Posted by Tiggy on May 31, 2000 at 18:38:54:
In Reply to: "What is Consciousness?" posted by Eric (yet2b) on May 31, 2000 at 02:50:47:
Having to decide what or how to be. Unlike other animals, man has to very much decide what and how to be. This is because s/he comes into the world much less finished than other animals do and therefore has a lengthy period of childhood development. So the biological process of 'becoming man' occurs at a time when the infant human is in interaction with the environment, ensuring that man is very much in a dialectical role vis a vis nature and culture. This results in a lack of specialization in terms of instincutal drives, unlike other animals. Thus it is an open world ready to be fashioned by man's activity. Hence the freedom which man possesses for self-definition, in contrast to other species. Hence consciousness.