Language is a platform for thinking about and talking about these experiences. A chimpanzee doesn't have an inner life, because how would it communicate about it? How could it talk about it in its own brain? To generate our ability to talk about these things requires an advanced enough super mind. We had to invent ingo language here.
Why do you exist? How did atoms and molecules transform into sentient creatures that experience longing, regret, compassion, and even marvel at their own existence? What does it truly mean to have a mind―to think? Science has offered few answers to these existential questions until now.
Michael Shermer speaks with computational neuroscientist, Ogi Ogas, about his unified account of the mind that explains how consciousness, language, self-awareness, and civilization arose incrementally out of chaos, and how leading cities and nation-states are developing “superminds,” and perhaps planting the seeds for even higher forms of consciousness.