Early in college, want to study the historical origin of consciousness.

So evolutionary psychology? The cross between that and biocultultural anthropology...if there is such a thing?

>>2641262
This anon's got it. It sounds like you want evolutionary psychology.

It wouldn't hurt to minor in something like neurology or physical anthropology.

>>2639744
>historical
lol
That's gonna go further back than that.

>>2641277
>>2641262
Huh? What he's talking about isn't evo. psych at all. Depending on who you ask it's either neurobiology/neurophysics (if they have liberal ideas about the purview of the hard sciences) or philosophy (if they take a hard line, as many do, regarding questions about the nature of consciousness as inherently unscientific).

You won't touch on it at all if you major in anything anthro-related, like phys. anthro, archaeology, or even evo. psych. Actually, you won't touch on it as an undergrad at all whatever field you major in, and I'm skeptical about your chances of studying it later on, not because it's not an interesting area--it's a fascinating one that should be deeply important to all of us--but because it's so damn hard to study (we don't even know how BEGIN TO ASK the relevant questions, much less test/answer them) that it's not really a mainstream part of any field.

Well, scientific field. There's always philosophy, and I'm not knocking philosophy at all.

>>2641287
The term "consciousness" can mean a number of things, but on a strict definition of consciousness, people like Dennett and Jaynes have advocated for dates from the last 3,000 to 6,000 years to locate the emergence of introspection and elevated consciousness. Lots of reasons to think certain political and cultural structures help occassion consciousness.

So it depends on your definition of consciousness. What's your definition, and when would you say it emerged?

>>2639744

Major in neuropsych, evopsych is grad-level work and they're always looking for more "brain guys".

>>2641307
This is really helpful, especially the redirection away from anthropology. I know Julian Jaynes got pretty famous for his theory about the origin of consciousness, but was that just not taken seriously within the academy? Have there not been many other good attempts to get at it?

I've taken a few philosophy of mind classes, and the profs always seem confused when I ask this sort of question. They think the only debate is the "mind/body" problem, and they don't see a whole lot of room for empirical, historical, cultural, or biological facts about the emergence of consciousness. Not to knock philosophy either.

Anyway, I am absolutely certain that this is what I want to study in my life, even if it's not a well-defined field yet. This may be an uphill battle.

>>2641323
Will neuropsychology get into the chronology/history side of things, or will I just have to wait until grad school? Except as a means to get at the bigger questions, I'm not too interested in which parts of the brain seat consciousness, but more importantly what conditions in the world helped counsciousness emerge triumphant (whether simply evolutionarily or also culturally and politically).

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>>2639744
>historical origin of consciousness

idiot, unless you mean first historical mention of consciousness

>I want to study what other people have to say about where consciousness came from

doesn't come from history books that's for sure

>is it all biological

it is all sub-atomic, geological, and electrical too, you can't just run a crayon line through the full spectrum of reality and just expect every differentiation you make to be valid. We are fleeting shadows in a universe deeper than we can possibly imagine.

>a product of certain cultural and political corcumstances
>What fields are best for this

now I know why you bought into that bicameral bullshit.

Study neurology, chemistry, take courses in symbolic logic and learn geometry. Philosophers have been talking about consciousness for centuries, so you're probably doing a disservice to yourself if you neglect the background reading. Start with some Socratic dialogues. No need to pay for classes to write meaningless papers on excerpts from larger works you should have read in highschool, so skip philosophy for now. Join a philosophy club to talk about it if you want.

>are there any respectable scientists or scholars working on this problem right now

No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chalmers

>>2641486
Lol extremely unhelpful. Your only advice was to skip philosophy, and then study logic, geometry, neurology, and chemistry. I've studied quite a bit of geometry and chemistry, plus one course intro course in symbolic logic, but none of that so far seems at all relevant except as prerequisites. I am eager to study way more neurology and that kind of thing, however. I also admitted in my OP that Jaynes seemed bunk, and that I was interested in doing actually legitimate work on an area that nobody but Jaynes has done work on (as far as I know in my ignorance, hence me asking the question).

But more importantly, I have a feeling you're defining "consciousness" as just having brain functions and being able to solve problems and make calculations. I'm much more interested in addressing the chronological ("historical" only in an extremely loose sense) emergence of consciousness in the more developed sense, i.e. consciousness as self-consciousness and the capacity for introspection. It is evidently the case that political pressures and cultural movements can mold and shape consciousness in the relevant sense. My question then, is were such social forces formative for the development of consciousness in the relevant sense, or should we rather turn to earlier evolutionary shifts if we want to devise a chronological account?

My best advice for choosing a field of study is asking yourself how you want to answer that question. Or how you think it would be possible to answer that question.

Because from what you're describing, you want to be able to look at prehistoric social factors and see if consciousness changed in relation to social changes. To me, the obvious field for looking at those factors would be archaeology, or possibly bioarchaeology/physical anthropology depending on how far back you want to look. But those field won't really be able to address the consciousness part of your question, since neither can really deal with individuals or their their thoughts that far back.

>>2641539
>skip philosophy

college philosophy courses dipshit. I literally suggested some text for you.

>you're defining "consciousness" as just having brain functions and being able to solve problems and make calculations
>consciousness as self-consciousness
>and the capacity for introspection

I never attempted to define consciousness except to broaden the scope of it's affect. You define consciousness as itself, and the capacity for introspection is part of healthy brain function but cannot be said to be consciousness.

>chronological emergence of consciousness

lol impossible to tell until technology advances beyond our current conceptual boundaries.

>rigorously structured logic won't help me think clearly about abstracts
>It is evidently the case that political pressures and cultural movements can mold and shape consciousness in the relevant sense.

Obviously not, you complete sophomore. How do you "shape consciousness" as is evidently the case. Along what kind of manifold or would that shaping take place?

>is were such social forces formative for the development of consciousness in the relevant sense, or should we rather turn to earlier evolutionary shifts if we want to devise a chronological account?

Seems to me like you need to work on your definition of consciousness a little bit then come back. Maybe do some more reading.

>I wonder what geometry has to do with chemistry and neural meta-structures
>I wonder what symbolic logic has to do with neural impulses, action potential, and synaptic pathways

GET GOOD