Did labor really create a person?

Until now, the question of the emergence and role of labor in the emergence and formation of a person is on the agenda for the reason that a number of living beings also work quite intensively, having, moreover, one can say, an ideal organization of labor with its division into appropriate groups and individuals, but not having, at the same time, brains, achieving, nevertheless, the highest efficiency of their efforts. What, then, is the difference between the human labor and the labor of other beings in essence? And did labor create a person at all, or did a person create his own version of labor?

Key words: labor, consciousness, self-consciousness, dissatisfaction, alive, person, progress, information.

F. Engels most expressively and definitely is expressed about the role of labor in the appearance of a person: "First labour, after it and then with it speech – these were the two most essential stimuli under the influence of which the brain of the ape gradually changed into the man, which, for all its similarity is far larger and more perfect"[1].
Such categorical definition of a very complex and ambiguous process of the appearance of a person from the animal world immediately raises doubts about its adequacy, since the creatures of this world are also not idle, but they cannot transition themselves into a state similar to human.
In addition, Engels, as proof of his assumption, makes rather banal arguments in his obviousness, such as the transition of the monkey to a straight gait and the release of its forelimbs [1].
These signs cannot be denied, since they are indeed inherent in hominids, and then in a person himself, but they are also inherent in a number of mammals, such as kangaroos, kangaroo rats, bonobo monkeys, and even - some species to dinosaurs, such as archosauriformes and maniraptors.
However, all these highly developed creatures over tens of millions of years have not been able to begin to transform themselves into humans, despite the fact that they often had to get food with the help of their forelimbs and even use primitive tools for this.
In other words, similar arguments about the appearance of a person from a monkey, which developed into a person only as a result of upright and the use of forelimbs, indicate only the possibility of using these properties for the most effective labor efforts, but not in any way the basis for the transformation of a monkey into a person.
Moreover, usual rats, which are not distinguished by bipedalism, are able to make surprisingly reasonable and effective efforts to obtain food and optimal functioning of their communities, and also have extraordinary adaptability to all changing conditions and outstanding survivability.
That is, it is absolutely certain that for all these adaptively developed and quite well-thinking animals, as demonstrated by tens of millions of years of their existence in the unchanged position of performing all the same functions, there is no basis for transforming these purely the adaptive creatures into the creative beings, already capable of consciously transforming the world around them, and it, in turn, which is impossible without knowing this world to strengthen power over it.
The emergence and development of computer technologies has shown that the basis for the clear and definite performance of specific functions, which include various types of labor, is the corresponding programs.
All types of labor are, in essence, a way of interaction of a living being with the environment for life in it, without going beyond the order established by the program. And the very desire of living beings to preserve their lives in accordance with this order is conditioned by their receipt of sensations that distinguish life from the emptiness of non-existence, with which some species of animals are familiar from hibernation or fainting. It is sensations, first of all, that give the fullness of life, and thinking only regulates their flow as far as possible.
Therefore, for all living beings, the program of growth and development is configured purely to receive sensations that give the impression of being in life, but nothing more. According to this program, located in the genome of each cell of the body, all living beings fight to preserve sensations, and everything else, in particular, problems of cognition, culture, morality, are not included in their "diet," that is, they are all programmed only to get sensations, which they succeed with different success, adapting to the environment.
In other words, all living things are, as it were, inside the environment, being a kind of atoms or dynamic components of this environment, pushing in it for a prize in the form of sensations, and not reflections about such life.
They are not able to go outside, but they would be able if, in addition to the first program, an additional program appeared in the genome that would allow them arbitrary considerations with appropriate arbitrary actions to achieve their goals in addition to the developed instincts and reflexes.
It was such program that appeared when a suitable candidate arose, capable of arbitrary thinking and arbitrary actions.
Such a candidate was one of the upright creatures, which was the most developed in relation to the production of various actions, as Engels quite correctly noted.
It remains only to assume how this additional program appeared in the genome of one or more species of upright monkeys.
There are few options here: a random change in the genome as a result of mutations or a targeted change in the genome.
As for randomness, it is extremely unlikely, since the genome is too complex to relatively quickly transform it into the desired form in an uncontrolled way precisely when a sufficiently developed upright primate appeared.
Therefore, it was not without an outside designer.
But where did outside designer come from?
Relatively recently (2001-2003), the Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom tried to answer this question with his matrix hypothesis, expressing the consideration that the world is a simulation adjusted to the perception of a person, that is, a kind of computer programmer forms all the objects of our world [2].
Bostrom and his followers believe that a super-powerful computer controlled by some otherworldly creature using appropriate programs can produce a whole world, like a computer game, and instill in the newly educated inhabitants of this false reality such a consciousness in which they will perceive everything around as objective reality, and will live in it, not suspecting that this reality is just a computer illusion.
This consideration by Bostrom and his followers amply demonstrates their highly materialistic notion of consciousness as a derivative of the world of things. Therefore, they all believe that such simplified system of Creation can be created artificially and it is easy to manipulate it the way the creator of this virtual world wants.
They also do not think about the fact that the inhabitants of the matrix, in essence, should be disposable, since in virtual reality the reproduction of its inhabitants with the corresponding transfer of the properties of the parents' genomes to the next generation without the presence of consciousness in these inhabitants, dictating all the actions of a living being, and not vice versa, and not from something external, is impossible.
Therefore, there is no point in talking about a virtual world with conscious inhabitants in it, who are controlled by a highly developed programmer from another reality, who are nothing more than puppets, incapable of any development. But development in the environment known to us cannot be denied.
In addition, the materialist Bostrom could not answer the question: where did the very first programmer come from?
Indeed, there was nowhere for him to come from except from self-propelled matter, which somehow produced this super-intelligent programmer, especially since none of the materialists explained how this matter appeared from nothing in a state of self-motion.
That is, Bostrom's hypothesis about the construction of a person and humanity in the manner of disposable soldiers by some programmer does not seem valid.
Besides Engels and Bostrom, a lot has been was said about the role of labor in the emergence of a person in the relevant communities and its role in the progressive motion of humanity, but, as the saying goes, "the cart is still there". The reason for this state of affairs in such an important aspect, one must assume, lies in insufficient attention to the rather obvious difference between the consciousness of a person and the consciousness of any other being, as well as between the collectivist consciousness of the human communities and the collective consciousness of communities of other living beings.
So, what is the main difference between the well-organized work of, for example, ants, for their own life support with a clear distribution of workers in certain niches to perform the functions necessary for the community, and the labor duties of a person? And why do ants not even need individual brains to perform their functional duties, which, however, are replaced by a system of fairly complex internal connections - in this case, they are performed by the nervous system - and external connections - signaling, on a field basis?
In essence, the considerations and actions of ants are determined by nothing other than the lower - natural form of consciousness in the individual form of an ant - minimally, and in the collective - maximally, leading the corresponding community of living beings, depending on their level of development, gradually by trial and error to the optimal adaptation of the community to the environment based on instincts and reflexes initiated by the dissatisfaction of the creature with what it has, which is aimed at, at a minimum, surviving, and at a maximum - changing its presence in beingness in the direction of improving nutrition and organizing a safer existence.
At the same time, some of these initially primitive communities can achieve such an optimal organization of their efforts to adapt to the environment that they stop there, completely satisfied with this position, that is, preserving themselves in it. In addition to ants or termites, bees and corals are distinguished by this property. True, in this case, one can forget about further development and improvement.
However, another part of living beings is on the path of dividing into two main groups - gregarious ones, which passively graze, consuming this or that flora, and a more active group of creatures - predators, which consume not plants, but the gregarious ones themselves, thereby receiving in the created antagonism and at the same time a certain forced fusion of both groups, as well as in the competition of predators, an impulse for their own complication and development, which is already going quite quickly, eventually reaching primates, which have occupied, a kind of intermediate position, being both herbivores and predators in energy consumption.
That is, primates managed to "suck two mothers", as it were, combining both types of consumption, and along with that - passivity in the form of lazy pastime, when food is available in abundance, with activity in the form of vigorous activity, stimulated by hunger or deteriorating natural conditions. Therefore, they found themselves in the most advantageous position compared to other living creatures in terms of adaptation to the environment, collecting, when there was no other prey, everything edible, even roots and berries, and also catching and devouring weaker living creatures when such an opportunity arose, even to the point of cannibalism.
Nevertheless, these complexly organized creatures were also controlled by the same natural consciousness, acting only for the sake of adaptation to the environment based on instincts and reflexes.
Thus, the development of living beings seemed to have stopped on primates due to the fact that natural consciousness had exhausted its capabilities within the framework of the adaptive existence of living beings.
If we recall that any living being contains a triple apparatus for perception, processing, storage and transmission of information in the form of sensory organs (sensors for capturing signals), a center for processing captured signals (internal biological computer of one type or another) and a program for controlling the interaction of a living being with the environment, which, in particular, ensures the metabolism, growth and development of a living being in certain forms (genome) over a certain calendar period, which depends on the ability of a living being to perceive information without its catastrophic distortion, which is determined mainly by the accumulation of failures of various types both in the complex cellular basis of the organism, and in its parts and as a whole.
However, the active in the form of consciousness of living beings, by definition, is not capable of freezing forever on what has been achieved, namely, on an optimal system of one kind or another, which is only suitable for adaptation in its functioning in the environment. It is obvious that, in principle, not only the reaction of a living being to the impact of the environment in the direction of adaptation to this environment is possible, but also the opposite - a purposeful impact on the environment to adapt it to the needs and interests of a living being, which already goes beyond instincts and reflexes.
That is, the obstacle to this reverse reaction of a living being during its interaction with the environment, or to a more productive use of information coming into the sense organs for its own development, is the program on the biological carrier in each cell of the organism (genome), which is general in its adjustment to the adaptive coexistence of living beings with the environment surrounding them.
From this follows only one conclusion: the matter can be corrected by introducing into the genome another – additional program, which will already provide a conscious impact of a living being on the environment in order to achieve pre-set goals, corresponding not so much to the consumption of pleasant energy resources, but to the satisfaction of the interests of this being, which gradually become more and more diverse in the course of its activity, first, for the sake of increasing the efficiency of using own surrounding, and then achieving the desire to know oneself and the world around, which, in turn, further increases this efficiency.
In this case, the volume and speed of information consumed increase many times over, stimulating, first of all, the development of the information processing center, the volume of which in a person has increased five times compared to the brain of primates, and its structure has become more complex in accordance with the solution of new problems that were previously absent, and, therefore, the ability of consciousness to develop not only within the relatively narrow framework of adaptability, but also beyond its vast limits has increased, which, in turn, began to be reflected in the ever greater absorption of information flows by this new creature - dual in its consciousness.
Thus, the introduction of an additional program into the genome provides the opportunity for additional development of both the living being itself in its new guise, and provides an immense scope for the development of consciousness in this new being in its generations and changing civilizations with endless variations in changes in mood, considerations, thoughts, interests and aspirations of these beings during their interaction.
Let us also note that if before the appearance of a person the labor efforts of all living beings were limited only to life support with the consumption of suitable energy resources, drawn by them from the environment with complete subordination to it without any reflection, that is, as only dynamic elements of this environment, then the new creature, thanks to an additional program introduced into its genome, turns out to be already capable of subordinating this environment to solve its own problems - first in the form of hominids for the expanded consumption of the same resources, and then, already in a more developed form (a person), gradually move on to the creation of culture, technology and science.
True, the question of how this additional program appeared in the upright developed primate remains forever hanging, but one thing is clear - it could not have appeared spontaneously, for example, during the development of monkeys over the course of only several tens of millions of years, since the complexity of the genome in this part is such that chance is practically excluded here, since the appearance of this program as a result of mutations initiating arbitrary actions requires much more orders of time, and, moreover, puts chance in the foreground, not regularity. But the world is not ruled by random phenomena.
Thus, it cannot be said that labor created a person, since labor in the form of organizing that other type of consumption of resources that give the creature energy for action and reproduction has always existed in living beings, but was limited only by their desire to adapt to the environment in order to keep themselves in it in order to receive sensations, and not empty non-existence. So labor in the form of the forced functioning of living beings in a certain way in the environment provided precisely the process of obtaining specific sensations, preferably pleasant, but was in no way aimed at turning a feeling being into one that thinks speculative and generally.
A creature capable of the latter, and therefore of knowing the environment, also did not appear immediately. It took several million years. In this process, the largely automatic labor for the sake of staying in the habitat was gradually supplemented by labor more associated with obtaining various benefits from the environment - clothing, tools, everyday life and other things that make life easier due to various efforts associated more with sagacity and ingenuity, and not only with skills developed over millennia.
That is, it is also impossible to state the opposite - the absence of the influence of labor on the formation of a creature close to modern person.
Only, now, this labor was already somewhat different: it was to a certain extent the result of the transformation of primates into a new creature thanks to the introduction of an additional program into the genome of the most developed primates, which guaranteed the gradual formation of this new being of self-consciousness, thanks to which it was able to break out of the complete enslavement of the environment to the scope of using this environment as in its own interests, and to achieve their own goals, which could be far from simply foraging, breeding and dominating the flock.
This is the result of the emergence of an additional program in the genome of this new creature in the most perfect species of primates. If previously labor was reduced, in essence, to one or another method of obtaining resources that provide energy for life, and this extraction was carried out on the basis of instincts and reflexes, now an opportunity arose to join the project-target type of labor, as well as arbitrary actions for the sake of entertainment and other useless actions, which, nevertheless, often led to unexpected social and personal benefits, which later became known as culture.
Thus, for the new living being, labor gradually began to disintegrate into two components - one of them is obligatory, but routine, the other is based on interests and goals, which are separated from only the struggle for existence, which dominates in the living world.
The first type of labor, by definition, is not capable of leading a being to consciously-creative impacts on the environment to change its own existence, since the corresponding program in the genome was configured only for the adaptive existence of the being, while an additional program in the same genome already contributes to going beyond the limits of this adaptive existence, providing the opportunity to work both purposefully and arbitrarily, depending on the mood, surrounding and abilities, comparatively quickly leading a person in his communities to all benefits of civilization with the flourishing of culture, science and technology within its framework.
The result of this process is the consumption of immeasurably larger volumes of information flows compared to the previous ones, accelerating the development of the human communities up to the emergence of civilization.
However, the same increasing flows of information over time begin to exceed the capabilities of the human brain, making civilization unstable, and it disintegrates, reducing a person in his communities to the previous state of relations with nature, close to survival in it, but since the human genome does not change, then a person in his communities does not lose the opportunity to again use his additional program in the genome for development, so much different from the a slowed development of the animal world.
And all starts again, thus ensuring a discrete but infinite development of consciousness in the human communities, which has no limit, since living beings in a person have managed to go beyond the limits of adaptability.
It should also be noted: there is, of course, no limit to the change and development of consciousness, but this development can only occur within the framework of the current time, and inanimate objects are not capable of forming it due to the absence of corresponding structural features that manifest themselves in the presence of consciousness, as was shown above.
That is, the change and development of consciousness can occur exclusively within the framework of biological nature, the pinnacle of which is a person, since only the living beings are capable of forming the current time, which is thus artificial, but contributing to extracting thereby both consciousness and everything else from non-existence, since they are the ones capable of reacting to information flows, converting them into material objects known to us, and not, for example, the artificial intelligence, which is not independent in its functioning and must be configured, managed and controlled by someone. That is, all other forms of matter are informationally useless, or rather, the inanimate can only be a carrier of information.
The living organisms, the only ones of all that are in existence, possess subjectivity, that is, they consciously, but at different levels, possess information, if, of course, we understand by information the data on the state of objects surrounding the organism, which it recognizes with the means it has.
Information, as such, is absent for all non-living objects (things), since they do not have the means to recognize, or rather, to form the environment, namely, there are no sense organs, no centers that process data coming through receptors in such a way that a changing environment is formed around, in which one can live, reproduce, maintain the existence of one's own kind, develop and at the same time compete with other living beings for the right to occupy various niches of life, at first without realizing it, and then quite consciously in the face of a person.
In other words, without the ability to perceive and produce information, it is impossible to manifest anything, even if this is available in a hidden state.
Therefore, in order for a "structure", in which one can live, was able to manifest, organisms are required that are capable of extracting, processing and producing information, and converting it into a current time in which they themselves could exist within the framework of internal and external spheres suitable for life.
Only under these conditions, which living beings themselves create on certain foundations, can they feel, think and act, passing the baton to subsequent living organisms, which, as a result of random changes in the genome (programs recorded on protein molecules), can better adapt to the changing environment.
The interaction of the living beings with each other and the environment is not carried out without certain efforts, which for the most developed representatives of the natural world are quite variety of forms of adaptive labor, which is mainly reduced, nevertheless, to the extraction of energy resources for their own existence, whereas for a person in his communities, labor is characterized by both an adaptive or forced form of work, and its project-oriented form with a possible manifestation of creativity.
Thus, it must be stated that, apart from the living beings that combine the active (consciousness) and the passive (inanimate matter), and are thus able to place themselves in the current time on an informational basis, there is no one to “build” and maintain in a “working” state a system in which these beings can discretely exist, reproduce and develop, simultaneously providing the opportunity for consciousness to continuously change and develop in them.
You can become familiar in more detail with my hypothesis about the emergence of a person, for example, in work “The person – a product of evolution?! Whether everything is so clear here?!” [3].

Bibliography

1. F. Engels. The part played by labour in the transition from ape to man. Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1934.
2. Nick Bostrom. (April 2003). “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation” Philosophical Quarterly. 53(211): 243-255.
3. Nizovtsev Yu. The person – a product of evolution?! Whether everything is so clear here?! 14.12.2019. [Electronic resource]. Access mode: Amazon).