If Self-Awareness Is a Phase Change, There Was an Eve
Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny
According to Scott Alexander:
You could tell two stories about “first memories”:
Intelligence and memory gradually grow from infancy to adulthood, and eventually reach a point where people can form and preserve reflective memories. There logically has to be some first memory, so if you ask someone for their earliest memory, they can usually think of it.
There’s some moment when the developing brain suddenly shifts from a preconscious to a conscious mode of thought.
The second sounds crazy. But is it? The same thing happens all the time during lucid dreams. And if you think that eg cows aren’t conscious, and that a six-month-old is dumber than a cow, then babies must go from unconscious to conscious at some point1. Is consciousness really vague enough that you can do it entirely gradually, with no first moment of “huh, that’s funny”? And what about enlightened Buddhist monks? They claim that their consciousness switches from one mode to another at a specific moment that they vividly remember forever after (and which isn’t linked to any behavioral changes that casual observers can notice!)…
This is from Scott’s Moments of Awakening, which riffs off a viral tweet trolling about late bloomers:
A sizable minority of the comments report their first memory being an acknowledgement of self-reflective consciousness, and indeed short-form videos dramatizing the moment are popular on Tik Tok:
A lights-on moment makes sense. Self-reflective consciousness is a phase change in the structure of attention. The mind bends around to notice itself, and a mind that can almost do that feels very different than a mind that can. Naturally, I’m interested in what that could mean for the origins of human consciousness.
Imagine the deep past when humans were just evolving consciousness. The precursors to self-reflection may have accrued gradually over millions of years, but at some point reflective consciousness snapped into place for someone, somewhere. From that person’s perspective, that would have been more of a discovery than a natural state of development. This person may have lived a full life hunting, gathering, and gossiping before noticing they “choose” different courses of actions, and have all their life.
Now, as humans evolved from beasts there could have been many discrete cognitive milestones (many built on self-awareness), but pick a milestone you prefer. What would it be like to be the first to experience that? If you balk at there being a first Eve, then surely there was a first Buddha. What would it be like to be at the vanguard of consciousness at any point in the last 50,000 years?
The conceit of this blog is that we can understand those world-bending moments, including that reflective consciousness was initially a girls’ club—a point I've argued in If Social Intelligence Made Us Human, Women Were Human First, as well as in EToC v2, and v32. My evidence primarily draws on evolutionary psychology, bolstered by the Victorian heuristic of interpreting myths as distorted ancestral memories. Today, I'll resurrect another Victorian intellectual pastime: the principle that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, meaning the developmental path of each individual mirrors the evolutionary trajectory of the species. If women indeed led our species’ awakening, then we should expect to find evidence that girls still reach these developmental milestones first.
To that end, I sent out a survey asking about people’s earliest memories, earliest notion of self-awareness, and the ages these occurred. 84 people took the survey (mostly my readers). How often is the earliest memory a lights-on experience? Do women have earlier memories?
Literature Review
As far as I can tell, the first question has never been asked in the literature (spoiler, it’s about 10%). As for there being a sex effect, there is ample data, but the interpretation is often mangled. Social scientists have collected thousands of data points in controlled conditions that do not rely on self-report. Toddlers from diverse backgrounds are given the mirror self-recognition test, or have their pronoun usage covertly recorded as they play. However, researchers tie themselves in knots to avoid mention of possible biological effects.
This was the subject of a previous post. The best data I could find on self-recognition is a paper that follows 276 toddlers over several weeks. In their models, they find a massive gender effect, which they never discuss. In fact, the only discussion of gender is when they misrepresent the previous 18 studies on the subject to support boys and girls being essentially the same. The authors made 1,576 home visits to perform the mirror self-recognition test on toddlers in three different continents. They read dozens of other studies on the same. They have PhDs in human development, which trains them in knowledge that generations of scientists have wrested from the natural world. This was not an act of ignorance. It’s just that asking social scientists if sex differences are due entirely to nurture is a lot like asking a Catholic priest if Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior.
It’s true that passing the mirror test is not synonymous with inner life or metacognition—many animals that lack those can pass the test. However, in human toddlers, it does seem to be indicative of inner life, as it is also extremely predictive of the ability to use pronouns correctly (something no animal can do). Lewis and Ramsey (20043) found that at 15 and 18 months toddlers who use pronouns pass the mirror test 71% of the time versus only 15–37 % for toddlers without pronouns. Once again, girls showed an advantage. (Incidentally, I consider far-flung pronoun cognates to be evidence for the diffusion of consciousness; see my essay at Seeds of Science.)
Finally, Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen, a preeminent authority on autism, discusses sex differences in the development of theory of mind with Jordan Peterson in this recent interview. These are well evidenced but controversial for ideological reasons.
Which is all to say, my little survey doesn’t really move the needle on this question. The data is already in and girls obtain self-consciousness earlier than boys. But I do manage to replicate the result, and find a few other nuggets.
Lights-on memories
Perhaps the most interesting finding is that 12% of respondents said their first memory was the moment they realized “I exist / I’m a self”4. With only 10 positive answers, there isn’t a lot you can say about this group statistically, but 5/10 are female (compared to 18% of the rest), and 5/10 are neurodivergent (compared to 27%). You can read all ten earliest memories here5.
Go Figure
The first question in the survey asks about their age at the time of the earliest memory.
As you can see, there are many more male respondents, reflecting the readership of my systematizing-focused blog. On average, women report memories half a year earlier, though the difference is not statistically significant. The age of self-awareness, however, is:
Interestingly, all five respondents who reported self-awareness at age 0 identified as neurodivergent, likely reflecting a differing interpretation of the question (there always being a self, so marking at birth). Outliers at the other end of the spectrum (9+ years) don’t report neurodivergence, except the female respondent, who is autistic.
This distribution is far less normal than the previous question. Future surveys should probably spend more time defining self-awareness to resolve these issues.
I also asked people to describe their earliest memory, and offered a few categories those might fall into. Interestingly, women tend to have more negative first memories:
Looking at the text of people’s first memories, I manually extracted any mention of a parent. Daughters remember mothers, and sons remember fathers. No idea how much of this is recall bias (also, note the small n, of course):
I also asked about any diagnosed psychiatric conditions6, and we can code these as True (if any are selected) or False (if skipped or None). Not different:
The Stories Speak
In preparing this piece I realized that my own first memory is a bit on the nose. I’m two or three years old, playing in the garden, grab a flower, am stung by a bee, searing pain, I’m crying, and my dad comes to console me. If only it were a snake.
I’m grateful to everyone who filled out the survey, and also want to open the floor up to qualitative analysis. As such, after the Conclusion, I include everyone’s first memory. If anyone wants to do in-depth analysis I can make the full data available upon request.
Conclusion
I don’t see how human consciousness was not a phase change. “I” is clearly recursive, and the very nature of recursion requires a phase change. A cognitive structure that can inspect itself is a discrete step. There was a single moment the snake bit its tail and completed the loop, so to speak. As such, consciousness could have evolved quickly in evolutionary terms, and even a small female advantage could have been socially relevant.
I am also convinced that it would have been a woman to first grok “I am,” and that this would have been a world-shaping event. If such an event happened, then this was likely in the last 60,000 years, when our species conquered the world and started producing artifacts that suggest inner life. It seems this is about the time humans evolved the ability to think in stories. My theory is the story “I am” spread worldwide later around 15,000 years ago—though it could have been sporadically experienced much earlier.
If women were the vanguard of self-awareness, that would explain why men are hardly depicted in art before the Neolithic, while the Upper Paleolithic has a 30,000 year tradition devoted to the female form. Feminist archeologists often interpret the Venus statues that are produced starting with the first signs of symbolic thought as the primordial mother goddess, the long lost fountain of life. I go a step further in identifying her as the Mother of All Living in the precise way Eve was, not for her body, but for her mind. If women discovered the self first, that could explain why most depictions of people—selfs—were women before 10,000 BC7.
You’ve heard of mitochondrial Eve, to whom all of humanity’s mitochondrial DNA can be traced? The Mother of All Living is the memetic mother of self-awareness, to whom all sapient humans can trace. She not only became self-aware herself, but she managed to communicate that epiphany to those around her. If self-awareness was a phase change, then I can’t think of a reason something like this would not have happened, at least in theory. “I am” is a good idea, liable to spread. If that did happen, it parsimoniously explains the paradoxes of schizophrenia, sapience, and pronouns8.
Returning to Scott’s saltationist ontogenesis: “There’s some moment when the developing brain suddenly shifts from a preconscious to a conscious mode of thought.” I think that applies to our phylogeny as well. There was a point that our species woke up, and that is remembered in the world’s creation myths—hence Eve drags Adam out of Eden. There are a lot of moving parts to try to match that model to prehistory; you can see my attempt in the Eve Theory of Consciousness, which is summarized as a cartoon for your convenience:
Earliest Memories
Responses to: “Briefly describe that memory”
Perhaps just about 2 years old, +\- 2 months. Me in the backyard, “helping“ my dad put up a new swingset, facing the house and seeing my mom and the family dog at the door to the back porch. I later learned that this was the day they had to euthanize the dog… But I have no recollection of having any emotion or understanding of the situation at the time. Next memory is age 2+ 2 months, The day of or the day after my sister was born when I was taken to the hospital to see her. I have 2 or 3 fairly specific mental snapshots of being in a room (was the waiting room) with my uncles, and then being in a hallway with windows (I was take to look in the nursery window) Of course it’s possible these are both just reconstructions or false memories based on stories I heard about these events! :) although they have never been particularly popular or even ever talked about instances or family memories. As far as I can remember, we’ve only talked about these happenings when I’ve asked about them.
My mom lifts my arm and raises me onto the first step of a train car. We turn left after reaching the aisle. I hear a high pitch sound coming through the loud speakers. I think it is a man who is being squeezed or altered in some way. Years later, upon reflection, I think it might have been from a cowboy yodeling song or perhaps just some kind of electrical feedback. It was the early 1950's. I was 20 months old. A bit later I wake up to my Mom's excitement as a man is walking toward us. It is her Dad who is joining us at what was the next stop. We are sitting on the front right row.
One of three memories, I'm not sure in what order they happened: 1) In pre-K, a teacher gets mad at me because I won't speak. She takes me off to a separate room and tries to reason speech out of me. 2) Morning routine. I can't grasp that when the front of a shirt is in front of me, when I put it on it'll be the wrong way around. Mother tries to explain to me. I ask, does it turn itself around? She says, frustrated, yes, yes it does. 3) I hear someone calling a small fenced-in playground a park. It annoys me to no end.
First visual snapshot: the kitchen window of my home. First dynamic memory: I was in the car (I seem to recall on the way to my grandparents') when I told my parents I'd been born that day. They confusedly assured me I hadn't. I argued surely I had because I didn't remember anything before that day. They tried to assure me I'd just forgotten about it. (It is worth noting none of my parents remember this interaction so it's not impossible my brain fabricated it. But I do remember it very clearly.)
I woke up from what must have been a nap, sitting in a child-sided chair in the playroom at home. I remember waking up and sort of reconstructing who I was, where I was, and who would be in the kitchen a few rooms over (my parents) from a sense of 'knowledge' rather than necessarily clear temporal memory, and I remember realising I was a self. I think of it as having become conscious. It felt meaningful, but not hugely joyous or momentous, more of a quiet special feeling.
Looking out through the car's rear window while being picked up from kindergarten, strong visual memory of the wood paneling on the kindergarten facade, telling mom how a boy knocked down my building blocks and at the same time feeling like that's not worth telling. Notably the only memory from that time that survived in this intensity; I don't remember anything else about kindergarten. The next clear memory is from 2 years later.
I have a few early memories, and its hard to know exactly which one came first. But I think my earliest substantial memory (e.g., not an image but an actual event) was me standing at the front of my kindergarten 'class' at age 3, handing out easter eggs and saying goodbye because we (my family) were moving interstate. I know I was 3 at the time because I have another memory of celebrating my 4th birthday in the new location.
First day at playschool. I arrive in the classroom and everyone's doing different things. I recognise my neighbour John (who's a year older than me, so it's not his first day). He's wearing rust-red corduroy dungarees. He puts his hands out in front of him on the playmat that he's at, and does a not-quite-handstand to jump his legs round to another side of it, over someone or something else.
I was playing in a patch of bushes near the end of my parents' driveway. I looked over to the house and saw my father coming towards me, with a cup of sweet tea or juice or something for me, and I realized that I was really there, watching him, that he was really there too, looking at me. It felt very strange and slightly sad, like I knew that I would miss not being completely conscious.
I arrived at the hospital for a procedure. I was wearing a purple sweatsuit with hearts on the chest. I was holding a teddy bear. I was extremely scared but felt everything would be OK because my parents were there. Many years later I found out this was for a circumcision! I was adopted and my parents had me circumcised when I was 4.
It's not a specific moment, perhaps, but a diluted idea of going to McDonald's as a child with my mum the first few times. The memory is not vivid, but I know that some tastes and smells bring those impressions up. It's nothing special, but as I am starved for any childhood memories, this is going to have to do.
I'm actually not sure that this is really my first memory, but it stands out most clearly. I was standing by our rocking horse in our old house (we moved close to my fifth birthday) and I remember thinking about what I had done the previous day and then being proud of myself for being able to remember.
Watching one of my grandparent’s Christmas decorations, on a desk at head/eye height, focused intensely on the movement and music. I could not explain why I found it so fascinating, so I may have been younger, though I could still stand. I could have been no older than four, because of their divorce.
I remember the end of a dream - I was falling down into an abyss - with "blackbirds" echoing. Honestly though - it feels almost like a memory of a memory, since I remember at some point noting that it was my earliest memory- so it is probably the recreation of a memory (but what are memories anyway).
I was lying in a basinet on the front porch of a house. I remember looking up at the front porch lightbulb and seeing the tonge-in-groove construction of the ceiling of the porch. My mother was startled when I related this memory because it could only have been a farmhouse we lived in when I was 3.
I was at preschool and said I was thirsty to a teacher (or some adult who worked there), and the teacher said "Hi, Thursday! I'm Friday. Why don't you come over on Saturday and we'll eat an ice-cream Sunday!" I got upset because I wanted water and she was just making jokes.
I was desperately trying to reach the bathroom door knob but I wasn’t tall enough. My parents were busy outside partying with their friends and having a bbq. Because I couldn’t reach it, I pooped on the floor. Then I hid the poop in a potted plant. 🪴💩
At kindergarten, I saw one of the other children sleeping in an area usually blocked off by curtains, but this time I could see through a gap in them. It made something click about me being able to perceive her, but not the opposite.
My family was moving to a new house and I was told I’d have “big clean room” to drive my sit-on truck in, but I heard “big green room” and pictured a big-box warehouse configuration with the green-tinted sunlights they used to have
I remember being in pre-school and once we had a cooking class. I remember spending nearly no time cooking but loving the slices of pepperoni that we had. It's a relatively weak but specific memory that is the oldest I can recall.
I was standing on a window sill of a picture window waiting for dad to come back from work. We moved before I was 3 years to a house with no picture windows and my memory of the window corresponds to my parents memory.
I'm standing in my childhood home's guest room while my dad takes a nap. Sunlight pours through the window. The air vent billows the translucent curtain, making it look like it's filled with light, swollen with it.
in bath with mother, asking her what her breasts and vagina were. unsure of age and whether i was verbally asking questions or just pointing, but i remember the words she used to describe her body parts.
I woke up and it dawned on me that I could talk. It felt like a relevation. Not that I wasn’t able to talk before, but that had happened gradually. This was the first time I had the explicit thought
Standing by the car thinking "I'm four years old and I'm having a self reflective moment (I wouldn't have literally thought those words of course) about being fours year old. I will remember this."
I was at a daycare, and the provider would force us to 'nap' in a room. I would often have to pee desperately, and be denied exit. My first memories are some of those moments blurred together.
Knowing I felt sick in the local pool as my mom bounced me up and down and but not being able to communicate it and then puking all over her and later her holding me in the locker room shower
Going to Toys ’R Us to buy the Lego Monorail Transport System (6990) with money I'd saved up myself. I don't remember saving the money, or how I would've gotten money at 5 years old.
Being watched by my older sisters when in my kindergarden class. It made me sad, and I remember vividly both the scene and a bizarre sense of self pity for my unhappy circumstances.
Various things from junior kindergarten, including building a tower out of large blocks, being taught how to peel a banana, and running around the Royal Ontario Museum gift store
Dad and I went to the hospital to pick up mom and my new little brother. When I first got a look at the new baby, I was surprised by how much hair he had on his head.
I realized I existed and I had existed in the past and I’ll exist in the future while sitting criss-criss-apple sauce on the floor during preschool
Hiding under playground equipment, waiting for the rain to pass. Dad arrives abruptly & angry, saying I’m to come directly home when it rains.
A holiday abroad - I remember wobbling down the aeroplane aisle (I was walking at 9 months) and being by the swimming pool with mother in it.
My mother was sick in bed. I ran into the room to hug her and slipped on the throw rug, hit the bridge of my nose on the metal bed frame.
Being in the car, upset because my Dad locked me in the car alone and I was scared. It was parked on the grass outside a farm gate
Waking up after a surgery, the nurse was surprised I woke up early. I then got a yellow and red garage toy because I was brave 😄
Someone pooped on the floor in reception at school (UK) in the corner of a room and I threw an apple into it for some reason
I remember being held by my mom and drinking from a baby bottle, then later throwing the bottle away ( out of the crib).
I was trying to brush my mom's hair, but she did not want that. My father came home and let me brush his instead.
I was in hospital, I wanted to be home, I knew home was south of me, the direction where the sun is at boon.
Standing up for the first time. Then realising i could not work out how to sit down again so I cried.
I remember taking a ride inside a big plastic swan, slowly navigating over a quiet expanse of water
Eating spaghetti noodles at the dinner table, my grandpa joked with me that they were "worms"
Walking down brown carpeted hall in house to where my father was putting together a computer
Bedtime, lights were out. I counted to 100 all by myself and was very excited about it.
Got my finger trapped in the lock of a door, staff at playschool angry at me about it
Jumping between the cracks of the walkway to my house with my father and siblings.
Wanting to pet the cat, but being unable to walk and the cat staying out of range.
I walked into the kitchen of my childhood homeand asked my parents who they were.
Scary lightning outside the window, sitting on my dad’s back with hot chocolate.
I tried to say "pappa" (father in Swedish), but instead I said "apa" (= monkey)
Fallen into a pond, chasing ducks. Cold and wet, don't understand what happend.
Not sure exact age, but I remember the prizes that I got for potty training.
My father playing with my sister and me in the first appartment we lived in.
The unloading of the truck for my family's move from one house to another
An accident, broken skull, hospital where I had an out of body experience
Sitting in the car and wondering: "How did a being like me come to be?"
Sitting on a fence during a thunderstorm, pretending to ride a horse
Hazy recollections of the senses in places that I was frequently in
On a walk with my mother (me in a stroller) close to our home
Blurry black and white looking at and hearing my dad.
Being pushed in a stroller on a walk with my parents
Having a bad diarrhea while in my first school camp
I was at my childhood home, outside. It was sunny.
I asked my mum not to step on a bug on the garden.
we stopped at a gas station and I found a snail
Visiting my grandfather's brother in a hospital
A blue sweater and a cold room at pre-k.
Taking a nap in a blue sleeping bag
Lion King in theaters with my dad
Visiting my mother's family farm.
Going for a car ride with my dad.
Playing in leaves near preschool
Walking in a kids swimming pool
I remember biting my sister.
In bed screaming for milk
Loud movie that scared me
a glass door shatttering
Playing on Playground
someone asking my age
Eating cheerios
in a house
Birthday
Self-awareness
Responses to “Briefly describe that moment” which followed “At what age did you become aware of ‘I’?”:
Previous answer is unsure-leaning-to-yes but this is certain so I'll include both. I'm in 4th grade walking back from recess with a few of my friends. We talk about the "Pinecone Wars" from 3rd grade, which was an afternoon where we all caught hell from the teachers because we organized into groups and threw pinecones at each other on the playground. My friend brags about how he was a "general" in the pinecone wars. I want to say I was a general too, and I realize how silly it is to call it a war because it was just one day and involved pinecones. Then I realize that it was last year, which I cognitively know wasn't a long period of time, while simultaneously realizing that there's a massive gulf between the person I was then and the person I am now and it feels so so long ago. It's a vertiginous, accelerating feeling.
Perhaps predictably, I would associate the moment of self-awareness with the dread of mortality. I seem to remember being suddenly hit with an intense worry about my death at some point at school. Coming back home, I burst into tears, thinking I didn't want to die, and was consoled by my mum. I don't really know what prompted it, but I can safely say that by this moment, self-awareness had probably been achieved. I can't imagine being unaware and fearing death in an unprompted, existential fashion (as opposed to living through an immediate, life-threatening experience). It could've been achieved even earlier, but I cannot remember a more vivid such moment.
It wasn't a moment, or if it was I don't remember it. I was feeling e.g. embarrassment and reflecting on my vs. other people's thoughts by age 4. (I can't tell for sure if I was already at age 3, but I don't remember ever having a framing other than "what will they think of me" for my reluctance to speak.) More self-awareness came gradually over the years. Internal monologue made mostly of language (i.e. what some people dare to call consciousness itself) came very late, past 20, and I still use it very rarely.
i have a few memories of when i was 3 (we moved again so i know i was 3)- good, bad, neutral and in them i feel i had a sense of myself as "I" but cannot be sure. Nor can I recollect any definitive moment of becoming aware. My sister had a sense of "I" at 18 months when mum brought me home from hospital after giving birth. She showed me to my sister saying "This is the new baby" my sister replied "I'M the baby" which my parents found funny and remembered.
I don't remember the moment I became aware of "I." I think it must have come before my first memories. I remember that the lego monorail cost $100, and that saving that much money (which basically felt like infinity dollars at the time) was a goal that I'd set for myself and achieved, although I don't remember setting it. I don't see how I could have set and achieved a goal like that without being able to recursively model myself in the future.
I estimate that I was around 7 or 8 when I first became aware of 'I'. I don't have a particular memory of the first moment, but I have more memories from that point onwards, and I remember feeling substantial things that require a degree of self-reflection - e.g., pride, shame/guilt. I also distinctly remember imagining myself as if I were the main character in a video game, going on 'adventures' and whistling 'background music'.
I realized that in some sense it was special that at that current moment, the year was 2009. It could have been any other year, I thought,but this was the one I was in. I then noticed that *I* would get older as the years went by. I don't know if this is the first instance, or how to judge what the first instance should look like, but this was very significant to me at the time.
No specific moment and most of this is just assumptions. But we moved when I was in Kindergarten and I recall entering class and being worried about making friends. There were two friends I made -- one named Sam (other I cannot recall) with whom we had a rad handshake. But I recall a few weeks being nervous about making friends and I'm sure that developed a sense of self.
I remember playing "army men" with some neighbours, and pretending to have been shot, hoping that they would treat me as wounded and rescue me in some way. I was disappointed when that didn't work. I'm not sure whether that's "I", but it's my first recollection of being aware of my own hopes/expectations of social interactions.
I was at Scout group, and I just mentioned to the others that I felt like recently I had become a real person, and that before I was not really conscious. In hindsight I think I was just becoming more socially self-conscious due to puberty and other social developments
My kindergarten was next to my future primary school.i remember one morning sitting on the fence and watching my primary school, it dawned on me that this is where I would go in a few years and after this when I started thinking about my future
Around that age I was told that I complained that the kids in kindergarten were mocking me because of my blue eyes and big-brain head. I don't actually remember this but it would match being aware of "I"
Did something that helped me with a stomach ache, then wondered how I knew that (since I could not remember learning or using it). I knew that I must have learned it, and tried to remember doing so.
I'm around babies and young children quite a bit and they develop a sense of "me" and "mine" early - about 1 or 2. So, I don't have a memory of thinking "oh, I'm an individual" - I always knew it.
I was singing in church, and I mistook the pause for getting air for opportunities to swallow. I wondered how everyone could do it so quickly when I clearly couldn't, and that's when it hit me.
It's the earliest age at which I can remember recalling my earliest memory. I don't have any memories in which I didn't perceive myself as "I", so this is the earliest guess when that started.
i don't know. i was aware of an i by the time of my earliest memory point as i was having a dialogue with someone else and distinguishing between our different bodies
I remember getting in trouble in elementary school - feeling shame surrounding punishment, guilt, etc. Also, memories of interacting with other kids my age.
I realized I existed and I had existed in the past and I’ll exist in the future while sitting criss-criss-apple sauce on the floor during preschool
I was self-aware before the memory described above. When I experienced that event, I knew already that I had a history that went befor it.
Same memory as described before, I remember asking them because I seemingly had just figured out that they might also have selves/I's
I understood that a similarly aged child who was playing in the dame sandbox was a girl and therefore different from me, a boy.
No Clear Moment, gradually? Winning fights in kindergarden, learning about astronomy, dinosaurs and nuclear powerplants.
Reading about other religions of other countries, thinking what would be me if I was born in some Islamic country
No memory of this, but I imagine I knew right away and that’s why apparently I spent a lot of time screaming.
Was told be friend that berries I ate were poison, shared with mom, thought about how she thought about me
I remember clearly at recess on a bench at nine years old, I realized I did not like my life back then.
There isn't a moment in particular that I remember, but I had a conception of "I" by my third birthday.
I don't remember the moment, At that age I remember being conscious of myself in a new school, etc.
I don’t remember a moment where I felt “I” but I also don’t remember ever feeling anything else
I actually believe I was younger than 1 , but It felt "normal" : I am me and this is my world.
No such moment. Before seeing the posts about this I wouldn't have thought anyone had this.
Had a dream viewing myself from outside my body while in the back of a car in a car seat.
I don't remember the moment. I've known of myself as "I" since before my earliest memory
I don't remember ever becoming aware of this. I didn't remember ever not knowing it.
I don't know when I became self-aware, but I gave a plausible age at which I did.
5th bday party, realizing friends were all there because *i* existed specifically
Unsure it was memorable, just post fact reasoning of ideas that required an "I"?
No recollection of a particular moment. Winging the guess. Lower bound < 1
Walking by myself to school early in the morning, while it was still dark
No particular moment, feels like I always have as far as I can remember.
No idea. Clearly by the time of my first memory I already knew I was.
I don't have specific memories of the moment I became aware of "I"
I have a weird idea that I always was aware, since you’ve asked!
I think it was the above. If it was earlier I don't remember it.
I have no distinct recollection of when I became aware of "I".
It was between 4 and 6 but I do not have a specific memory.
I learned to read at age three. I was pleased with myself.
No clear memory of this happening at a specific point.
Realization that i am something different and unique.
no discrete moment, earliest memories feature an "I"
Trying to put in junk into an open speaker
Not a moment; rather, a gradual awakening.
I think I’ve always taken it for granted
No specific moment I could pinpoint
My earliest memory is about “I”
I do not recall such a moment.
Don’t know. Wish I did though.
damn I have no idea whatsoever
I don’t recall that moment
talking with an older boy
Don’t remember
I do not ko.
I don’t know
See above.
See above
Unsure
Three people said “Same as above.”
Scott is clearly discussing Secondary Consciousness here, and not going full Descartes and claiming animals can’t feel.
Somewhat ironically, based on the survey it appears 80% of my readers are male.
Development of Self-Recognition, Personal Pronoun Use, and Pretend Play During the 2nd Year
The awkward phrasing of that question may have contributed to the 38% who responded “unsure”. The remaining 50% said “no.”
Earliest memories of the “Yes” group:
I remember being held by my mom and drinking from a baby bottle, then later throwing the bottle away ( out of the crib).
Standing by the car thinking "I'm four years old and I'm having a self reflective moment (I wouldn't have literally thought those words of course) about being fours year old. I will remember this."
I realized I existed and I had existed in the past and I’ll exist in the future while sitting criss-criss-apple sauce on the floor during preschool
I'm actually not sure that this is really my first memory, but it stands out most clearly. I was standing by our rocking horse in our old house (we moved close to my fifth birthday) and I remember thinking about what I had done the previous day and then being proud of myself for being able to remember.
I walked into the kitchen of my childhood home and asked my parents who they were.
I woke up from what must have been a nap, sitting in a child-sided chair in the playroom at home. I remember waking up and sort of reconstructing who I was, where I was, and who would be in the kitchen a few rooms over (my parents) from a sense of 'knowledge' rather than necessarily clear temporal memory, and I remember realising I was a self. I think of it as having become conscious. It felt meaningful, but not hugely joyous or momentous, more of a quiet special feeling.
I was trying to brush my mom's hair, but she did not want that. My father came home and let me brush his instead.
Sitting in the car and wondering: "How did a being like me come to be?"
Birthday
I was playing in a patch of bushes near the end of my parents' driveway. I looked over to the house and saw my father coming towards me, with a cup of sweet tea or juice or something for me, and I realized that I was really there, watching him, that he was really there too, looking at me. It felt very strange and slightly sad, like I knew that I would miss not being completely conscious.
I wouldn’t have coded all of these as an epiphany about self-hood, so if there is future research on the subject don’t rely on classifying descriptions of the moment.
Check boxes include:
Autism spectrum
Schizophrenia / schizo-affective
ADHD
Mood disorder (depression, bipolar, anxiety, etc.)
None
Prefer not to say
By some counts, basically all depictions of humans were female in the Paleolithic. Marija Gimbutas gives a figure of around 95% for 3d figurines, though some push back that in many instances the sex of the figurine is ambiguous. o3 summarizes that critique well.
In order:
Schizophrenia: given it is highly genetic and reduces fitness, why is it so common? (1% in Eurasian populations, about 3x as high in Africa and Australia.)
Sapience: why is sapience only manifest worldwide starting about 12,000 years ago?
Pronouns: why are there cognates of the 1sg all around the world?
I love this topic and reading your essays on it, but you lost me at calling Baron-Cohen a “preeminent authority” on autism and then moreso by linking an interview with professional word-salader Peterson. From my perspective, this sucks credibility from your argument. But also, I am but one perspective.