In the film, ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, the viewer is led to believe that an unspecified number of tall dark monoliths have been hidden by some ancient alien intelligence in such a manner as to ensure that those that discover each one will be worthy of its gift. This gift is to imbue the discoverer, in this evolutionary treasure hunt, with understandings that enable it to acquire a heightened state of knowing. A group of hominids on an African plain discover the first. This part of the film is entitled ‘The Dawn of Mankind’. When the hominids touch the monolith, it grants them human-like behavioural characteristics from which one is left believe, the human species then evolves. Towards the end of the film, a spaceman discovers another monolith orbiting Jupiter from which he is transported via a series of surreal cinematographic sequences to a heightened state of rebirth that grants him an all-seeing eye of wisdom over all of humanity.

The monoliths are symbolic representations of some primary motivation that is instrumental in the evolution of the mind. The film’s conclusion suggests that our consciousness has at least one further evolutionary step to make.

Hierarchical Systems Theory (HST) provides an explanation as to what was the primary motivation that led to the evolution of the unique characteristics of human consciousness from its hominid ancestors. Furthermore, HST provides insight as to what the next evolutionary step of humankind will be.

Since the 1960s there have been an increasing number of philosophical contributions that attempt to clarify or explain consciousness. It is evident that part of the difficulty in providing an explanation has been that the phenomenon of our individual experience, which is what we associate with consciousness, evades objective analysis and definition. Consciousness can not be put under the microscope and observed and measured like other entities in physics. In acknowledgement of this, David Chalmers wrote in 1995 that there is a uniquely ‘hard problem’ in deciphering consciousness because any theory must adequately explain the specific characteristics and the textural qualities of personal experiences (phenomenal experience), which include for example, what it is to feel when smelling a rose, or the subjective quality that we feel when experiencing the vivid colours of a sunrise.

Since the 1990s philosophy has advanced in the field of consciousness by trying to identify what is wanted from an explanation of consciousness. What is required of a satisfactory explanation of consciousness and what would it explain exactly?

In the more technical version of this paper, I focus on these philosophical criteria because they provide the single most advanced objective measure of all theories of consciousness.

Examples of objective criteria are those provided by Peter Carruthers who, in 2000, argued that a successful explanation of phenomenal consciousness should (1) explain how phenomenally conscious states have a subjective dimension; how they have feel; why there is something which it is like to undergo them; (2) why the properties involved in phenomenal consciousness should seem to their subjects to be intrinsic and non-relationally individuated; (3) why the properties distinctive of phenomenal consciousness can seem to their subjects to be ineffable or indescribable; (4) why those properties can seem in some way private to their possessors; and (5) how it can seem to subjects that we have infallible (as opposed to merely privileged) knowledge of phenomenally conscious properties.

Further examples of objective criteria are provided by David Chalmers in 1995 with his double aspect theory of information principle, the principle of organizational invariance, and the principle of structural coherence. These criteria and other philosophical hypotheses are dealt with in detail in the technical version of this paper. I argue that Hierarchical Systems Theory satisfies all these criteria and hypotheses.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics has also been applied in an attempt to find a unifying principle that explains the evolution of complexity in organic life forms. However, I argue that understanding complex systems requires understanding the function of systems structures, which is not possible through the application of thermodynamic laws alone.

The effect of light striking the eye’s retina differs from when it strikes any other surface. Instead of the light energy just interacting with the surface through absorption and reflection, the retina translates the light impulse into a neural format where it is held in stasis awaiting expression. The organizational structure of the brain dictates the nature and the timing of this expression. Its neural representation of the light, for example, may form part of a dynamic web of neural associations or it may resolve into a motor response. Whichever form the expression takes, the neural structure is responsible for the ordered maintenance of the neural representation of the light. Following conversion into its neural format, the neural representation travels throughout the brain and is fed, filtered, and expressed. The brain is a high level example of an evolved structure that dissipates various forms of energy in an ordered manner.

In order to understand how the brain complies with thermodynamic laws during the dissipation of energy, it is necessary to explore the dynamics of the systems hierarchy that produces stabilizing structures. Such an understanding explains how this hierarchy leads to the evolution of humans with consciousness.

A system is a structure that is composed of interacting parts whose dynamic relationships with one another maintain stable and coherently functional behaviours: Any given system exists by virtue of its component dynamic stability because without stability the interacting parts cease to maintain their coherent systems functions and become separate entities. One can say that a system requires dynamic stability to define its existence.

Hierarchical Systems Theory states that under certain conditions, a system may comprise of hierarchically dependent parts that have an identifiable relational status. It is not simply that the parts are interacting with one another, but that the parts are interdependent due to some formulaic relationship. Under such conditions the nature of the relationship of the interdependent parts is specific to the systems structure and function. A hierarchical system describes sequential and evolving systems structures rather than merely reacting systems structures.

A system’s stability is transitory. Environmental interaction demands a systems response. Specifically, systems behaviours arise from dynamic reactive structural re-evaluations to environmental interaction. These behaviours are indicative of the displacement or conversion of energy from one state to another. When a system reacts to the environment, it reacquires stability in one of two ways:

Any systems dynamic arising from both ordered and disordered interactions has the capacity to evolve a unique and formal relational systems hierarchy. Such a relationship forms its Hierarchical Systems Dynamic:

Take a scenario where, for example, the structure of a system (S) reacts to type-A interactions in an ordered manner and type-B interactions in a disordered manner. Under these conditions, the structure of system S dictates the nature of reactions for type-A but not type-B interactions. However, if system S’s reaction to a type-A interaction were to lead, coincidentally, to the modification of its structure such that it could react to type-B interactions in an ordered manner too, it would have acquired a new capability. This capability would be self-perpetuating because it would enable system S’s structure to stabilize interactive behaviours with both type-A and B interactions. The structural reaction would inevitably be positively selective.

The systems dynamic arising from both ordered and disordered interactions has the capacity to lead to an evolving physiological hierarchy, which one can categorize. This hierarchy demonstrates the inevitability of the evolution of consciousness.

Earlier, I stated that philosophical criteria provide the single most advanced objective measure of all theories of consciousness. Aside of these requirements, another measure of a theory’s validity is its capacity to explain complexity through the application of its unifying principle. I hope that the following demonstrates that the principle of Hierarchical Systems Theory has the capability of providing answers to some of humanities most puzzling questions.

A compound atomic structure, for example, will interact with its environment. Interaction is the means through which (per), an atomic system embraces (capere, to seize) experience and then reacts. Applying this terminology strictly, one can state that when a system such as this experiences and reacts, it is being per-ceptive of its environment. Unconventionally, this suggests that the sensation of perception applies equally to inanimate matter as to those experiences gathered by the specialized sensory organs of living organisms. However, one can qualify the use of this terminology further by recognizing that when a perceptive system interacts, the system can achieve stability in one of two ways.

Disordered re-evaluation occurs when, in our example, a compound atomic structure does not dictate the reactive processes that lead to alterations of its chemical composition. Atomic systems such as this are passively involved in the evolution of their chemical complexity. As such, over time, compound atomic structures do evolve, but in a way that is not determined by the very structure of the compounds themselves.

For ordered re-evaluation to occur, an atomic compound must be able to actively dictate the reactive processes that lead to the evolution of its chemical complexity. The only recognizable systems structure that is able to demonstrate this specific behavioural characteristic is an atomic compound that can duplicate; of which deoxyribonucleic acid is one very successful example:

A duplicating system encapsulates its perceptions actively by enabling the progressive evolution of its particular structure. Environmental interactions do not just happen and then end, but have an impact on a duplicating systems structure that transcends the structure’s lifespan through its successive generations. A duplicating system is adaptive, whilst other types of systems are merely reactive. The structure of an individual duplicating system represents a snapshot in time of an evolving system whose purpose is to acquire and maintain a uniform reactive adaptation. Consequently, for each new generation, the interaction of duplicating systems leads to structural mutations, which represent new uniform adaptations over time.

The oldest duplicating system found on earth is a 3.5 billion year old fossilized bacterium. Following the first evolutionary explosion of the Big Bang, but ignoring the evolutionary effects of early phase transitions that defined the nature of matter and space, the capacity to duplicate marks the start of a second ‘Big Bang’. This explosion began with the unintentional evolution of systems whose structures duplicate. These structures are the cornerstone of life.

A category 1 duplicating system that perceives actively is striving for a stable structural adaptation. This leads to increasingly complex life forms due to the incidental mutation of duplicating structures over generations and to the naturally selective effect of the environment.

One can also view organic complexity as a structural indication of the degree of understanding that a system has of its environment. For example, the complex nature of creating sugars from light, water, and carbon dioxide indicate that the evolved biochemical structures of plants possess understanding of the environment. The philosopher Daniel Dennett also argues that adaptation is a form of knowledge, suggesting that any functioning structure carries implicit information about the environment in which the function operates. Consequently, it is logical to conclude that it is with (con) its biochemical structure that a biological system possesses knowledge (scire, to know) and is conscious.

Knowledge and consciousness are more readily associated with thinking processes derived from neural activity. However, any structured biochemical process can encode knowledge. Specifically, by applying the terminology of consciousness in the manner proposed here, an organism is conscious if its system’s structure displays knowledge of its perceived environment. This distinguishes a conscious organism from other systems that merely react, and also from manmade allopoietic structures (eg. a thermostat), because only conscious organisms display knowledge that is intrinsic to the environmentally adapted physiology of that system's structure, as opposed to an artificially organized composite. A thermostat is no more a systems structure than, for example, a person and the house in which they live. Both house and person are organized structures. Both display, for example, knowledge of the forces of gravity, but one is an evolved systems structure, and the other, an artificially stable environment structure. When the person is in the house, that individual’s environmental parameters are controlled and restricted, but the two combined do not constitute a functioning single systems structure.

This definition of consciousness provides a preliminary account of the relationship between information growth and consciousness, demonstrating compliance with the first part of David Chalmers’ double aspect theory of information principle, which is that information is fundamental to consciousness. The following sections demonstrate compliance with the second part of Chalmers’ criterion A, which is that information corresponds to physical and to phenomenal features that are isomorphic:

Duplication ensures that a structure’s physiological adaptation continues from one generation to the next. However, it is not the duplicating structure, but environmental selection that determines the nature of the knowledge that a structure’s physiology acquires as each generation evolves. Consequently, a duplicating organic structure does not dictate the means by which it acquires complex environmental knowledge. Its passively adapted behaviour and physiology can be only innate and its application of knowledge, hereditary. In this way, the evolution of knowledge is incidental and relatively slow as each generation adapts at the whim of the environment’s response to genetic mutations.

There is an active state however, whereby a complex organism that has evolved unintentionally in response to the survival advantages afforded by its structural adaptations, can actively influence the acquisition of its knowledge through the immediate and direct evaluation of environmental conditions. Such capability enables it to adapt behaviourally in view of its understandings of the environment, rather than rely on innate responses and evolving physiological adaptations. Of the many types of evolved biochemical mechanisms, only the specialized transmitters of the neural networks and sensory organs of animals have maximized this capability. A neural network enables animals to be actively conscious of perception by enabling them to cultivate their behavioural response to environmental conditions in an ordered manner, thereby providing a distinctive survival advantage.

The significant difference between the knowledge that neural networks acquire over other forms of physiologically structured knowledge, is that neural understandings can evolve spontaneously in response to localized experiences. This facilitates evolving understandings that result in real-time behavioural adaptation. The neural interactions that create these behaviours are themselves, a functioning dynamic interdependent system. Essentially, like all systems, the neural process describes a continuous re-stabilizing dynamic in response to the conflicting information of differing stimuli and/or neural processing. This re-stabilizing neural description is a translation of the effect of the internal and external causal environments. One can loosely attribute the evocation of feeling to this neural description. Feeling, in this context, is not that which one might associate with human concepts of ‘what it is to have feelings’. Feeling here refers to the effect arising from re-stabilizing neural processes. Feeling becomes enriched following this causal process only by experiential association, which in turn, results in learning if the organism is able to make an evaluative association between the experience phenomenon and its feeling processes. This non-conceptual association distinguishes innate neural responses to stimuli, from the phenomenon of feelings that an animal associates with experience. Behavioural adaptation and the communication of emotional attitudes are characteristics that are indicative of an evolving complex interdependent system of experience phenomena and prioritized evaluative processes. These processes demonstrate how information or knowledge can correspond to physical and to phenomenal features that are isomorphic, as required of the second part of Chalmers criterion A.

Thinking, learning, and being knowledgeable of experience do not give an animal a mind’s eye view, inner wisdom, or self-knowing concept. Learning and feeling are simply by-products of category 2 consciousness processes. Consider the nature of communication in an animal that is only actively conscious of experience. In this state, an animal can express itself only by communicating its innate reactions to stimuli and its learnt associations of its feelings regarding the phenomena of its experiences. The relationship between feelings and learnt associations can evolve a complex communications structure or set of distinct individual and social emotional attitudes. Nevertheless, for a category 2 animal, there remain no defined realizations as to the significance of any given feeling regarding its emotional expression or interpretation or any insight regarding the relationship between an emotional expression and learnt associations. Consequently, this phenomenal state of being actively conscious of perception does not embody the notion of what it is to be a human. It is well documented, that the ability of humans to introspect complicates the status of their interpretations of feeling and emotion.

Chalmers’ principle of organizational invariance states that any two systems with the same functional organization will have qualitatively identical experiences. Stephen Wolfram suggests that from the application of cellular automata, one might hope to abstract some general laws that could extend the laws of thermodynamics to encompass complex and self-organizing systems. In principle, we are both in agreement that a hierarchically based systems-model would, theoretically, create a self-perpetuating artificial conscious state whose functional organization would generate structures with qualitatively identical experiences to animals. Nevertheless, in order to prove compliance with Chalmers’ principle of organizational invariance, applications that reflect the hierarchical relationship expounded by these principles is necessary.

The impact of active consciousness on cognitive development, rates of cerebral expansion, and on physiological variation is considerable because it alters adaptive behavioural parameters that influence survival capabilities. Consequently, the emergence of animals that were actively conscious of perception marks the beginning of a third evolutionary explosion. This explosion began when multi-cellular organisms first developed the capability of experiential evaluation in wormlike animals of the phylum Annelida, less than 700 million years ago. Initially, a basic form of chemical memory and evaluation fuelled a physiological explosion that followed from the specialization of neural network mechanisms.

A category 2 animal that is actively conscious has a neural mechanism that enables it to modify its behaviour in an ordered manner through learning. The purpose of this mechanism is to maintain stable behavioural understandings whose by-product leads to evaluations and associations that give rise to the phenomena of an individual’s experiences.

Additionally, there is a survival driven potential for cognitive function to evolve degrees of sophistication that can enable neural mechanisms to compare and prioritize understandings of the relationship between the phenomenon of experience and learning. If these understandings are disordered, a fleeting conceptual realization acquiesces to the experiential events that produced it. However, if the understandings are ordered, the cognitive processes actively establish and structure the realization of phenomenal experience. This instigates an evolving process that effectively generates a developing concept of the phenomenon of reality. Importantly, as an individual’s existence is part of reality, this perspective demands an emerging identification and concept of self. This concept leads to the active development of an awareness of the conscious state. For an individual to be aware of the conscious state, is to be aware not of the processes, but of the phenomenon of its environmental experience.

One of the consequences of a developing awareness of consciousness is the recognition of learning method, which is subject to ordered and creative manipulation. However, experiential, mental, and cerebral capacities limit an individual’s conceptual capability, thereby confining the boundaries of its creativity. Another characteristic of the awareness of the conscious state is that it generates a perspective that has no means of accessing the category 1 processes, which organize the structure of its complex biological mechanisms; and the category 2 cognitive processes, which generate its sensations and feelings. This does little to deter an individual from trying to conceptualize the phenomenon of its experiences, which include its bodily function, sensation, emotion, and consciousness itself. Consequently, an individual might come to define sensations as ‘introspectively accessible phenomenal experiences that are irreducible’, thereby giving no clue as to what sensations actually feel like. Inevitably, despite the familiarity of phenomenal experience and consciousness, their conceptual identification remains elusive despite the many challenging thought experiments devised by philosophers like Thomas Nagel and Frank Jackson.

However, the simple extrapolation of a unified systems dynamic illustrates a hierarchy that evolves structures that duplicate, process environmental information, generate phenomenal experience, and ultimately possess awareness of phenomenal experience. This Hierarchical Systems Theory provides a structural link between that of which we are aware and that of which we experience, as of Chalmers’ criterion C, and shows a hierarchical structure that requires that the information status of phenomenal experience arises from physical information processes, as of criterion A.

Being actively aware of the conscious state has a profound effect on communication. Whilst the communication of emotional attitudes in category 2 conscious animals can involve complex sounds and gestures, the communication of conceptual reality in category 3 humans is an entirely different proposition. The construction of a conceptual realization is what compels individual humans to formulate any suitable grammatical framework that can effectively communicate conceptualized reality. Consequently, an individual’s language develops in response to its maturing concepts and a society’s language evolves in response to its grammatical and descriptive suitability.

Another intrinsic characteristic of individual’s that are actively aware of consciousness is that an individual’s self is defined by the stability of its concept of reality. Contemplation and discussion challenge this stability. Consequently, individuals protect their opinions aggressively, and individuals in social groups take it upon themselves to protect the group’s appraised opinions that encapsulate their own, thereby generating individual and societal physical, mental, and cultural creativity and bias. Prejudice and creativity are symptomatic of the defensive reinterpretation of conceptual realizations, thereby determining the degrees of individual and social intolerance and creativity unique to human societies.

Less than ten million years ago, the fourth evolutionary explosion began. The primate brain may have initially increased in size gradually because of the adaptive consequence of evolution and survival. However, this incidental adaptation resulted in the emergence of category 3. The benefits of conceptualizing reality had a dramatic affect on cerebral expansion, physiological development, social dynamics, and the survival ethic of the primate family. The development of humankind and its unique identifying characteristics are the conclusion to the fourth evolutionary explosion where conceptual rather than biological evolution has taken precedence.

The development of philosophical criteria is helpful in assessing the scope and validity of applying systems dynamics to the evolution of the characteristics of consciousness. What then, might philosophers have to say regarding the inevitable monolithic evolutionary phase that will instigate the fifth evolutionary category 4 explosion? Can we do better than Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark’s closing surreal cinematographic chapter from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’? What will category 4’s defining ordered characteristics be – characteristics that are present now in humans, but are disordered and possibly ill-defined? Could this next evolution of the mind result in an understanding of what consciousness is qualitatively if it is more that our personal known association with phenomenal experience? [More to follow....]