Towards a History of Consciousness:
Space, Time, and Death

By Vwadek P. Marciniak

Table of Contents  | Preface  |  Introduction  |  Conclusion  | Buy It Now

Conclusion

Chemically speaking, fear is close to curiosity-hence many so-called terrors have an eerie attraction.

That death is an absolute certainty is ironically its own certainty. From death, certainty, to language and faith, and finally the soul and conscience, we have traveled an extremely long road that leads to the first plateau of our interior existence. It is from here that we gained a secular space and time since the sword of salvation proved and inadequate answer to fundamental questions regarding our ontology. With the failure of a certainty of an after-life, conscience was replaced by consciousness as the soul metamorphosed into a primitive self (psyche) where salvation eventually became the act and art of an authentic life.
It has been said that historians are detectives, not unlike research scientists, although in a different manner. Where there is such a search there are always some discoveries and some failures. To compound this difficulty, the writing of history is an art which only makes it that much more problematic. Thus the topic studied here is one of discovery and hypothesis from the best that data can offer, while disengagement, as Bacon suggested, is of primary concern. The implications of this study have grown out of sources and suggestions and are only meant as a guide for further study. Given these circumstances, therefore, this has proven to be a work not with a fixed conclusion since much of any conclusion has simply offered more questions. The German term nachwort would be somewhat more appropriate since this is really a matter of an afterthought for those so inclined to continue an historic analysis of our evolution into conscious beings. Fear, so central to that certainty we live with, is a natural force in our mental and emotional makeup, thus offering Nietzsche an opportunity again to note his famed analysis that we are all born in fear and laziness. This human condition must eventually be itself considered as part of the panorama and component in any significant transformation of our psyche. Not being static beings implies far more than this work is prepared to venture into. And that we are never finished until after it matters only adds to the difficulties for our understanding. This is not to imply that it follows necessarily that there is any one cause for the existence of consciousness assuming that there is any cause at all other than the historic circumstances. Context, our history, is the necessary ingredient for expanding any critical examination of a conscious self in its development, expansion and confusion. And even this is but a beginning, for the difficulties as has been noted by some are insurmountable although this writer is not prepared to discontinue the search.
As for dating there is no doubt that the earliest date for consciousness would have to be the seventeenth century although that it was then more an introduction than a satisfactory explication. Consciousness like self and individuality are very modern conditions that have only appeared more recently. Ego was early and now can be perceived as a potential hindrance to becoming a self and if I were to offer some metaphoric expression for that meaning it would be as follows: We can think of a teeter totter of individuality where we place the ego on one side and the self on the other. For most people it is the ego side, our youthful emotions and mentality, that dominates while for some it can be that the teeter-totter moves back and forth with one side at any given moment dominating more than the other. The self begins to come to the fore occasionally and for some, those going beyond their ego, even a great deal. It is here, not in the ego, but in the self that consciousness becomes activated. One could imagine that where that side of the teeter totter where the self takes hold is where consciousness grows and the whole process becomes simply irrelevant, much like certainty and death. Here is where curiosity takes hold and the creative side of our being comes to dominate.
The introduction offered several questions which appeared given the nature of the work and would are an appropriate way to close this study, especially as most have one way or the other already been at least implied. The questions here suggested are meant to encourage further thought and perhaps eventually additional studies that could offer further clarification:
1. What is the difference between awareness and consciousness?

2. What is the difference between self and individuality?
3. What if anything is the difference between being a self-conscious reflective individual and a self-reflective conscious individual?
4. Is the creation of consciousness a matter of historical accident or by way of some natural order as in fulfilling both some purpose of order and or of structure?
5. Is the appearance, growth and maturation a result of an accident of nature that in the end creates a self-conscious reflective individual?
6. Does an ego need to exist within someone before that person can begin to develop into individuality, into a self capable of consciousness?
7. Is it an offense against structure to object to competitiveness that requires a matrix of construction prior to activity?
8. If consciousness is not necessary for our existence than why has it developed, and then so slowly, over millennium, and the appears only among a minority of people?
9. If there are relatively lower and higher stages of consciousness, then what is the mark for drawing such a distinction?
10. What is, if it is, the fundamental difference between consciousness as an interior experience devoid of objects and consciousness of objects?
11. Is consciousness an absolute or does it appear only in degrees from a very little consciousness to a very full consciousness?
12. Is consciousness singular or is there in fact a variety of differing types of consciousness?
13. What if anything is the correlation, similarity and differences, between having an ego and having a self?
14. Is mature self-consciousness an evolutionary development that grows out of our possessing an immature self-consciousness as a child or teen, one of awkwardness and discomfort; or are these two entirely different species?
15. If cognition and fear of death is part of a beginning of consciousness could a more mature developed consciousness mitigate this fear for those who face this situation?
16. Is the ego with which we are born with something that we hold onto when we first discover our mortality at approximately the age of 6 or 7 years (depending on the genetics of a particular person) and thus can be stuck for the rest of their lives with the 'camera on me' version of self-consciousness?
17. Is there a correlation between the maturation of consciousness in our day with that of the appearance of existential?
18. Is it possible to yet achieve a higher level of consciousness than already experienced?
19. Is possible that there is a poly-conscious state of mind that has been occasionally realized and which may appear even more in the future?

1. Paul Newsman, History of Terror. Fear and Dread Through the Ages, xiv.

2. This definition of an historian was offered by Dr. Maurice Crane who was a fellow faculty member in the Humanities program at Michigan State University.