On the Evolution of Consciousness

Consciousness is not a human monopoly but a reaction to the movement and change of matter. This is the eye of the entire book On the Evolution of Consciousness.

I. What is consciousness: a question pursued for two thousand years

What is consciousness? This is one of the most ancient, most central, and most intractable questions in the history of human thought.

Ancient Greek philosophers pursued the essence of the "soul," and Eastern sages explored the mystery of the "heart"; in the modern era, Descartes established the special status of the mind with "I think, therefore I am"; contemporary cognitive science and neuroscience try to find traces of consciousness in the neural activity of the brain. Yet more than two thousand years have passed, and we still have no universally accepted answer.

What is even more puzzling is that the question itself seems to keep changing shape: some say consciousness is a spiritual phenomenon unique to humans, some say animals also have consciousness, and some even think plants and atoms have some form of "consciousness." Opinions differ, and there is no agreement.

Where does this confusion come from? This book holds that it comes from our having always understood consciousness through an anthropocentric framework—taking "human consciousness" as the only form of consciousness, then measuring everything by that standard. The result is that either consciousness is confined to humans, making the evolutionary continuity of consciousness inexplicable; or consciousness is universalized to all things, and the concept loses its clarity.

This book attempts to propose a new path: to reduce consciousness from a "property of humans" to a "property of matter," and then, on this basis, to distinguish different levels of consciousness and give each form of consciousness its own proper place.

II. Core thesis: consciousness is the reaction of matter to movement and change

This definition looks simple, but behind it lies a complete chain of reasoning.

Step one: matter is in universal motion. From macroscopic celestial bodies to microscopic particles, everything is in motion; there is no absolutely static matter. Step two: motion is change. Celestial bodies moving in their orbits are changes of position; atoms gaining or losing electrons are changes of state; molecules combining and decomposing are changes of structure. Step three: change necessarily produces reaction. When A changes, this change affects B around it; when B changes, it in turn affects A. This mutual influence caused by change is reaction. Step four: this reaction is consciousness.

According to this definition, consciousness is not a miracle that suddenly appeared in humans but a property that has existed since the dawn of the universe. Wherever there is motion, there is change; wherever there is change, there is reaction; wherever there is reaction, there is consciousness.

What can this definition explain?

First, it explains the universality of consciousness. Do stones have consciousness? Yes. When wind blows over a stone, its temperature and humidity change, and these changes in turn affect its surroundings—this is a primitive form of consciousness of matter-in-itself. But a stone's consciousness differs from a human's—the difference lies not in having or not having consciousness, but in the simplicity or complexity of the form of reaction.

Second, it explains the difference of consciousness. The forms of consciousness upgrade with the organizational level of matter. A stone's reaction is passive, simple, and direct; a plant's reaction is active, complex, and indirect; an animal's reaction is sentient, memorial, and emotional; a human's reaction is symbolic, reflective, and creative.

Third, it explains the evolutionary continuity of consciousness. From atom to molecule, from molecule to cell, from cell to life, from life to nerves, from nerves to symbols—the evolution of consciousness is a continuous process. Each level builds upon the previous level: this is continuity. But each level also emerges with new properties absent in the previous level that cannot be reduced to it: this is discontinuity. The unity of continuity and discontinuity is precisely the essence of evolution.

III. Core framework: five levels, one thread running through all

The forms of consciousness upgrade with the organizational level of matter. From atoms to humans, consciousness has passed through five levels, each rising step by step, each with its own proper place.

Level one: consciousness of matter-in-itself—all things in the universe

Consciousness of matter-in-itself is the consciousness proper to all material systems in the universe. It is the substrate of consciousness, the "meta-consciousness" pervading all things. Its essence is: the inherent tendency of a material system to maintain its own existence and move toward stability.

This is not "wanting" to maintain, not "desiring" to maintain; it is a pre-conscious, spontaneous tendency—as natural as water flowing downhill, as inevitable as a magnet attracting iron.

At the microscopic level, an atom, acted upon by internal and external energy, seeks stability by gaining or losing electrons. Gaining an electron is a state of "obtaining," losing an electron is a state of "losing," and reaching energy balance is a state of "stability." This tendency of the system to maintain itself is the earliest form of consciousness of matter-in-itself. At the macroscopic level, celestial systems also seek balance in motion—the Earth revolves around the Sun, the Moon around the Earth, achieving dynamic balance between gravity and centrifugal force; this too is a manifestation of consciousness of matter-in-itself.

Consciousness of matter-in-itself has no "feeling" and no "purpose." When an atom gains or loses electrons, it does not "feel" pain or pleasure; a stone does not "want" to remain whole. It simply moves according to physical laws—a tendency in the systemic sense, not a purpose in the psychological sense. But it is the foundation of all higher levels of consciousness; without consciousness of matter-in-itself, nothing that follows would exist.

Level two: innate consciousness—living organisms

When matter is organized into life, a new form of consciousness is born. The greatness of this leap lies in this: for the first time, life has the distinction between the "internal state" and the "external world," and for the first time has an internal drive "to maintain its own existence." A cell will "strive" to remain whole—actively taking in nutrients, expelling waste, repairing damage. This "striving" is the embryo of all human nature.

Innate consciousness is the "instructive reaction" inscribed in the genes of living organisms that maintains the stability of the life system. It is written into the genes, present from the moment life begins; it requires no learning, no experience.

The phototropism of plants: place a potted plant by a window and it grows toward the sunlight. This is not that it "wants" to bask in the sun, but an instruction written in the genes: light → energy → growth → toward light. The recognition and attack of the immune system: when a virus invades the body, the immune system recognizes the "non-self" and launches an attack—no thinking required; it is a process preset in the genes. The sucking reflex of infants: newborns suck at birth without learning; this is the most intuitive manifestation of innate consciousness.

Innate consciousness is directional—always pointing toward what maintains life: toward light, toward water, seeking benefit, avoiding harm, all pointing at the same goal. Innate consciousness requires no learning—born with it, no accumulation of experience needed. Innate consciousness executes automatically—no thinking, no choosing, no hesitation; once conditions are met, the program starts automatically. It is still "reaction," not "reflection": innate consciousness is a direct reaction to stimulus, forming no "mirror image," producing no "memory."

Level three: bodily-sensation consciousness—animals with nervous systems

When life evolved a nervous system, consciousness entered a brand-new era. The greatness of this leap lies in this: for the first time, life has "sensation." It is no longer merely passive reaction, no longer merely automatic execution, but genuine feeling—pain, itch, cold, heat, hunger, fullness.

Bodily-sensation consciousness is the direct reaction of the nervous system to stimulus. It is the origin of "sensation," the birthplace of "bitterness" and "pleasure." A hand touches fire and withdraws instantly—you need not think; the body directly tells you "this is bitterness, get away." After a day of hunger you finally eat—that satisfaction is the body directly telling you "this is pleasure, keep doing it."

Bodily-sensation consciousness has three basic states. Bitterness—the signal of energy depletion, an alarm: something is wrong, stop at once. Pleasure—the signal of energy increase, a reward: this is good, keep going. Non-sensation—the state of energy balance, the "home" of the body, the place bitterness and pleasure are meant to return to.

These three states are the foundation of all higher consciousness. Without the bitterness and pleasure of bodily sensation, there would be no good and evil of emotion; without the non-sensation of bodily sensation, there would be no privacy of spirit. The most fundamental function of bodily-sensation consciousness is maintaining the stability of the life system: distinguishing "beneficial" from "harmful." Bitterness tells you the system is out of balance, pleasure tells you it is recovering, non-sensation tells you it is balanced and can rest and recover.

Level four: emotional consciousness—animals with brains and memory

When animals evolved brains capable of storing and simulating experience, consciousness entered the era of emotion. The greatness of this leap lies in this: for the first time, life has "felt memories." No longer just the bitterness and pleasure of the present, but also the recollection of past bitterness and pleasure and the imagination of future bitterness and pleasure.

Emotional consciousness is the reaction produced by thinking's "re-projection" of bodily-sensation experience. This definition contains four key elements: first, it is built on the foundation of bodily-sensation experience—without the bitterness and pleasure of bodily sensation, there would be no good and evil of emotion. Second, it requires the storage of memory—bodily-sensation experience must be recorded and preserved by the nervous system before it can be re-activated later. Third, it involves thinking's mechanism of "re-projection"—when relevant stimuli appear, the brain "replays" past bodily-sensation experience, re-seeing, re-hearing, re-tasting, and re-feeling it in the mind. Fourth, it must still trigger reactions in the life system—though the stimulus is virtual, the reaction is real: heart racing, muscles tensing, palms sweating.

The birth of emotional consciousness means the birth of good and evil. Good is the spiritualization of pleasure. When you are helped, your body feels pleasure; this pleasure is remembered by the spirit; the next time you see the person who helped you, before even being helped again, you already feel warmth. Evil is the spiritualization of bitterness. When you are harmed, your body feels bitterness; this bitterness is remembered by the spirit; the next time you see the person who harmed you, before even being harmed again, you already feel fear. Good and evil are not moral concepts that came from nowhere; they are rooted in the bitterness and pleasure of the body, the extension of bitterness and pleasure at the spiritual level.

Emotional consciousness also has an important dimension: toward whom does it point? Pointing toward oneself—that is the private. Private good is the emotion and behavior that are good for oneself; private evil is the emotion and behavior that are bad for oneself. Pointing toward others—that is the public. Public good is the emotion and behavior that are good for others; public evil is the emotion and behavior that are bad for others. These four quadrants—private good, private evil, public good, public evil—are the underlying code of all interpersonal relationships.

Level five: rational consciousness—humans with symbolic thinking

When humans invented written language, consciousness entered the era of symbols. The greatness of this leap lies in this: for the first time, consciousness can "reflect" itself. We not only have sensation, not only emotion, but can also think—thinking about sensation, thinking about emotion, thinking about thinking itself.

Rational consciousness is the reaction produced by the brain's information-processing system when humans use symbolic thinking to cognize and judge things (including bitterness, pleasure, good, evil, emotional consciousness, and even reason itself).

Rational consciousness contains two links. Cognition is the awareness and discrimination of things. When you first see the character "mountain," you need to cognize it—know that it is read "shān," know that it represents tall terrain. Judgment is making value judgments or decisions about things on the basis of cognition. Having cognized "mountain," you can judge whether it is high or low, beautiful or ugly, worth climbing or not. Cognition is the foundation of judgment; judgment is the purpose of cognition.

The subject of rational consciousness is the "brain's information-processing system," not the "life system." The reactions produced by the life system are bodily-sensation consciousness (bitterness and pleasure) and emotional consciousness (good and evil); the reactions produced by the brain's information-processing system are rational consciousness (cognition and judgment). Rational consciousness produces a "cognitive result" or "judgment conclusion," which can be stored (becoming memory and knowledge), transmitted (through language and writing), and can trigger reactions in the life system—only this portion returns to the levels of bodily sensation and emotion. But this "triggering" happens after rational consciousness; it is not rational consciousness itself.

The thread running through the five levels

These five levels are not separated but rise step by step, linked ring by ring. Rational consciousness is built on emotional consciousness—without emotion, reason loses the object it serves; emotional consciousness is built on bodily-sensation consciousness—without the bitterness and pleasure of bodily sensation, there would be no good and evil of emotion; bodily-sensation consciousness is built on innate consciousness—without the instinct of life to maintain itself, the nervous system would not have evolved; innate consciousness is built on consciousness of matter-in-itself—without matter's tendency to maintain itself, life could not have arisen. Reaction runs through the universe; each form has its own place.

IV. The core distinction: thinking is reflection; consciousness is reaction

"I remember him, and my heart aches." We may say and understand this sentence every day. But if we stop and probe one step further, we will find a profound question: are "remembering him" and "my heart aching" the same thing?

"Remembering him" is your thinking—his face, his voice, his words emerge in your brain. "My heart aching" is your feeling—the heart tightens, breath grows difficult, mood sinks. One is thinking, the other is feeling. The two often occur together, but they are not the same thing. This everyday sentence conceals the fundamental distinction between thinking and consciousness.

Thinking is the brain's reflection of the state of things. The key word in this definition is "reflection." Reflection is a mirror image, a casting of light, a faithful presentation. Like a mirror: you stand before it, and it shows your likeness—it does not beautify you, nor uglify you. Thinking is the same: when you see a tree, thinking "reflects" the tree—its shape, color, size, position; this process carries no liking or disliking, no pleasure or pain; it is mere presentation. Thinking is objective and can detach from the present: you need not see the tree with your own eyes to think about it; you can recall yesterday's tree, imagine tomorrow's tree, or think about the concept "tree" itself.

Consciousness is the life system's reaction to stimulus. The key word in this definition is "reaction." Reaction is an echo, a feeling, a value judgment. Again with the mirror metaphor: thinking is the mirror, showing the appearance of the world; consciousness is the person in the mirror, the feelings produced upon seeing one's own likeness—joy, sorrow, liking, disliking. Consciousness is subjective: the same thing, different reactions from different people. Consciousness is intimately bound to the life system: hunger is uncomfortable, fullness is comfortable, pain is uncomfortable, relief is comfortable—all of these are the life system reacting. Consciousness cannot exist apart from life, just as sound cannot exist apart from air.

The entanglement of thinking and consciousness. But they do not exist in isolation; they are entangled and interacting at every moment. Thinking can be pulled along by consciousness: your thinking does not always remain "objective and calm"; it is often pulled along by consciousness—when you are pulled by goodness, you keep thinking about what makes you happy; when you are pulled by evil, you keep thinking about what makes you suffer. Consciousness can be reflected by thinking: when you feel anger, you can "observe" your anger—what does it feel like? Where does it come from? What does it want? This is thinking reflecting consciousness. Thinking and consciousness are like two interwoven rivers, mutually influencing and mutually shaping, together constituting what we call "spirit."

V. The core discovery: the awakening of the Mind's Controller

But there is a third possibility—a special exceptional state. In this state, you can see both thinking and consciousness without being swept along by either. We call this state the awakening of the Mind's Controller.

The Mind's Controller is not another consciousness, nor another kind of thinking. It is the thing that can see thinking and consciousness. Imagine watching a movie: the film has images (thinking), music (consciousness), and plot (the interweaving of thinking and consciousness). But you are not the film; you are the one watching it. You can see the images, hear the music, feel the plot—and you know: you are not them. The Mind's Controller is this "one watching the movie."

The mark of the awakening of the Mind's Controller is: able to reflect, able to react, but not devoured by reaction. When you are pulled by goodness, you can see yourself being pulled by goodness—you know "I am now full of goodwill," but you do not equal this goodwill; when you are pulled by evil, you can see yourself being pulled by evil—you know "I am now full of anger," but you do not equal this anger; when you are trapped by fixed thinking, you can see yourself trapped by fixed thinking—you know "I habitually think this way," but you do not equal this habit.

Why is this state so important? Because it is the beginning of freedom. When your thinking is pulled along by consciousness, you are passive—the direction of thinking is decided by emotion; thinking is not free but a slave to emotion. When your consciousness is reflected by thinking, you are still "stuck in" your own spiritual world—you observe your emotions, but you are still "the person with emotions"; observation brings no transcendence. Only when the Mind's Controller awakens do you truly step out of the spiritual world. You are not your emotions, you are not your thoughts, you are not your desires. You are the thing that can see all of this. You are no longer a slave of the spirit but its master.

The awakening of the Mind's Controller does not happen automatically; it requires two conditions: first, the clarity of privacy. Privacy is the calm state of the spirit. When your spirit is occupied by emotions, you cannot see the emotions; when your thinking is pulled along by desires, you cannot see the thinking. Only when you return to privacy and the spirit calms down can that "observer" emerge. Second, the maturity of reason. Reason lets you "analyze" your own spiritual activity. Without reason, even if you "see," you cannot understand; even if you understand, you cannot adjust. Privacy provides the perspective of "observing"; reason provides the tool of "thinking." Only when the two combine is there true awakening.

VI. The core mechanism: the dynamics of spirit—pulling, transforming, awakening

We all have this experience: at different moments, we seem to become different people. Sometimes you are especially kind, sometimes especially selfish, sometimes especially calm. What is more remarkable, these "different yous" can appear in rotation within the same day, even within the same hour. Why is this? Are we not the same "I"?

The answer is: of course you are the same "I," but your spirit is dynamic; it is constantly pulled by different consciousnesses and constantly transforming between different states.

Pulling: thinking can be pulled along by different consciousnesses. Your thinking is often pulled along by consciousness—pulled by goodness, it forms a good-natured spirit; pulled by evil, a malignant spirit; pulled by privacy, a private spirit; pulled by reason, a rational spirit. Thinking is originally a neutral tool, but after being pulled by different consciousnesses, it takes on different colors and points in different directions. What kind of person you are depends on what consciousness pulls you along.

Transformation: explicit consciousness can transform into latent consciousness. For survival and development, humans need long-term study and work. In the early stage of learning, clear, active consciousness is indispensable, but it also consumes more mental energy. If people had to re-engage conscious attention for every familiar matter, no one could bear such a huge mental burden. Therefore, the brain evolved an energy-saving mechanism.

Explicit consciousness is the consciousness we are clearly aware of, that requires active attention and consumes mental energy, including emotional consciousness and rational consciousness. When you first learn to drive, every step requires thought—how to press the accelerator, how to use the brake, how to turn the wheel—all of this is explicit consciousness at work. Latent consciousness is the consciousness that has been fixed, automated, requires no active attention, and consumes no mental energy, including bodily-sensation consciousness and transformed emotional and rational consciousness. After you become an experienced driver, driving becomes a kind of "instinct"—you do not need to think about how to operate; the body does it automatically—this is latent consciousness at work.

The transformation of explicit consciousness into latent consciousness greatly reduces the brain's burden, freeing more mental capacity so humans can face and learn new things. But latent consciousness can also solidify into a person's fixed mode of thinking or behavior and may become an obstacle to one's own progress. After countless transformations from explicit to latent consciousness, people gradually form fixed modes of thinking or behavior, judging things effortlessly, making choices and reactions directly—because this is the easiest. But it is precisely this most effortless latent-consciousness behavior that obstructs one's own progress, making people obstinate and conservative.

Awakening: the awakening of the Mind's Controller. Beyond the norm of consciousness being pulled and thinking being fixed, there is a special exceptional state—the awakening of the Mind's Controller. In that state, you can see both thinking and consciousness without being swept along by either. You are not your emotions, you are not your thoughts, you are not your habits. You are the thing that can see all of this. You are no longer a slave of the spirit but its master.

VII. A dialogue with the academic tradition

What is distinctive about this book is that it does not work behind closed doors but engages in a deep dialogue with the entire history of thought and science.

A dialogue with the philosophical tradition. The dialogue with Aristotle lets us see the classical origin of the theory of levels of consciousness—his three-level theory of the soul is strikingly similar to this book's levels of consciousness. The dialogue with Descartes lets us clarify our monist position on mind and body—consciousness is a reaction to the movement and change of matter, not an entity independent of matter. The dialogue with Kant lets us deepen our understanding of reason and apperception—Kant's "transcendental apperception" resembles this book's "Mind's Controller," but this book stresses that the Mind's Controller is not transcendental but can "awaken" in experience. The dialogue with Hegel gives us a historical-evolutionary perspective—but this book's development is evolutionary, not dialectical; open, not closed. The dialogue with phenomenology lets us value the intentionality and embodiment of consciousness—Husserl's "phenomenological reduction" is methodologically similar to "the awakening of the Mind's Controller." The dialogue with Eastern philosophy lets us see the practical path of raising consciousness—the Yogācāra school of Buddhism's "transforming consciousness into wisdom" is highly consistent with "the awakening of the Mind's Controller," and Daoism's "emptiness and stillness" corresponds directly to "the clarity of privacy."

A dialogue with scientific research. The dialogue with cognitive science reveals this book's correspondence with dual-process theory and research on metacognition—Kahneman's System 1 corresponds to bodily-sensation consciousness plus emotional consciousness plus latent consciousness, and System 2 to rational consciousness plus explicit consciousness. The dialogue with neuroscience provides a rough neuroanatomical basis for the five levels—Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis, Craig's interoception research, and Eisenberger's social exclusion research all provide empirical support for this book. The dialogue with evolutionary biology reveals the evolutionary origin of consciousness. The dialogue with artificial intelligence research provides an analytical framework for the pressing question "can machines have consciousness"—under this book's definition, current AI has "intelligence" but no "consciousness."

A dialogue with social theory. The dialogue with Weber reveals the root, at the level of consciousness, of the tension between instrumental rationality and value rationality; the dialogue with Durkheim reveals the relationship between collective consciousness and individual consciousness and the conscious foundation of social integration; the dialogue with Foucault reveals how power operates by shaping consciousness; the dialogue with Bourdieu reveals how society is inscribed in the body and consciousness, forming unconscious habitus; the dialogue with Lacan reveals the entanglement of self and other and the alienation that social consciousness may bring. The common conclusion of these dialogues: consciousness is both a product of biological evolution and an object of social shaping. To understand consciousness is to understand the meeting point of the human being, society, and civilization.

VIII. The place of this book in the system of thought

On the Evolution of Consciousness is a core work in the "consciousness and spirit" direction of Hua Guoping's system of thought. It sets out from cosmic evolution and moves toward a complete picture of the human spiritual world. What it answers is not "how people can be happy" or "how society should be governed," but the more fundamental questions: what is consciousness? Where does it come from? How does it operate? Where is it going?

Its position, downward, is rooted in the substrate of the movement of cosmic matter; upward, it points toward the structure of human nature, the dynamics of spirit, and the future of civilization. It replaces no specific discipline but provides, for understanding human nature, spirit, society, and civilization, the most foundational framework of consciousness: from consciousness of matter-in-itself to rational consciousness, from the distinction between thinking and consciousness to the awakening of the Mind's Controller, from individual spiritual dynamics to the energy exchange of social consciousness.

Standing beside it is On Thinking: one answers "where consciousness comes from," the other answers "what thinking is and how to use it." Together the two books constitute a complete framework for understanding the human spiritual world.

IX. The ultimate answer of this book

The title On the Evolution of Consciousness—from atom to human, five levels, one continuous thread—sums up the core thesis of the whole book: consciousness is not the monopoly of humans but a property of the universe. From atom to human, from the inorganic to the organic, from the simple to the complex, the forms of consciousness keep upgrading, but its essence never changes—it is always the reaction of matter to movement and change.

This definition contains three key words. Matter—consciousness is not an entity independent of matter but a property of matter. Movement—consciousness originates in movement; without movement there is no change, without change no reaction, without reaction no consciousness. Reaction—consciousness is not "reflection" (like a mirror showing things) but "reaction" (like an echo resounding). Reflection is objective and calm; reaction is subjective and felt.

Five levels: consciousness of matter-in-itself—the reaction tendency present in all material systems; innate consciousness—the instructive reaction inscribed in the genes of living organisms; bodily-sensation consciousness—the nervous system's direct reaction to stimulus, with the three states of bitterness, pleasure, and non-sensation; emotional consciousness—the reaction produced by thinking's "re-projection" of bodily-sensation experience, with the dimensions of good, evil, and the private; rational consciousness—the reaction produced by the brain's information-processing system when humans use symbolic thinking to cognize and judge.

One core distinction: thinking is reflection; consciousness is reaction. Thinking is like a mirror, showing the appearance of the world; consciousness is like sound, echoing the feelings of life. The two are entangled and interactive, constituting the core structure of the spirit. One core discovery: the awakening of the Mind's Controller. In that state, you can see both thinking and consciousness without being swept along by either. You are no longer a slave of the spirit but its master.

The significance of this theory lies in this: it gives consciousness a place on the scale of the universe. Consciousness is not eternal, not accidental, not transcendent. It is only, in the process of the universe moving from imbalance toward balance, the reaction of matter to its own state. The human being is not the master of the universe but a form of life in the universe capable of reflecting upon itself. This is mysterious enough, and humble enough.