Was Primordal man Conscious?

[mickiel]

Originally Posted by Time

Ok in biblical terms then, there were no humans before adam.... so in that regard, the convo is ended..

In realistic terms, it depends on what type of humanoid you are talking about. Some would say when we started using tools we were concsious....

In biblical terms Adam was called " The First Man'; We know there were humans before Adam, so In my view, Adam was the first man " With Consciousness." There had to be a differentation between Adam and Primordal humans; I think it was consciousness.

[mickiel]

Originally Posted by psychoslice

What is a conscious being to you ?, like, even a maggot is conscious, its conscious of being a maggot, it does what a maggot does.

A conscious being in my view will display these charactheristics;

The ability to speak and reason. The ability to communicate their inner feelings, and recall in their memory as they relate those feelings to others. The ability to organize their thoughts, and then create things on those thoughts.

The ability to reason scientifically, religiously, intellectually and mathmatically.

The ability to govern your behavior.

The ability to reason philosophically.

The ability to be aware of how others are thinking.

The ability to ponder your own existence.

Just a few on a list that I will enlarge.

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

Not in biblical terms , since any world view that is incapable and/or unwilling to integrate modern scientific findings does not, in my opinion , deserve to be taken seriously in answering this sort of question....

It's widely accepted scientifically that modern humans achieved the current degree of cognitive and linguistic capabilities somewhere around 40, 000 years ago. Don't quote me on that , but it's relatively close. Pre-Sapiens hominids are generally thought not to posess quite the same cranial capacity -to body weight ratio, which is a big part of assessing intelligence, and presumably (at least a lot of the presume to) self-awareness. By the same parameters though, we have to consider that Cetaceans (dolphins and whales) might be on par with us, which is a whole other can of interesting worms .

The whole question is loaded with subjectivity, and evidnce that isn't complete, and the only people who could really answer the question are long dead , and none of the alien-intervention theories are independently verifiable. So , we're stuck having to try and agree on definitions of 'conscious'ness, self-awareness (some animals have been shown to be aware of themselves) and at what level it achieves what we might call 'spiritual' self awareness, and that whole Pandora's Box of tricky things that there will probably never be a consensus agreement about anyway.

To me, it borders on brain-damaged to dismiss evolution as 'just a theory' so
I think it's clear that at some point humans became humans by natural , or unnatural (alien) processes ; we became thinkers , philosophers , mystics, religious fanatics , and atheists , among other things , and here we are ,
asking the questions, not knowing the answers.

I think the universe is aware , and through us , is learning about itself. How many other intelligent civilizations are there out there?, how long have they been around ?, how old is the place where the universe came from?, what do the thinkers there think about?. But just in this visible, physical universe, there may be millions of intelligent species; what do they know?, what have they figured out in millions or billions of years, compared to our 40,000 ?.

It's an interesting place ...

[psychoslice]

Originally Posted by mickiel

A conscious being in my view will display these charactheristics;

The ability to speak and reason. The ability to communicate their inner feelings, and recall in their memory as they relate those feelings to others. The ability to organize their thoughts, and then create things on those thoughts.

The ability to reason scientifically, religiously, intellectually and mathmatically.

The ability to govern your behavior.

The ability to reason philosophically.

The ability to be aware of how others are thinking.

The ability to ponder your own existence.

Just a few on a list that I will enlarge.

Your just describing what we humans are capable of being, or doing, that is just your biased opinion, there are many things that animals can do which we as human can't do, our so called higher intelligence in most cases only take us further away from our true nature, that is the animal called a human being.

[psychoslice]

Just because us humans are so called conscious, where we can ask stupid questions such as, who am I, why are we here and so on, doesn't mean that we are better than our cousins the animals, don't forget we are also animals. The rest of the animals are just busy being what they are, they don't need to ask stupid questions, or believe in a stupid god.

[Maynah]

Originally Posted by mickiel

A conscious being in my view will display these charactheristics;

The ability to speak and reason. The ability to communicate their inner feelings, and recall in their memory as they relate those feelings to others. The ability to organize their thoughts, and then create things on those thoughts.

The ability to reason scientifically, religiously, intellectually and mathmatically.

The ability to govern your behavior.

The ability to reason philosophically.

The ability to be aware of how others are thinking.

The ability to ponder your own existence.

Just a few on a list that I will enlarge.

I think consciousness runs a lot deeper than that. Are you just basing your theory on the the neanderthals of europe? Are you familiar with the natives of Australia? The Aborigines? Dreaming? Might be worth investigating further. Google "Aboriginal consciousness", very interesting.

Greetings..

It is noteworthy that 'Consciousness' is a word that describes arbitrary characteristics relative to the species that invented the 'word'.. what i understand as 'Consciousness', is the capacity for organizing information as a 'self-aware' independently functioning version of a collective whole existence, and.. that by organizing the information relating to individual existence, the individual is capable of realizing its interdependent relationship with the Whole.. from which, the individual chooses its perspective, i.e.: Part, Whole, or Both simultaneously, and chooses the manner in which it contributes to the evolution of itself and of the whole, including altruistic and/or sociopathological choices, and.. for many, the choice to not choose..

I am compelled by logical reasoning to believe that most forms of Life are capable of exhibiting the relationships i described, but maybe not in a manner consistent with 'human perspectives', or 'human self-imagery'.. revealing a tendency among some humans for referring to other species or other forms of Life, or even their own less-evolved ancestors, in terms that would elevate their own self-imagery as superior to, or better than those different or less evolved than they perceive themselves.. it's an odd human trait, to assume itself or its favored perspectives or selected groups as superior to others, even when presented with evidence that to do so would create undesirable consequences..

I see "Primordal Man" as 'Conscious', maybe more so.. as i am supposing they lived without so much focus on their own 'relative' place in a hierarchy of self-imagery..

Be well..

[psychoslice]

WoW, wonderfully said TzuJanLi as always.

[mickiel]

Originally Posted by Maynah

I think consciousness runs a lot deeper than that. Are you just basing your theory on the the neanderthals of europe? Are you familiar with the natives of Australia? The Aborigines? Dreaming? Might be worth investigating further. Google "Aboriginal consciousness", very interesting.

I base my theory on my conjecture of the birth of Adam, which I think was some 40,000 years ago, on certain biblical and scientific information, and lastly archaeology. A combination of all those things. " Any" humans who lived before Adam, I consider Primordal, or having no working consciousness. And I will be going into much more detail on all those aspects later, I was interested in reading others views first on the subject.

I think Consciousness is " A spirit in man", nothing physical; nothing that could have evolved from anythingelse physical, because it- itself is not a physical thing. So in my view, Consciousness has no evolution. And I don't think Primordal humans had this spirit in them. I think they had very high levels of instinct and survival; they mated with each other, but I do not think they ever became civilized, in any sense of the term. I just don't see it.

I don't even think they were aware of the " Perversions that are associated with being conscious." Such as jealousy, envy, lying, and so on... I do not believe they had " Society", nor homosexuality, or marriage; I do not believe they engaged in competition of any sort; or any sports. Archaeology has shown none of this.

Yet, all those things are definte signs of consciousness, which I do not believe they had in them.

[psychoslice]

Hi mickiel, do you think the myth of Adam as the first man, just popped into existence ?.