The second half of Lost in the Cosmos comes directly after a lengthy section on semiotics, or the science of signs as communication tools for creatures. For humans, signs are not just a communication tool meant to exhibit a concept such as “danger” or “hunger,” as it may be for other creatures (Percy, 96). Rather, signs take on a social dimension when employed by humans. The meaning of a sign may be different depending on its usage in a particular setting. This is basically a triadic relationship in semiotics for humans, which can be summarized as a relationship between a signifier, referent, and an individual (Percy, 95). This relationship carries with it a particular problem. For the signifier, the sign-user, the naming and defining of things means that their environment exists not only as place comprised of natural, physical actions and reactions; it is a world of signs (Percy, 101). Here is the dilemma. Humans can identify everything in the universe except for one. Themselves. Humans can never be a sign semiotically speaking; there is no “sign of the self” (Percy, 107). Percy asserts that this is a byproduct of self-awareness, the exile from Eden (Percy, 108). The inability of humans to identify what they are drives them mad. I mention the section on semiotics only because the entire rest of the text is devoted to the outcome of self-awareness. In particular, the two space odysseys are thought experiments by Percy speculating how the individual views themselves in light of this dilemma. The first space odyssey involves an interstellar trip to the third planet of Proxima Centauri; the second chronicles a return trip to earth after the world has been ravaged by nuclear war. My question follows generally from the second half of the text. Early on in the second half, Percy mentions how research attempting to establish language in various animals, such as the gorilla, through communication has been largely disproven (Percy, 169). This, along with the space odysseys, led me to postulate what would be required for an organism to be self-aware. An article published in Scientific American references a UCLA medical report dealing with this issue, particularly in patients that have suffered traumatic brain injuries and children with hydranencephaly. This is my question.
Are individuals, who have lost all manner of complex brain function, along with the ability to communicate, self aware? If so, then why?
utopos et eutopos 
No they are not self aware. They have feeling but they do not know what the feeling are. They have to complex brain function so that have no understanding of what is happening around them or what there feeling are.
We need to establish exactly what you all mean by “complex brain function”. What if a person had self-awareness and then suffered head trauma and lost the ability to communicate? Would you say that the person has lost all memory of their self? I think not. I do not claim to be a neurologist but I think awareness of self and “higher brain function” are not as synonymous as you think.
I believe that in order to be self-aware there needs to be some level of consciousness that the brain can work with. You cannot be aware let alone self-aware if you do not have the mental capacity for consciousness. If all the complex brain functions are lost then what can the body really do? I believe Morpheus said it in the Matrix that the body cannot live without the mind and it is true because the mind does pretty much everything for us right down to letting the heart beat without us having to think about it. Without a mind that has its complex functions the body is pretty much a zombie with no self-awareness or any kind of awareness. The only way a person can have any level of awareness is through consciousness and to be able to have any level of consciousness a person would need to have a fully functioning brain to separate it from mindless zombies.
Though I find your analysis of self-awareness to be accurate, I don’t necessarily agree that there can be no body without a mind. Organically speaking we obviously could not function on our own without a brain capable of “complex brain function” but there is an aspect of technology that is missing in this scenario. Medical advancement can now keep a body alive regardless of brain function. However, even though the organic body is being kept alive the fact that the brain has lost all complex function would lead me to believe that they are no longer self-aware. I’m not really sure you could equate lack of complex brain function with being a mindless zombie. It would seem to me that if a person was lacking in complex brain function that their body would not be able to perform simple tasks like breathing or regulating heart rate and rather than being mindless “zombies”, we would most likely die.
Well, first of all, I don’t believe that we can absolutely say for sure whether an individual deprived of communication faculties is truly self-aware. By nature of being in mental isolation, one in such a situation would be unable to tell us definitively. My personal opinion is that one can be self-aware without “complex brain function” (although I would like to have that ambiguous phrase clearly defined, for the sake of effective communication in this discussion). Self-awareness is part of what distinguishes humans from animals (many of whom have consciousness). It is not about mere degrees of brain complexity; such a view would lead to a very vague definition of humanity, formed only by the arbitrary drawing of a line to intersect and divide the wide range of consciousness levels. There is something about humanity that is not only conscious but knows that it is conscious, that makes moral judgments of right and wrong, that operates in a community not by instinct but by mutual self-awareness. I think that self-awareness is a part of the human dignity that is so fundamental to our nation’s founding philosophy. If dignity is imparted by “complex brain function,” why not kill the infirm and the old, or at least leave them to die (common among animals)? As humans, our values’ roots are deeper than the profitability of an individual’s mental or physical capacity; we recognize selves and their value, whether or not that recognition is ever communicated verbally.
Before you begin asking who is and is not self-aware, we might want to establish what awareness of self actually entails. I say this because, in my opinion, there are varying levels of rational agents in our world. We human-animals obviously have the most ability for introspective analizaton. But that does not imply we are the only ones. Walker Percy does mention gorillas, but we can find awareness of self, in relation to the world, in a few interesting species that may make you question what self is. Hod lipson has an excellent TED Talk entitled, Hod lipson builds “self-aware robots”. Now you can go watch it for yourself, but the gist of the talk can be deduced from the name. So if we can create self-aware machines then are we really developing a new “smart” creature? I think not, I think awareness of self is simply a program that can be installed into any system with the right hardware. Let’s talk a little about terry shivo. She had awareness of her self but yet the only “higher thought” she could handle stopped at the relation between signs and what they’re signifying. All I am saying is awareness of self is a little broader of a spectrum then we humans would like to think.
I would like to think, in my definition of awareness of self, that a certain amount of “human nature” must be present. Humans who are at such a basic level, meaning no complex brain function are occur, may know that they exist yet not know the self exists. The reading of C.S. Lewis assigned for this course explains that what differentiates us from gorillas or animals (mentioned in the above reply) is our value systems. Although I do not have expert experience with persons who have lost these brain functions and communication skills, I assume that it is possible they can recognize signs and objects. However, I would be hard pressed to say that the individuals have a set of values ingrained in their consciousness. I’m open to other thoughts on this but thought that the C.S. Lewis comment is a good connection to be made here.
Individuals without complex brain function can be conscious but not self-aware. In the Scientific American article, Jabr explains the difference between having consciousness and self-awareness. Existing we have consciousness. However, self-awareness gives us the ability to realize our existence. Hunger can provide an example in explanation.
A tiger thinks about the stalking of her prey for food. She is conscious of the deer because her mind recognizes the deer as a sign for food (Percy 105-106). However, as a tiger she does not contemplate her place in nature’s food chain. As humans, we are conscious of hunger. However, due to our self-awareness we can view the entire spectrum of the food chain. We can weigh our food choices in regards to health or perhaps the ethics of eating meat. We are aware of our environment and the impact of our chosen actions. An infant or a person with a loss of brain function only knows the conscious feeling of hunger and the desire to satisfy the hunger. They are not self-aware. They do not contemplate the weight of their decisions or actions.
Self-awareness defines humanity or the human spark that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Therefore, the question we have is whether a person is less human if they only have consciousness and are not self-aware. We use self-awareness to differentiate ourselves from other animals however, we are very reluctant to reduce or give up our human status if we fail to be self-aware. For now, this is the right course of action. To be born human is to remain human.
I enjoyed the analogy you had between infants and those who have a loss of brain function. Actually, I think it aligns with my previous comment relating these concept to C.S. Lewis’s idea of human nature. Those with diminished brain functions do not consider decisions based off of a set of values or morals. Instead, they make simple decisions based off of their basic needs seen in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (food, water, rest). I agree with your opinion these individuals are not self aware, but do not think that you lose being “human” if you lose a brain function. Once one loses brain functions to an extent they no longer practice a set of values they lose human nature. Being a human is not something that may be taken away from someone, though. This is a tough subject to talk about as it may hit home with many of us as it did me. It may be another good point that at one time these individuals were completely functioning (unless they were born this way) and it may be possible they remember how they once were.
I really like your examples of the tiger and hunger which led me to an article of interest in relation to animals conscious versus human conscious (Linked below). Marc Bekoff argues that a “human typically knows who he or she is, say by name, and knows that ‘this body’ is his, Marc’s, or him, Marc. There’s a sense of ‘I-ness’ that’s an extension of ‘body-ness’ or ‘mine-ness.'” He goes on that “many animals know such facts as ‘this is my tail,’ ‘this is my territory,’ ‘this is my bone’…Their sense of mine-ness or body-ness is their sense of self.” While humans recognize ourselves and appropriate a value to self, it is possible that other animals do so as well, whether or not that recognition is ever communicated verbally. I agree with Bekoff that “while animals might not ponder life and death the way humans do, they still have some sense of self.” I would argue that it is plausible that some species, other than mankind, have the complex brain functions that are required for some form of self-awareness. Though because they never had the ability to communicate those concepts to humans, they can not lose that ability. The actions of mankind might seem to indicate to a being that does not understand the languages of man that mankind does not acknowledge the food chain or weigh the consequences of the food choice humans make. Regardless of our understanding of hunger, from a misunderstanding being, it might appear as though humans have no sense of self awareness either. Hence communication is vital to an understanding is self-awareness.
http://www.livescience.com/39803-do-animals-know-who-they-are.html
To determine whether or not someone who has lost all complex brain function, along with communication abilities, has the capacity to be self-aware we first need to look at what is self-awareness. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, self-awareness is defined as “knowledge and awareness of your own personality or character”. By simply looking at this definition, one can deduce that self-awareness is not a trait that someone who has lost all manner of complex brain function might possess. Complex brain function involves the capability of feeling bodily sensations, and movements, remembering events, experiencing danger and fear, and recognizing what to do in those situations (i.e. fight or flight), making decisions, planning, etc. Without complex brain functions, a person’s body might have the ability to maintain life, but that person does not have the means of recognizing who they are beyond survival. In the link to blog above “Does Self-Awareness Require a Complex Brain?”, Ferris Jabr explains that there is a difference between just being conscious and being self-aware, and that the ability to be self-aware includes the ability to think about your thoughts and be aware of your existence.
The American Science blog argues that “to be conscious is to think; to be self-aware is to realize that you are a thinking being and to think about your thoughts.” Upon reading the blog and the prompt, I first considered beings that were once self aware, but may have lost that awareness through an event such as a stroke. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA. Link attached) states that varying levels of “cognitive difficulties are common” in stroke victims. Though the level of difficulties can vary depending on the severity of the damage, problems with executive functioning can result. Examples of executive functioning skills include “goal-setting, planning, initiating, self-awareness, self-inhibiting, self-monitoring and evaluation, flexibility of thinking.” Based on the definitions proposed, I would argue that individuals that have lost certain complex brain functions are no longer self-aware and have hence been demoted, in a sense, to merely conscious (assuming the stroke was not extraordinarily severe).
ASHA.org/public/speech/disorders/stroke.htm
Like many of the people who responded, I have to question the term “complex brain functions.” I certainly think that just because someone has lost the ability to communicate does not mean he/she is no longer self aware, they may just be trapped in a non-responsive body. If you are asking whether people in a deep coma or persistent vegetative state are self-aware, then I would have to answer no. If you are implying that the ability to communicate is essential for us to be self-aware then I can’t agree. Helen Keller was completely without communication with others during her early childhood, however she was very much self-aware.
srsalt said “Individuals without complex brain function can be conscious but not self-aware.” I totally agree. Read the case of Terri Schiavo, she exhibited signs of consciousness but her brain activity was almost zero, only the most primitive prats of her brain functioned. She could not communicate because she had no thoughts, her eyes, ears, and hands seemed to work just fine. She wasn’t self aware because she could not communicate, she was not self aware because she had no mind left to process thought. Here’s a good article about persistent vegetative states:
Click to access jnnpsyc00022-0001.pdf