Chapter 1: The Beginning of Consciousness

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Imagine for a moment, if you can,

the complete dissolution of, well, your entire being.

Not just, you know, deep calm, but a total stripping away of identity,

memories, desires,

everything that makes you you.

What would even be left?

Well, for Christoph Kohak, the author we're looking at today, The I Am Myself, The World, he describes this incredible consciousness -altering experience.

Right, in the introduction.

Yeah, he says he was left with just this non -self, experiencing a timeless universe, sort of convulsed to a blazing icy light,

unbearable intensity.

Wow.

And terror and ecstasy mixed together.

Exactly.

Just pure experience, lasting, indefinitely.

It simply was.

That's quite a starting point, really sets the stage.

It really does.

And it leads into what we're doing today on The Deep Dive.

Our mission, as always, is taking these crucial insights, research, and giving you a shortcut to being, well, really well -informed.

And today, we're unpacking a really foundational chapter from Kohak's book, The I Am Myself, The World, what consciousness is and how to expand it.

We're focusing specifically on chapter one, the beginning of consciousness.

That's right.

We're exploring, you know, our earliest subjective experiences, looking at it scientifically, neuroscientifically, even philosophically, straight from Kohak's analysis.

He brings this mix of rigorous science, but also these deeply personal insights.

He does.

So the goal today isn't just defining consciousness, but figuring out where it truly begins in human development.

And why that actually matters.

It has some pretty surprising, profound, real -world consequences.

Okay, let's dive in then.

Let's unpack this.

So let's start with a question maybe for you listening.

What was your very first subjective experience?

Not just this morning, but the absolute first one.

Yeah, way back.

Can you remember anything?

Like a dim feeling of warmth in the womb, maybe?

Or birth?

Or the taste of milk?

It's a great question because, well, you immediately hit a wall, right?

Totally.

William James, the Harvard psychologist back in the day, he had that great metaphor, the stream of consciousness.

Ah, yes, that ceaseless flow of thoughts, feelings, memories.

Life itself.

Exactly.

But where does that stream, that little brook actually start?

In the fetus?

The newborn?

A toddler, even?

It's so hard to know because of, well, childhood amnesia.

Right, that universal thing where adults, generally, we don't have solid memories before age three or four.

And Koch is clear this isn't some Freudian repression thing.

No, it's more about the lack of language and abstract thought back then.

As those skills mature then you can properly store and recall those autobiographical memories.

But what's really key here is that not remembering doesn't mean you weren't conscious.

Exactly.

Think about dreams.

You don't remember the absolute beginning of a dream, do you?

No, you're just suddenly in it.

Right.

And Koch suggests it might have been similar with that first flicker of consciousness, a dim spark.

That's the start of conscious life, what he calls phenomenal existence.

An absolute existence, where you're subject to yourself.

Yes, which is different from just being alive.

I can explain that distinction.

Being alive versus being conscious.

Well, you can be alive, you know, a biological organism and object to other people.

Kua calls that relative existence.

Right.

But until that spark, you're not a subject to yourself.

You're not experiencing your own That's the absolute existence.

It's like the difference between a rock existing and me existing and knowing that I exist.

Most likely.

And that absolute existence, being a subject to yourself, it's not there from day one.

It develops.

A developmental marvel, really.

And thinking evolutionarily, it's incredibly reasoned.

Oh, absolutely.

Zoom out.

Think about LUCA, the last universal common ancestor,

nearly four billion years ago.

Four billion, wow.

And all the diversification since then, leading eventually to homo sapiens.

And in that huge time scale, our brains, our consciousness.

It's just a tiny blip at the end.

A flicker, yeah.

The point is, just being alive isn't enough for consciousness, the nervous system, the brain, and needs a certain structure, enough complexity, enough differentiation to support it.

So it's this incredibly complex unfolding process.

But as you said, this isn't just some academic thought experiment.

No, not at all.

Understanding, or maybe misunderstanding,

when consciousness starts, has huge real world consequences.

Especially in really heated debates, like the one around fetal pain.

That's right.

Koch brings up the 2022 U .S.

Supreme Court decision, Dobbs v.

Jackson Women's Health Organization.

The one that overturned Roe v.

Wade.

Yes.

And one argument used in Dobbs to challenge the viability standard was that a fetus is conscious really early, maybe 14 weeks, and can suffer extreme pain during an abortion.

And the evidence cited was things like ultrasound images, showing reactions.

Exactly.

Fetus is reacting to touch, voices, even surgical procedures grimacing, moving limbs.

The claim was, these actions prove consciousness and the capacity to suffer.

It sounds like a powerful point, visually.

But what does the neuroscience actually say?

Do those reactions really mean conscious pain?

Well, this is where science draws a really crucial distinction.

It's the difference between a simple reflex and a conscious feeling of pain.

Okay.

Those early fetal reactions, withdrawing from a touch, things like that, they're basically stereotyped reflexes.

They're called nociceptive responses.

Nociceptive responses, like a reflex arc.

Kind of.

We see similar things elsewhere.

Adults might pull a hand back from something hot during deep sleep without waking up.

Right, I've done that.

Or patients with severe brain injuries might react to a painful stimulus but have no awareness of it.

Even, Koch mentions, tiny fruit fly larva moving away from heat.

Nobody thinks they feel it like we do.

So seeing a reaction doesn't automatically equal consciousness.

What does it take neurologically to actually feel pain consciously?

Okay, think of the signal's journey.

Starts at the skin, say, travels up the spinal cord, then it hits a key relay station, the thalamus, deep in the brain.

But even that's not enough for the ouch moment.

Right.

From the thalamus, the signal has to reach the neocortex.

That incredibly complex, sophisticated outer layer, Koch calls it a Byzantine network.

Byzantine, yeah.

Lots of connections.

Exactly.

It's only when that whole network neocortex and its partners is properly wired up and functioning that the sort of consciousness alarm for pain can actually ring.

And when does that wiring happen in fetal development?

Well, neurogenesis, making neurons, starts early, maybe the fifth week.

But those crucial neocortical neurons, they aren't properly connected to receive signals from the body until around the 30th week.

30th week.

So much later than 14 weeks.

Much later.

So a previable fetus, before maybe 24 weeks, it will respond reflexively to something like a heel lance for a blood test, but it's very unlikely to consciously experience it.

Even a preemie born at 30 weeks might not even wake up from that kind of procedure.

So the brain development suggests those early reflexes happen.

But the actual feeling of pain, the suffering part, comes much later in the third trimester.

That seems to be the scientific consensus, yes.

The signals trigger reflexes, but they don't ring that consciousness alarm until the wiring is much more mature.

A previeable fetus, as Koch puts it, hasn't crossed that great divide of being separating something that does not experience from someone who does.

That's a powerful phrase.

And it highlights the gap between that scientific understanding and, say, the arguments made in the Dobbs case.

Yes, though it's important to remember, as Koch notes, the Supreme Court's decision was ultimately argued on constitutional grounds, not primarily scientific ones.

It returned the regulatory power to the states.

Right.

OK, moving on from pain, there's another fascinating aspect of fetal life sleep.

You mentioned they're mostly asleep.

Yes, largely.

Neonatologists found that by the third trimester, the fetus cycles between two main sleep states.

There's active sleep.

Which is like?

Fast breathing, irregular heartbeat, movements, eyes, face, body.

This later becomes REM sleep after birth.

OK, the dreaming sleep.

Potentially.

And then there's quiet sleep.

Slow breathing, regular heart rate, very still.

That turns into deep non -REM sleep.

But yet the striking thing is how rarely they seem to be awake, in our sense of the word.

Rarely awake.

That really paints a different picture, doesn't it?

So if adults often dream during REM sleep, does that mean a fetus dreams during active sleep?

That's the intriguing question.

And if they did, what would a fetus, effectively a tabula rasa, a blank slate memory -wise even dream about?

Well, looking at how dreaming develops in kids gives us clues.

It seems tightly linked to developing visual imagination, language, spatial skills.

Things a fetus doesn't really have yet.

Exactly.

Dreams in young children, say, four or five years old, are apparently quite static and plain.

Not much plot, few characters, or strong emotions.

So working backwards.

Extrapolating back, given how immature the visual cortex is and the total lack of life memories to draw on, it seems unlikely a fetus dreams in the narrative way adults do.

Okay, probably no complex dreams.

But is there any sign of awareness?

Any subtle consciousness?

There is some evidence, yeah.

Fetus is older than about 35 weeks, so late third trimester.

They show sensitivity to statistical patterns and sounds they hear.

And that pattern detection that's linked to consciousness in adults?

It's considered a kind of signature of consciousness, yes.

So while a third trimester fetus is probably egoless, not really distinguishing me from not me, it's hard to completely rule out some kind of primitive bodily awareness.

Maybe pleasant feelings?

Warmth?

Nourishment?

Or maybe even unpleasant ones?

Possibly.

And that possibility has practical implications now.

How so?

Fetal surgery, for example.

For procedures late in the third trimester, anesthesia is now commonly used for the fetus itself.

As a precaution, just in case there's some capacity for pain experienced by that.

Exactly.

It's driven by that evolving understanding, the possibility of experience.

Okay.

And then birth happens, which sounds like a pretty dramatic shift.

Incredibly dramatic.

Huge awakening, literally.

During natural vaginal birth, there's this massive surge of noradrenaline.

Like an adrenaline rush?

Even more intense, apparently, than an adult skydiving.

Plus, the sedative effects from the mother via the placenta suddenly stop.

It's a profound arousal.

And then this total sensory assault, right?

Absolutely.

First breath, eyes open, crying, suddenly experiencing this aerial world, loud sounds, new smells, bright lights, everything changes.

And newborns, how quickly do they start processing this new world?

How capable are they right away?

Remarkably quickly, actually.

They immediately start attending to sounds and sights.

Their gaze is naturally drawn to eyes and faces.

So the basic wiring for seeing and hearing is already there?

Yes.

The basic thalamocortical circuits for simple sensory perception are in place, and their hearing is already tuned into their mother's language from listening in the womb.

Wow.

Already learning language patterns.

Yep.

And even more impressive, Koch points out this imitation behavior.

Like, a two or three week old baby might stick its tongue out if mom does.

Wiggling its tongue back.

That seems quite complex.

It implies they can store visual information dynamically, map it to their own body, and control their muscles.

In adults, that kind of imitation is definitely a sign of awareness.

So it suggests babies have some kind of sensory motor consciousness.

They can sense things and connect it to their own actions.

That seems plausible, yes.

A basic sense of seeing, hearing, feeling their own body move.

But the deeper stuff like self -awareness, knowing who you are, or that inner voice we have, that comes later.

Much later.

Just like dreaming, those are complex cognitive abilities tied to language and abstract thought.

They take years to mature.

Koch even jokes the boys are often a bit behind girls on that front.

He does flip that in.

But yeah, understanding why you do things, your own motivations.

Very limited in childhood.

And maybe even as adults, right?

Freud's point was, we're often strangers to our own inner drives.

That's true.

So that stream of consciousness we started with,

it's not just there at birth, full -fledged.

Not at all.

It grows day by day, year by year, as a child becomes an adult.

Absolutely.

Every new experience, relationships, things you read or watch, art, work, it all adds nuance, makes new distinctions, builds connections between different kinds of experiences.

It constantly expands your conscious world.

So the stream isn't just flowing, it's getting wider and deeper all the time.

Precisely.

It's an ongoing construction, constantly being elaborated.

So reflecting on this deep dive then,

we've journeyed from thinking about a hypothetical first experience right through the nitty -gritty of brain development that allows consciousness to even start.

Yeah.

And we really dug into that crucial difference between a simple reflex, like pulling away from heat, and the actual subjective feeling of something like pain.

Especially how that plays out in fetal development and the very real -world debates that hinge on understanding that distinction.

Right.

The science offers one perspective, based on neural wiring, while other arguments rely on different interpretations or grounds.

And if we zoom out again, thinking about Cox's broader ideas, maybe,

if our own reality, our conscious world, is built up in this very specific developmental way,

and it starts so gradually, what does that really tell us about the unique world each of us lives inside?

That's a great question.

It suggests reality isn't just passively received, it's actively constructed, moment by moment, based on our biology and our history.

And maybe it implies we can keep expanding that world, keep deepening that stream of consciousness.

I think that's certainly Cox's implication later in the book.

Yeah.

That understanding consciousness also opens paths to potentially expanding it.

It's a pretty profound thought to end on.

Makes you reflect on your own consciousness, that first light, even if you can't remember it, and how your own stream has changed and grown.

Definitely food for thought.

Well, thank you for joining us for this deep dive into, really, one of the most fundamental mysteries there is.

Always fascinating to explore.