As life evolved the first development of consciousness would be simple awareness. Simple organisms would be able to sense their surroundings firstly through touch and later through the development of other senses. These senses would allow them to move about and find food sources more readily and consequently was fundamental to survival. However merely sensing the presence of objects, including other animals, would not help them much if they were about to be eaten by a predator. An animal also needs to have a reaction to the sense information that would indicate that there was some danger to the animal. Subsequently the first budding of emotional interpretation would evolve. Early organisms would sense a shape of a predator and their emotional interpretation would indicate fear and therefore danger from this shape. They could then take action to flee or to fight, increasing their chances of survival. As this has evolutionary advantages, emotional interpretation of sense awareness would continue to develop in the organism.

While the first emotion to evolve was fear, and related emotions, over time other emotional states would also evolve if they had evolutionary advantages.

One of these emotional states that would evolve is happiness. This raises the question about what is the evolutionary advantage of happiness. This can be answered simply - if an animal is happy then it is going to do more to survive than if it is unhappy. A happy life is of more value to the animal so the animal is going to fight more ferociously or flee faster to maintain its happy life. Consequently through evolutionary selection more happy creatures will survive than unhappy. Over time happiness and contentment will become the norm.

I am not seeking to overthrow the theory of "Survival of the Fittest" (7) with "Survival of Happiest". Rather, that happiness is an element of an animal's fitness to survive.

Please take a moment to consider the implications of this. Due to evolution the natural state of animals is happiness. The birds in the forest are happy. Their twittering is not just meaningless noise or, as I have heard others argue, solely an angst ridden cry marking out their territory and scaring off rivals, although some of the twittering may be associated with territorial claims and scaring off rivals. Their twittering is mainly the noise of happy creatures. They are indeed singing. Similarly for other animals, their natural state is happiness. While most animals do not usually vocalise their emotional state like birds, that would tell predators where they are located, I contend that in their natural state they too are happy.

As we are also creatures that developed by evolution our natural state is also a state of happiness.

However it is also necessary to look at what is likely to be causing that happiness. As already stated, happiness is an emotional state and emotions are effected by the input from sense awareness or thought. In animals happiness probably won't be created by thought processes, as we humans believe that thought processes in animals are at a much more rudimentary level than in us.

Could animals have an innate happiness? That is possible but I would have to ask whether that would that be effective from an evolutionary standpoint? If an animal is happy all the time for no reason at all then it may well be happy just before it is eaten rather than being concerned with fighting or fleeing. From an evolutionary stand point that is of no advantage. And if happiness was innate in animals it would be unlike any other emotion (e.g. fear, surprise, and anger) all of which require external input, be it from awareness sense input or Thought.

In animals there most likely needs to be an Awareness input to generate the emotional state of happiness. It also needs to be fairly long term, as being happy for say five minutes of the day only is not much of an evolutionary survival incentive. On this basis I contend that for a higher level animal living in a natural surrounding most of its awareness sense inputs can be interpreted by Emotion on the positive side of the happiness continuum, if there is nothing else blocking that process. I say most because not all of the sense inputs will bring emotions on the positive side of the happiness continuum. As already explored fear is invoked by dangerous situations. Also if an animal is in an environment where it is deprived of something required for life, for example in the case of a drought where food and water is short and hunger is present then happiness would not be the result. If it is in pain for any reason then happiness is not the result. However fortunately these situations would be rarer than other natural states, so happiness would be more prevalent.

Animals all achieve a certain level of happiness from simply experiencing their awareness sense inputs: sight, touch, smell, hearing and taste, especially when they are living in unspoilt natural environments.

And this process also applies to our evolutionary forebears, early humans. By simply experiencing their environment fully, experiencing the input from the five senses was enough to achieve a level of happiness. And this process is still available today, to us if we care to be aware of it and to use it.

I speculate that it is through this evolutionary process that humans developed the appreciation of, firstly, natural beauty and then all beauty. It made our ancestors happy and provided incentive for survival. And today there is no doubt that when we are in beautiful surroundings most people can obtain the feeling of contentment and happiness. The process by which this can be reliably achieved will be discussed later.

However this raises the question: if happiness is the natural state in humans as well as animals then why aren't humans continually happy? Where did we go wrong?

There are two aspects that need to be considered in answering this question:

as humans evolved they began to live in groups; and
with the development of thought in humans, awareness as a source of happiness is often drowned out by thought processes.

Living in a group offered the individual a survival premium that was greater than the survival premium of simple happiness from awareness. As discussed previously if an individual wants to stay in the group they need to conform to group norms, and thought processes would start which were to continually assess the individual's conformity to the norms of the group. These thoughts make up a large proportion of Self Thought processes and result in the many problems listed in Part 1, Consciousness.

I also believe that being in a group in itself evolved to be a source of happiness. While being in a group gives a survival premium, that is not sufficient in itself to make the group a really strong social structure. If it was just a matter of the group providing safety for the individual then people may just relate in the manner that afforded the group and the individual the greatest protection. Perhaps organisation along military lines would be the most efficient for this. However there would not necessarily be much enjoyment from that form of organisation, at least not for many people. Or perhaps they would relate mainly as individuals and only come together at times and in situations where there is danger or the potential for danger. Clearly this is not the way most individuals actually relate in groups. The social structure of the family and the community is in itself a source of happiness that will be discussed later.

As thought processes evolved they provided humanity with a significant survival advantage. However there was also a cost. As previously mentioned thought can readily fill the Consciousness Vessel, forcing out awareness and its potential for providing happiness. The means of addressing this so we can rediscover the full potential of awareness as a source of happiness is dealt with in the next sections.

Next Page - Conscious Awareness

Notes:

7. See Wikipedia Survival of the Fittest

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