction to a particular stimulus.
So if we look at a spectrum of consciousness or awareness, on one end we have an animal that reacts and lives purely based on following the impulses of its limbic system to survive, and on the far other end we have an animal like humans who take these impulses and view them through a prism of rationality, morality, social structure, culture, and ethics. We also view organisms at the lizard brain end of the spectrum as not being fully conscious, while viewing organisms like humans as being highly conscious and self-actualized. So what accounts for this difference?
I can’t help but wonder lately if the human sense of self and consciousness ultimately comes from the complexity of what we are and the fabricated social systems we exist within. We have the same feelings and basic desires of any animal seeking to survive, but these impulses exist within a complex world of morality, geography, religion, and social norms we’re all conditioned to understand. Let's say my name is Sasha and I'm a 30 year old female living in 2021 Moscow. Many aspects of my life are based around all of these facts, most of which exist within a created fabrication. As a Russian female, I presumably would have deeply held views about my country, my nationality, sexuality, and the motherland. As a resident of Russia I likely have a belief (at the least an opinion) in some form of communism and/or other political systems based solely upon imaginary geopolitical borders. As a woman of 30 I would have beliefs tied to the era in which I grew up; the musical artists I would enjoy, beliefs on career/birth control/the need to be a mother, motherhood at all, same sex relationships, the importance of raising a family, and even whether I should want a family at all or to focus on my career. These are all deeply engrained thought systems that ultimately are human created and no other animal is subject to. Yet we are all subject to these belief systems in our own way and own paradigms, whether as a Russian 30 year old women in 2021 or a male Greek born into a high ranking family at the height of Greek civilization. How much of who and what we each are, is so profoundly affected by these systems in which we are born into, through no decision of our own?
Is it possible that this complexity of culture, social norms, religion, etc. actually create this deeply held sense of identity we all have? Is it possible that our deep layering of morality and ideas of right and wrong, as well as social hierarchy and gender roles, to name but a few, help drive our sense of self? As humans we find ourselves occupying a place in the world that is heavily layered with these ideas in a way that no other animal does. Is it possible that we feel conscious as one localized individual directly due to these complex relationships and our struggle to not only relate to, but also navigate them? Not only with the world around us and the people around us, but the historically prevailing attitudes around us?