There is no conscience, they are at sleep

Life does not need consciousness. It does not need wakefulness. At the start, all beings were at sleep.

Achaea were single celled beings . Physical and chemical gradients between their cells and environment were enough to express full life behaviour. There was no conscience, they were at sleep.

Plants grew in all shapes and niches, feeling energy sources and transforming them en masse to expand. But with no processing center or network for sensory inputs, they simply grew following the environment. There was no conscience, they were at sleep.

Trilobites came with complex sensory systems like compound eyes. The cephalon appeared to process the information from antennae and eyes. With action-reaction feedback loops, the trilobite endured. But there was no conscience, they were at sleep.

First, reptiles, amphibians, birds, came as well and followed the way. More features to breathe, hunt, populate, minute continuous improvements paved way, wakefulness seemed to be coming any time. But there was no conscience, they were at sleep.

Mammals were next. Social dynamics make emotional intelligence parallel instinctual and logical, and an image of self was now necessary. And so it was invented, and put in the brain, and judgement started even if they weren’t aware. But there was no conscience, they were at sleep

Behold humankind! Self-reinforcing loops of knowledge accumulation transformed the landscape wherever it reached. Full brain developed with specialisations for every sense, logic, emotion, planning, intuition. This is it, consciousness? But 8 hours a day it must go away. And for the rest, look back again. We’ve gone a long track, is this the end? Or is it that we are not really awake? I then here adventure to say. There is no conscience, they are asleep.

(Exploring the idea from this blog’ first article, ended up elsewhere. Will come back to it another day.)