• Question: What is the average age of Consciousness and why do we not have a sudden realisation of it and recognise it when we have it?

    Asked by gavins to Fiona, Jane, Joanna, Michelle, William on 18 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Jane Henry

      Jane Henry answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Humans are all conscious from birth but what we are conscious of changes, it takes a while for babies to move from seeing colours and shapes to recognising that objects like a table or the sky. When young children are often conscious of what they want but find it hard to understand the others persons point of view, as they grow up they get better at this. Humans are conscious of themselves, like chimpanzees they recognise themselves in a mirror. Surprisingly few animals seem capable of selfconsciousness.

    • Photo: Joanna Brooks

      Joanna Brooks answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Hello again. Consciousness literally means to ‘be aware’. Some people think that humans are conscious even when they are in the womb and many people think that consciousness is the same thing as just being alive. So it’s difficult to put an average age on consciousness because it depends on what it means to you. In the same way, it’s quite difficult to suddenly realise it or recognise it because we simply ‘are’ conscious and it happens as soon as we are born. It’s a very old debate in philosophy! Interesting question.

    • Photo: Michelle Murphy

      Michelle Murphy answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Most animals are conscious from birth so it become just the norm and what we are used to and we dont need a sudden realisation of having it unlike arms and legs which are hugely entertaining to babies when the discover them.

    • Photo: Fiona Randall

      Fiona Randall answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hi gavins, that is a really good question and I’m not sure I know the answer to it. Do you mean consciousness for our actions? Like when do we feel bad when we hurt someone? Or consciousness as in just being awake as our brains our conscious even before we are born. If you mean the first kind, then it is in childhood when you learn to know how to share/how to play nicely etc and is I think around 3 or 4 years old.

    • Photo: William Davies

      William Davies answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Fantastic question! Humans develop a superior level of self-awareness (essentially consciousness) to most other mammals in the early years (between the ages of about 2-3yrs). We probably don’t realise it as it happens very gradually as the neurons in the brain connect up. Even if we did realise it suddenly, at that age we would find it impossible to communicate our feelings to the outside world given our limited vocabulary

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