The Caveman in the Box Hypothesis: The Genesis of Information

First drafted 1988 published 2000 revised 2011

When Joey Lawsin was conceptualizing his Theory on Codexation,  he proposed a thought experiment with the following hypothetical premise: suppose a prehistoric child, the son of a caveman, was placed immediately after birth inside a fully enclosed six-walled room—completely isolated from the outside world, never allowed to see or hear anyone. Would this child’s paleolithic mind acquire information, materialize knowledge, and develop self-consciousness, or would it remain empty and unformed throughout the rest of his life?

This thought experiment forms the basis of the Cavemen in the Box Quadram, a scientific model designed to examine the origin, creation, and evolution of information, effectively exploring the Genesis of Information. It was designed to study how the first humans, animals, and machines on Earth could acquire, process, and internalize information under controlled or natural conditions. A parallel, observable experiment involved two dogs—a double-coated Alaskan Malamute and a smooth-coated Mexican Chihuahua—to test information acquisition and development in non-human subjects.

In the thought experiment, four subjects were isolated:

1. The first subject was a newborn son of a caveman who was placed inside a box just after he was born - a well-designed state-of-the-art, fully automated experimental room where food, water, and everything that the boy needed for his survival, growth, and development were all technologically provided just like the sustenance naturally received by a baby inside the womb or by all living things inside earth's biosphere. The boy was never allowed ever to see anyone or hear anything. He was completely isolated from the world from birth to adulthood.

2. The second subject, the first human on earth, was also placed in isolation from birth to adulthood. However, his father's box was the natural world, a place surrounded by plants, animals, and non-living things.

3. The third subject was a four-legged creature. He was also isolated from birth to adulthood with the same natural world as his adult master. The only difference between him and the caveman was that he was a dog.

4. The fourth subject was a machine. It was provided all the information to exist and interact with its surroundings. It has consciousness, emotions, intelligence, self-cognition, and all aspects of a human being. The only thing: could such a machine originate knowledge independently, or would its existence remain contingent on pre-defined computer programs?

From these four scenarios of isolation, Lawsin raised the following questions:

• Which of these four will acquire enough information?
• Which will never acquire any information at all?
• Will they become aware of themselves?
• Will they become aware of their own surrounding?
• Will they figure out that they are alive?
• Will they comprehend the things surrounding them? How?
• How many words will they learn?
• If words are not explained, how will they know and understand these words?
• Will their minds remain empty for their entire lives?
• Will they become conscious of their environments?
• If instinct is true, will instinct kick in?
• What are these instincts that they had before?
• How did these instincts develop in the first place?
• Will they consume their poo and drink their pee?
• Will they still behave and act like babies throughout their adulthood?

By examining the First Box, Lawsin inferred that the information the boy will acquire from birth to adulthood will be only confined among the following objects: the six walls, his sustenance, and his body. However, these things will never be known and understood unless someone will explain to the boy what these objects are. The boy might eventually discover his nose, his ears, his tongue, or whatever he has on his body, but this doesn't mean he will understand what these things are like just like a dog who has ears but doesn't understand what they are. This shows that the idea that a baby's brain comes with information pre-stored/pre-installed beforehand or carries some instincts from birth is a misconception. The boy's brain is actually totally empty at birth with information - a clean blank slate. Information doesn't exist in the brain yet at birth. Information must be acquired first, processed next, and thought about later. The empty brain will remain throughout adulthood until early "social" interactions with the environment are experienced.

In the Second and Third Boxes, both the dog and his master will acquire information from all the living and non-living things that surround them. Animals, plants, and every object in the sea, air, and land are all pieces of information. Their actions, properties, colors, textures, shapes, characteristics, sounds, and behaviors are pieces of information as well. All these things are the inherent objects that came first before human brains evolved. They are the pieces of information that humans borrowed and copied from nature. These entire pieces of information were created by Mother Nature for all her creations to interact.

In the fourth box, although it is designed as a super-system endowed with intelligence, self-consciousness, and emotional capacities, the machine cannot originate knowledge independently. Its operations depend entirely on pre-defined instructions or program; it lacks the ability to generate new information through discovery. Despite its sophistication, it cannot become human because it fundamentally lacks origination (Lawsin AI Paradox)

Moreover, according to Lawsin's Dichotomy on information, also referred as the Acquisition of Information Dichotomy, information can only be acquired in exactly two distinct ways: by choice or by chance. Information by Choice means the acquisition of information obtained from teachers, from parents, books, lessons from animals, or from the environment; while Information by Chance means the acquisition of information through discovering new things, fortunate accidents, unexpected experiences, unknown events, or natural interventions. 

This dichotomy underscores the conditional nature of learning and consciousness: an entity cannot acquire information in isolation from relational or environmental contexts. In the Cavemen in the Box Quadram, the First Box illustrates the failure of acquisition without interaction, while the Second and Third Boxes exemplify both modes of acquisition in natural environments. The Fourth Box (machine) highlights that intentional processing alone, without origination, is insufficient for true knowledge.

Nature is the Mother of Information. She is the provider of information. She is the keeper of the database that catalogs all we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. She is the holder of the universal list that contains the "names" of all living and non-living things. These names are the physical labels that flow from the outside world into the inside world of the mind, two different environments. The labels become abstracts and processed inside the mind. This transensational of physical to abstracts flows only in one direction - from the inherent world to the interim mind, from outside to inside, from objects to ideas. This informational transconversion or codexation is known as the Scriptional Jump.
 

Every natural object such as humans, animals, plants, rocks, and the universe including their behaviors, actions, and properties are all pieces of information. These objects are collectively called inherent information. Individually, each entity is a particle of information known as an iParticle.

Without Mother Nature, the human mind will be totally empty of information. It will be alive on the inside but dead on the outside. It is alive because internally it functions mechanically just like the gears and springs of a clock. The sustenance needed by the internal body and the mind is all already preset inside. (reflect: are they also controlled by the outside environment like temp, gravity, and pressure?). Externally, it is dead because there is no "sustenance" to see, hear, touch, smell, feel, and even discover. There are no inherent objects that will feed the internal mind and body. (reflect: the relationship between internal mind/body and external body/?). Because of Mother Nature, both humans and animals become aware, conscious, and self-conscious beings.

In his parallel physical experiment, the Bowlingual Investigation, Lawsin also discovered that:
1. Mother Nature is the source and keeper of information.
2. Information is acquired by choice or by chance.
3. The environment makes who and what we are.
4. Objects are information but not all information is objects.
5. Information only flows in one direction from the inherent world to the interim mind.
6. The mind is an empty "hard drive" at birth. Information is not pre-existent. It needs to be acquired first.
7. Creation is a process that needs both materials and by-materials (meaning "from materials", a word coined by Lawsin to represent parameters that are products of materials that are invisible but can be detected by touch, smell, or hearing like temperature, odor, and noise respectively). Both materials and by-materials are called Physicals. While non-physicals are called Abstracts.
8. Consciousness can be Cognitive(mental) and Non-cognitive (non-mental/behavioral).
9. Consciousness doesn't need to originate from the brain.
10. Sequential Instructions produce "mental" rational experiences.
11. Humans and animals become alive, aware, conscious, and self-conscious due to Mother Nature.
12. It is inhuman to humanize a dog, you might end up raising a kid in a cage!

"We learn things first from the outside world,
and learn things last from the inside world." 

~ Joey Lawsin

About the Author :

Joey Lawsin is the author of the book "Originemology". He is a revisionist who wants to change the world by rewriting the textbooks with new concepts that debunk the old scientific, theological, and philosophical ideas of antiquity. He published a book in Physics, created a conscious machine known as Autognorics, and conceived the theory of "The Caveman in the Box". The article "Genesis of Information" is an excerpt from his book "Originemology".

#Awareness, #Lawsinium Cube, # The Caveman Playground Hypothesis, #The Caveman in the box, #InLearning, #Instinct


Disclaimer: The articles on this site are intended for a balanced education. Since it is constantly edited, updated, and improved, therefore I recommend that you check back regularly for new items. If you want to use anything here for the purpose of scholarly discussion, please inform the author by email or cite the author's name or source as follows: A Journal of a Creative Mind, Joey Lawsin, 1988, USA.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------