C 3. Consciousness & Self-awareness
Our consciousness increases its awareness of the external world as it becomes more ordered by increasing its ability to duplicate the true structure of the universe in the mind's holoceptual images. The more external structures it can faithfully duplicate and hence recall, the greater the mind's comprehension of the universe. In other words, the increasing ability to duplicate accurately the structures of nature in the mind, is the same thing as increasing the mind's understanding of the world. As man's comprehension of his circumstances increases, so does his own self awareness and he becomes more capable of regarding himself objectively as just another part of a mechanism, rather then the centre of the universe, even to the extent of understanding the phenomenon of his own self consciousness. An increasing consciousness results from a mind capable of increasing its ability to duplicate or comprehend the structure of nature, a mind capable of discerning order and pattern from apparent chaos which then urges the body into executive action to both spread this sense of order to others and thus impose greater stability and more complex structure onto the external world.
Accurate memories can be regarded as truthful holocepts, perfectly duplicating nature, or repetitions of little slices of reality. The 'self' or ego of an individual, or however personality is described, can be seen to be dominated and formed by the vividness of past memories and the impression they made upon the individual at the time they were first observed. This is because intelligence operates through recalling past observations which might be relevant to current external circumstances, and how they might best be met to extend that individuals chance of survival. This description of the operation of intelligence is of course at a level much lower than its ultimate purpose, described above as the imposition of order onto the external universe. However, before an intelligence can impose such order, it must first be able to physically survive above the brute beast level of having no time for leisure pursuits above the basics of eating, sleeping and finding adequate shelter. Therefore, these basic ingredients for survival must first be met, before consciousness can be developed.
The 'self' can thus be regarded as a jumbled collection of memories, which if repeated enough, become lodged as trigger memory cell patterns (DNA) creating conditioned reflexes, then to become permanently engrained into the gene pattern in the chromosomes of the body's cells. The memories in this collection comprising the self will be the more vivid and the more deeply engrained, the closer they are to reality. In other words, the more accurate the holocepts to nature and the closer to the truth, the greater the resonance and the stability and the value of those memories. However, these accurate memories of great comprehension will be mixed in the mind among memories of less consequence from different times and places in a random morass. The higher the function of intelligence beyond that of ensuring mere survival, will constantly attempt to arrange and combine these holocepts into more ordered and more meaningful patterns, so that wider and more accurate representation of nature can be formed in the mind.
Memories might stick in the mind for no particular reason, and which by themselves, appear to have no great significance. Later, further observations might be made, which when considered with the earlier memories, combine to form a significant concept. This constant sorting of recalled holocepts into new combinations which are realised to be significant when they duplicate nature, is a process which results directly from the phenomenon of the resonance of similar structures. The mind detects this resonance perhaps in the same way as a meter can measure increased electrical potential and interprets it as a feeling of well being throughout the whole body. This ability to detect resonance or the 'truth' is the mechanism of consciousness, and the urge to sift through myriad of combinations of holocepts can be seen as curiosity, the great driving force behind intellectual progress.