From Vectors of Mind - images at original.
I’m running a quick survey on people’s earliest memories. If you’ve got a moment, I’d love your input:
Why I’m Asking#
If you haven’t taken the survey, please do so before reading the rest, as I don’t want to bespoil your prestine mind with ideas.
Scott Alexander recently wrote about two competing ways to explain our “earliest memory”:
You could tell two stories about “first memories”:
Intelligence and memory gradually grow from infancy to adulthood, and eventually reach a point where people can form and preserve reflective memories. There logically has to be some first memory, so if you ask someone for their earliest memory, they can usually think of it.
There’s some moment when the developing brain suddenly shifts from a preconscious to a conscious mode of thought.
The second sounds crazy. But is it? The same thing happens all the time during lucid dreams. And if you think that eg cows aren’t conscious, and that a six-month-old is dumber than a cow, then babies must go from unconscious to conscious at some point. Is consciousness really vague enough that you can do it entirely gradually, with no first moment of “huh, that’s funny”? And what about enlightened Buddhist monks? They claim that their consciousness switches from one mode to another at a specific moment that they vividly remember forever after (and which isn’t linked to any behavioral changes that casual observers can notice!)
He focused on individuals, but I’m also curious about the species-level version: at what point in evolution did somebody first have the thought “I am” and manage to communicate that experience? Even if meta-cognition was extremely sporadic in our ancestors, this moment could have sparked a gene-culture interaction for the “seamless construction of self at a young age,” as self-awareness became table stakes to participate in culture.
If you’ve already filled out the survey—thanks! Feel free to pass the link along: https://forms.gle/tfB1Aa6hcV4W5zHn8