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22. Every Experience Is Motor

[COLVIN, S. S., The Learning Process, pp. 14-15. Copyright, 1911, by the Macmillan Co.] (Adapted.)

In describing the consciousness of a child in a very new situation, James characterized it as "a big, blooming, buzzing, confusion." The adult has a similar experience when he emerges from a depot in a strange city. The child's sense organs are assailed on all sides by a large variety of stimuli. As his sense organs are functioning in a more or less perfect way, his experiences are more or less vague. It is just as important that proper connections be perfected in the higher centers as it is for the sense organs to be capable of response to stimulation.

In many instances, such connections are lacking at birth. In order to perceive the objects of his environment, the child must react to them. It has been recognized for a long time that all learning is reacting. Sense impressions must be carried over into motor expression. In other words, every completed experience is motor as well as sensory. The objective world is to be reacted to as well as sensed, and its meaning grows and develops as the reactions become more comprehensive, definite, and precise.

23. Characteristic of Consciousness

[BODE, B. H., Fundamentals in Education, p. 216. Copyright, 1921, by the Macmillan Co. Reprinted by permission.]

Consciousness is essentially experimental, forward looking, controlled by the future.

24. Consciousness and the Learning Process [KILPATRICK, W. H., "Mind-Set and Learning," Journal of Educational Method, 1921, Vol. 1, p. 150.]

Indeed, it [consciousness] is an important factor. Its function here is at least three-fold: first, to connect more surely and definitely the various responses with their several appropriate stimuli, second, to attach satisfactions or annoyances more precisely where they severally belong, and third, by emphatic attention to heighten the satisfaction or annoyance felt. It is for these reasons, among others, that we are most

anxious that pupils think while they act and consciously intend the several steps they take.

25. The Field of Mental Content

The field of mental content has been likened to an iceberg, of which only a small portion is visible above the surface of the water. In the same way, only a small portion of mental content is above the threshold of consciousness. The field of mental states includes the focus of attention, the marginal fringe, and an ultra-marginal field known as the subconscious or the unconscious. The subconscious or unconscious denotes any form of psychical existence which underlies the personal consciousness.

26. Mind

[THORNDIKE, E. L., The Elements of Psychology, pp. 1 ff., 92 ff., 111 ff. New York, A. G. Seiler, copyright, 1907.] (Adapted.)

Mind is neither a single force nor a collection of unrelated powers. Mind is a term used to denote the sum-total of mental states and processes in a lifetime. Consciousness is a term used to denote the sum-total of these states and processes at any given moment. Sensations, images, feelings, meanings, and actions serve to illustrate what is meant by these terms. When certain of these states or functions are grouped in one form or pattern, the process is perception; when arranged in another form, imagination; and in other forms-memory, reasoning, and so on. Emotion and will are complex patterns involving combinations and modifications of other elements. It is for convenience that we speak of different kinds of mental facts for consciousness is made up of various blends and combinations of thought-stuff. As Thorndike says:

"Mental life is not like a series of solos, now sensations, now memories, now decisions; but is like the performance of an orchestra in which many sounds fuse into a total."

27. The Significance of Consciousness in Evolution [JUDD, Charles H., "Evolution and Consciousness," The Psychological Review, March, 1910. Vol. 17, pp. 77-97.] (Abridged.)

[There are those who] tell us that nothing significant is added to the concept of adjustment or to the concept of

behavior by discussing psychical factors. All behavior is a simple sensory-motor process; those types of conduct which the unscientific man is wont to think of as intelligent and extra-organic are merely complex instincts or at most combinations of reflexes acquired under the stress of external excitations. . . . I shall hope to show in strictly objective terms that consciousness is a product of evolution which continues in a higher form the movement which is manifest in all earlier adaptations. I shall hope to show further that as soon as consciousness was fully evolved the direction of all adaptation was radically modified. Finally, I should like to defend the thesis that if any scientific explanation of human life is to be attained that explanation must be based on a thoroughgoing study of consciousness. . . . The processes of human adaptation are different from those of animal adaptation just because human adaptation is determined in character by consciousness.

...

There has been a steady increase in the complexity of organisms. . . . What is the significance of this increase in complexity? The lesson is perfectly clear when we look at the concrete facts. By an increase in complexity the organism attains to an ever increasing degree of self-sufficience.

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Every organ of the complex animal bears witness to the rtuth that inner self-sufficiency is the end toward which organic evolution has been progressing. There are organs for the storing of energy so that the individual shall be relatively free from the necessity of securing immediate nutrition. There are organs for the secretions of chemical reagents which shall convert the raw material used as food into proper ingredients for the building up of body tissues. Organisms have always exhibited in their higher forms organs of mobility which make them free to move at their own initiative.

In all these cases the obvious significance of increasing complexity is increasing autonomy of the individual. . . . What is stated is that organisms are drawn out of the environment, that is, they are in ever-increasing degree differentiated from the environment during their more and more complete evolution.

Such considerations as these prepare us to understand the importance of consciousness. Consciousness is a function which promotes self-sufficiency by literally taking up the environment into the individual [as in the case of the embryonic development of the young in utero] and there remolding the absorbed environment in conformity to individual needs. Consciousness is an inner world where the motives of individual self

sufficiency are dominant. . . . The self-sufficiency of the conscious being thus becomes an accomplished fact through ultimate subjugation of the environment. Consciousness is no less a fact than the inner standard temperature of the body. In both cases evolution has prepared an inner set of conditions in which life is more advantageously promoted. In the case of consciousness, however, the evolutionary process has gone so far as to produce a function which changes the whole balance of the world and puts the environment in a very real sense of the word under the control of the inner organized being. . . .

Thus far I have emphasized the importance of consciousness as a means toward the end of conquering the environment. There is, however, another phase of the matter which calls for our attention before we shall have a complete account of the significance of consciousness for the explanation of human life. There are certain human functions [e.g., language, art, writing, etc.] which grow up as supports to consciousness. These functions are not directly related to the physical environment and would never have been perfected at a level of life where mere preservation of individual existence is the chief end of animal endeavor. These supporting or secondary functions serve the purpose of self-preservation only indirectly through consciousness. Chief among such functions is language.

[Language] originates as a mode of emotional expression, purely individualistic in its importance. Gradually it takes on through imitation a social character, and, finally, when society comes to be made up of beings capable of holding ideas in consciousness, language becomes a means of refining and exchanging ideas. Language never was a useful function in the direct struggle with the physical world. The man who can shout the loudest is in no wise thereby aided in enduring the hardships of cold and privation. Shouting is useful for a totally different type of adaptation. The shouter is a very valuable link in social adaptations and social adaptations are valuable in that they refine consciousness and make for more elaborate organizations of the human forces which shall conquer nature. This is what was meant when it was pointed out a few moments ago that language is a secondary or indirect factor in the struggle for existence.

When language is evolved as a secondary function supporting consciousness in its operations, there arises a new realm of fact. I know of no more vivid way of putting the matter than to say that man lives primarily in the world of words. In this

world of words he carries out most of his adjustments. He feels the force of the physical environment now and then when he comes into contact with its harsh demands, but for the most part he works over and over with all his energies, words, and conscious relations.

If we add to our consideration of oral language, the consideration of other devices such as writing and coins and bills of exchange whereby we support conscious operations as they deal with the world of physical facts at long range, we see how man has built himself a special world in which he moves. This special world is the most unique product of evolution and it is also the most effective device which has ever been produced for subjugating the physical environment to human needs. How any student of the world of human life could be content to study this life by means of a formula borrowed from the realm of animal evolution, passes my understanding. Man lives in a world of language, of indirect conscious modes of attack upon his physical environment. Man spends his energies developing indirect methods of attacking nature. He no longer cultivates new strength with which to pass through floods. He develops rather a science of engineering and indirect mechanical devices which shall raise him into a world where there are no floods. And yet we find our students of human life solemnly talking about the biological conception of society and its parallelism between society and the lower organisms. The fact is that the science of human life needs a formula derived from a study of the relation of consciousness to the struggle for selfsufficiency.

How completely the evolution of consciousness has removed human life from the level of animal modes of contact with the world is seen by the contemplation of human art. We derive from art the kind of satisfaction which comes from catching a glimpse into the conscious life of a fellow being. Art carries over from man to man the inner possibilities of rearranging the physical environment. A painting, for example, lets us see how the artist selected from the images offered to him by the outer world, and how he grouped these images for the purposes of his own conscious satisfaction. A painting is of value as a means of arousing our powers of conscious rearrangement of the world. Art is, from the purely biological point of view, of no immediate adaptive value, and yet it is recognized as one of the highest achievements of human life. What is needed here is just such an extension of the biological formula as we have

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