The debate over consciousness has lasted decades and there is no end in sight. Or is there?
In the field of human knowledge, the way forward has always necessitated a challenge to orthodoxy.
Discovery is finding new ways. That is what this book attempts.
The answers may appear strange, some may be difficult to accept; but they have all been hidden in plain sight.
Human consciousness has two discrete components: sentience and cognition. Sentience is a quantum system. Complex thought is a byproduct of language.
Cognition is complex because language is productive. It produces infinite concepts from finite resources.
Toddlers are taught language because language is cultural, not natural. They cannot learn it by themselves. We are born cute, but not quite human. We become human with language and culture. Language is the gel that binds humanity together. We cannot live without it or be human without it.
Humanity has become a superorganism that has taken over the planet.
It is hard to accept. We think of ourselves as individuals but cannot live alone. We are like termites in a huge mound: the world.
Tens of thousands of years ago, something unique took place that would forever change everything on Earth. Hominins had begun a long process, grunting and yelling. Towards the end of the process, human individuals were exchanging complex information using recursive language. At some point along the line, things had changed. What started as something natural had gradually become artificial, meta-evolutionary. Hominins had created language and language had created humanity.
Rafael Pintos-López is an Argentine-Australian former academic at the University of Canberra and translator of international conferences for the FAO and WHO organisations of the UN. An awarded painter, designer, author, and innovator, he has been interested in consciousness and written about it for some years. His outside-the-box approach to the subject attempts to challenge current convention.
