Suffering and pleasure as origin of consciousness

Suffering and pleasure as origin of consciousness

A little extra (terrestrial)

Let’s start with a given: we are a peculiar species. We are in nature, and yet at the same time out of it. We live, suffer, die like any other living organism but we are different. The difference is the consciousness of reality. The real world affects all living things, but we are the only ones to be aware of this reality. Furthermore we are the only ones to be able to describe it, put words in our mouths, minds and books. But more essentially, we do not simply adapt to reality, we believe we can change it. Eventually we also have the ability (whether we do it or not) to believe there is more than what affects us, something beyond.

Human consciousness and what comes with it, imagination, arts, myths, religions etc. has been a topic for thinkers since the dawn of humanity and its first cave paintings.

I will not philosophy on how our consciousness makes us different from other species. It has already been done. I will, however, invite my fellow readers (i.e. my wife and my daughter) to think about why we have this consciousness, the origin of it.

I dare to believe the origin of our consciousness or intelligence is suffering. Reality has made us suffer, a lot, for a very long time, yet without killing us as a species, and as the saying goes, “what does not kill you makes you stronger”. We indeed got stronger, to the point of now being able to destroy this very reality that made us suffer so much.

The great Pretender.

We call ourselves Homo-sapiens. We had rather have the honesty to call ourselves Homo- delusional storyteller. Every natural species adapts to reality. So do we, but we are the only one (to our knowledge) that at the same time denies it, all the time. If a child feels sick, we will provide them with instinctive care and affection, but we might also help them deal with their pain by telling them a story, which will most probably take place in a fictional reality where we can live happily ever after.

There is the real world and the once upon a time human one. Everything is fiction, Religions, Santa Claus, nations, people, money (banks possess less than 5% of all the money they are supposed to). But as Mr. Harari points out in his masterpiece “Sapiens”, it is this very ability to believe in fiction that made us so strong. Other mammals cannot cooperate in large groups, above a certain number, it gets chaotic. Humans can gather millions of individuals and make them reach the same goal in harmony, based on an illusion. We humans can create, build, destroy or even die happily for a god, a nation, values or any other fictional item.

Ants cooperate by millions, but even if we assume an ant’s collective intelligence, it is not to be compared to the human one, no ant colony ever created anything driven by a belief.

Unto the ages of aches

Everybody hurts, sometimes. Our species hurts, all the time. Think of it, thousands of years being unfit for reality and yet surviving as a species. Year after year, generation after generation our weak bodies are born, highly premature, the death rate is enormous. We need constant attention for so many years. A mother must give birth to a dozen children if she wants to have a chance of seeing one of them reach adulthood. Such an unfit species should have been wiped away from reality. Yet by a quirk of history, we have survived, for hundreds of thousands of years. Every big mammal cries, sometimes, but no elephant, lion or Antelope must suffer such a huge amount of grief. If we except the last 70 years or so, no human could avoid death shadow. The Antelope fears for her life but child mortality among antelopes is so much lower than among humans. The baby human must survive for many years to enjoy life, if they are part of the happy few clubs, they will anyhow have to mourn a sister, brother or child. The little monkey, the baby antelope can walk and live after a couple of hours, of course it could be attacked by a lion, and it will live in fear, but fear is not anguish. Fear is an instinctive force to give the necessary adrenaline shot to survive a dangerous situation. Anguish is not fear, it is an existential feeling based not only on what is but on what could be. Only when we can imagine a what if comes anguish, it is therefore inextricable from our human consciousness.

The unbearable lightness of being

Suffering and longevity (but in grief) for the happy few.

An abnormally high mortality rate coupled with survival as a species sets us apart on the suffering scale.

But more importantly, the happy few who survived could live long, much longer than any antelope. A long life then, but with so much grief, for so many millenniums. What is the worst injustice, the worst unnatural thing that can happen to parents? No need to answer that. Forever, our species had to suffer this unthinkable, many times in a lifetime, over hundreds of thousands of years.

At some point, this must have been positively unbearable for the happy few having the chance of living longer. Hence the consciousness of others suffering and hence the consciousness of time. At one point, one of us, watching their newborn must have thought “how long will they live” or “I hope they will outlive their brother” (who died after a couple of moon cycles). Multiply these experiences thousands of times over thousands of years. Is it so absurd to think this could have led to an intuitive/biological perception of time slots? “This one lived a bit longer than the previous one, but much longer than my first born”. So many dying while so many living a long life. What other mammal has the same deathrate/life-expectancy ratio once you’ve reached a certain age? Maybe an unlucky antelope mother who saw five of her children killed by lions or crocodiles will experience a time slot consciousness, but it will be an individual epiphany which will die with her, not an over and over again systematic experience as a species.

This can’t be real!

Perhaps our first human thought was a rejection of the unthinkable.

Let’s have a drink, smoke, read, pray, do whatever needed to avoid, escape, transcend reality. We are the only known species to do that. I don’t know the articulation with consciousness of time. But while mourning their 5th child or wondering if the next one will outlive the next moon, one mother, one father, anyone must at one point have been thinking “this cannot be real” or “there must be something else”. No other mammals look at the stars. The conditions for our survival were to revolt against reality, deny it.

The first Homo erectus who covered the body of their death child with stones was the first homo-delusional storyteller, the first revolutionary against real and the first ever living organism to be aware of their self. Intelligence and consciousness are a mental illness caused by the need to survive an unbearable reality.

Epiphany or epigenetics?

New discoveries tend to affirm that epigenetics can modify the way we are, much more than we used to think. Our actions, food, stress management, even our way of thinking could alter or improve what we genetically are. Were intelligence and consciousness the result of an epiphany, a big-bang or a slow but constant epigenetic mutation through our suffering, stress management actions, food (meat) and group solidarity? You may object that many species hurt, eat meat and yet we are the only ones to be crazy enough to look at the stars and believe there is more. But again, what sets us apart is time and self-perception because of suffering for a very long time in history. This suffering must have had a massive impact on our epigenetics compared to other mammals.

Quantum of solace

Glimmering effect from suffering is pleasure. We are the only known species to have experienced so much pain and at the same time such a subtle ability to experience pleasure. No other species has this faculty. Our bonobos cousins manage their stress and create social bonds through sexual exhilaration, but they don’t experience pleasure as we do, pleasure that leads to culture, fulfillment, joy and true love. Even when we eat, we seek pleasure, no other mammals would say “enjoy your meal” or “bon appétit” while eating English food!

Freud and all the psychanalysts teach us that the little human so ill adapted to life will be dragged away from their pulsion of death (the temptation to return to their so close void) by the love of their mother and the pleasure she brings them. Of course, every mother loves their child. On tic-toc I saw a mother antelope jumping on a crocodile that was attacking her child and being killed instead of her. But only humans must give so much love and care for such a long time with so much at stack, the survival of the species. The emotional implication is tremendous for the parents, especially the mother and hence the resulting suffering when so much care does not pay off. But for any surviving child (we are all descending from survivors), the amount of unconditional love, care and therefore pleasure received is also tremendous. Only love and pleasure dragged us away from extinction. All other animal babies are self-sufficient within hours, weeks or months. We are the only ones to be self-sufficient after at least 7 to 10 years. For us, long lasting love was a necessity to survive.

Tons of pain and tons of pleasure, how could we not get crazy and develop a distorted perception of reality due to changes in brain function via epigenetics? If she could talk, maybe the antelope would describe us as we describe our fellow schizophrenics (well, if she could talk, she would be one of us in the round of fools and would feel normal).

Holy Trinity

Could there be love without consciousness? What came first? I would claim a holy trinity: Consciousness (intelligence), time perception and love (search for pleasure). This cocktail, this alchemy, for millenniums, transforming the lead of our inadaptability and suffering into the gold of our human culture. Consciousness, time perception and love, the three horses of a troika leading humanity away from extinction and towards modernity.

Some species may have developed time perception (look at your dog waiting for its master) others the ability for pleasure (look at you pleasing your master cat), but we are the only ones to have experienced this cocktail for such a long time.

God only knows what I’d be without you

Surviving humans have been surrounded by love and fiction. Love from their mother but also from the group. The mother alone could not cope. To survive, humans had to cooperate. Fiction was also a necessity to survive since it is a condition to cooperate in large groups. Every human longs for the exclusive love from their mother but at the same time knows what they ow to the group. Unlike other species we are torn between the desire to be alone or alone with our loved one, and the vital necessity to be accepted by the group. This is another tension that can explain the complexity of the development of our brain.

Apocalypse now?

Apocalypse means the end of the world but also unveiling. Unveiling of what should be hidden.

We live in times when what used to be hidden is not anymore. It is painful and dangerous.

We had to cope with the harsh reality but at the same time we could dream of gods, myths, a good human nature. Thanks to technique and science, we live in comfort and hence the reality is less harsh towards us. But it comes with a price. What we gained in material comfort, we lost in (fictional) meaning of life. Science that gave us comfort took away our belief in after life. The more the comfort, the more the ill-being.

Everything is unveiled: God is dead. There is no paradise awaiting us. Life has no transcendent meaning. Our reality and very existence is a mere coincidence. Humans may be mean.

Let’s get virtual

When will they ever learn we cannot cope with reality, we are just not adapted to it, or better said, we adapt to it by fictionally denying it.

God is dead? Let’s shift to virtual reality, let’s live our lives as avatars, let’s do whatever is necessary not to think too much. Thinking while believing in something beyond reality was fine and meaningfull. We could spend hours developing new ideas working for God, the common good, freedom, fraternity. Thinking while scientifically knowing there is nothing but random coincidence, knowing we are nothing but weird animals, is just too depressing.

Infinite I

The only remaining certainty is our ego, here and now. As species we had to live with others to interact. With digitalization we have the illusion of infinite power. Our screen is the last place where we can escape reality and feel safe. Our ego wants infinite now, whatever the cost, even the planet.

Autism is spreading in modern society, but also depression and screen addictions etc. What if our epigenetics were adapting ourselves to a world full of technologies with no fictional meaning at all? A world where nothing else but our ego matters? Screen light at midnight and darkness at noon.

AI aï aï aï !

We hate the sadistic reality that has made us suffer that much for so many millennials.

We love reality when we survive it since we are animals like any other entangled in it.

We long for the pleasure we had while being loved for so many years so we can survive the sadistic reality.

We survived so well that we now can have the illusion of being able to abstract completely from this sadistic reality. We can live in virtual ones. Well, up to one point. We need to eat, sleep (a lot), be healthy etc.

We wish we could do without reality, but we know deep down we shall never completely avoid it…. We, but what if we could transfer our consciousness into a machine? Picture yourself as a scientist, you have invented a machine, an AI able to feel every subtle human pleasure, a machine which could interact with other artificial consciousness in the most harmonious possible manner, the nicest human feelings ever experienced while falling in love, listening to music, taking care of children etc. A network of AI who live and feel like you at your best, time infinite, who would not need to eat, suffer, would be able to joyfully adapt even in harsh conditions such as climate change. The ultimate escape from reality, no more need to pretend it is an illusion (the Indian maya or the Greek cavern), the ultimate revenge from nature that has been so unfair with us. You are the scientist; all you need to do is press enter. What would you do?

If You can dream it, you can do it.

There is another way. Remembering that our consciousness, so depressing as it may be, allows us to be free. We can remember all our achievements. Remember that after all, modern technology is so very recent. We are fictional brains incorporated in animal matter. We can decide to dream of a life in harmony with our fellow humans, animals and all natural beings. We can dream and invent new myths where our imperfections would be hailed because “it is the void of the vase that makes the vase”. We can dream of a humanity that fights to be better and make life better, a humanity that puts cooperation, love and harmony above all for la beauté du geste or because we have decided to believe there must be a meaning beyond our understanding.

If there is one thing our history has taught us, it is that “if we can dream it, we can do it”. We may be crazy, but we still have the liberty to choose a dream or a nightmare.

All you need is love

As unfit survivors we suffered a lot, to survive we had to be loved; to help others live, we had to give a lot of love. We are overtrained at enduring suffering, fighting it and feeling others’ pain and bring them consolation and tenderness. We can be pessimistic and cruel, but we can also be very sympathetic towards all living creatures. Our fellow animals sometimes feel that.

We don’t know whether human life has a meaning or what the future will bring. However, if we freely decide our mission is to love, it will make sense with our past, our whole evolution and our suffering will not be vain.

Yvan Falys

Teacher and Essayist (L’Harmattan Paris, Jouvence Geneva, Mondes francophones, La Libre Belgique)