Human social
structures are based on the cognitive abilities of the human brain. The salient
aspect of cognition that gives rise to social structure is the ability within
the brain to form contextual frameworks that allow the individual to project
through metaphorical processes an internal understanding of the sensori-motor
experience to the external world at large; then, based on this metaphorical
understanding, to reflect upon and act upon the external world based on
processes internal to the individual. It seems to us that mirror neuron systems,
with integration of emotion, provide the basis of consciousness through which
this metaphorical basis of action through interaction is achieved.
Just as we
showed earlier how computer constructs elaborated in the context of
object-oriented programming are parallel to mirror neuron systems, we can
understand, with the example of either watching an ice cream being eaten or
eating it ourselves, how a computer effects consciousness. For this, we’ll
consider the sentence “I don’t remember eating the ice cream; I did it
unconsciously.” Here, we clearly associate memory with consciousness.
Similarly, we all have had the experience of driving unconsciously, where we
can’t remember how we went through a long stretch of a familiar road. In order
for this to work, the brain must have circuitry that can detail and store the
many steps of a process. What this circuitry does is look at the whole process
as well as its constituting parts. Some time just the whole process is
remembered, and sometime the constituting parts are remembered as well,
creating the conscious part of the process that we’ve discussed in the examples
above. For a computer, that property is called reflexivity. When we
described earlier how an object that contains generic instructions on how to
read and understand a file, reflexivity allows the computer to inquire the
object as to how it sequences those instructions. Whether the computer then
records a process in memory or both the process and its sequence of
instructions is up to higher evaluations, just as it is for humans. Certainly
emotion represents a higher evaluation system of this kind in humans. Why
should we remember things we’re not interested in?
Mirror neuron
systems establish contextual envelopes for an individual’s sensori-motor
experience. They encompass the formation of emotional responses to this
sensori-motor experience and they reflect the actions that can or may be taken
in response. When the sensori-motor experience is observed in others, that is
in the external world, then the mirror neuron systems may formulate sympathetic
emotional responses within the observed context. However, they will not have
access to the actions encompassed by the mirror neuron context because this
observed context is beyond the individual’s motor system. One individual’s mind
cannot control another individual’s actions directly through the mirror neuron
complex. This, it would seem, recognition and contemplation, but without a
direct ability for action, is a reasonable definition of consciousness. In that
perspective, consciousness is the capability to relate to oneself as one
relates to others.
Through
relatively recent evolutionary development, the human species has evolved this
ability for metaphorical projection. Further, in concert with this mechanism for
consciousness, the species has developed the means of communication that can
represent this complex, metaphorical projection. Specifically, the species
evolved the means of language, which in its spoken and written form, allow the
individual the indirect means to effect actions on the part of others based on
our internal sensori-motor experience. This, it would seem, forms the
foundation of social ecosystems. We will explore this in much more detail in
the next chapter.
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