AWARENESS (Levels of)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 227 ▶ |
| Object type | Discipline oriented, General information |
Levels of awareness seem to be depending on the growing levels of complexity of the nervous system and the brain all along the evolutive lines of animal species
It has much to do with the activity chain that starts with perception , follows with perception interpreted as a signal , and ends with some behavior triggered by the signal
The following levels of awareness should be tentatively considered:
- perception (in all cases the basic condition for any awareness)
- inner interpretation of perception as a “signal ”(this already supposes a previous training
The capacity of interpretation broadens, widens and deepens until it reaches the aptitude for finer and finer distinctions in categorization and, finally, more and more capacity for complex abstraction and self reflecting representation .
- enhanced individual awareness obtained through reciprocal signaling within social frames . Such frames also become ever more complex from social amoeba to human societies
- the possibly questionable level of collective awareness in societies and cultures
Archaic forms of such collective awareness can be observed in beehives, termites mounds and ants nests.