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I did a little personal "research" and that's what happened…
Disclaimer
This publication is for entertainment purposes and aims to engage and spark discussion on the topic under consideration. The publication and the author do not claim or assert that the content is scientific. The author is not an expert in this or any related field. When preparing the material, the author strived for objectivity and accuracy of the information. It is recommended to double‑check the information!
Greetings to all of you — the reflective individuals on my channel.
You’ve probably wondered why, over the past few years, or perhaps even decades, questions related to such a phenomenon as consciousness have suddenly become so prominent. Some might say that it’s precisely in the last few decades that people have gained access to the internet, and a speculative topic like consciousness (speculative here in a more positive sense) has been perfectly suited for mass consumption. Others say that this is related to the current technological stage: the development of neuroscience, which has come very close to the brain, and, naturally, the rapid growth of AI, which is becoming more and more human‑like. And some intellectual minds will tell me: “This is your personal information bubble. «Here are the books from the past few thousand years — enjoy» This is also true, and we’ll check it.
Of course, you can find many more positions that answer our question, and all of them are partly correct, but reality, as always, is more complex. Let’s try to figure it out. But first, it’s worth understanding when, in general, did people start thinking about consciousness?
“Consciousness” is a new phenomenon?
To begin with, it’s worth understanding where this topic originates.
Alongside early philosophy, religion was one of the first to address this issue. Here, consciousness was interpreted differently — as the soul, a certain substance that enables matter to think and perform moral actions. Religions managed to objectify this ephemeral phenomenon, but, naturally, a scientific explanation was still a long way off. Around the same time, the word “consciousness” itself emerged.
Philosophers, however, decided to rely on logic and their observations in this matter. Based on logic, philosophers tried to lift the veil of mystery, but the object still did not lend itself to a purely scientific explanation (and to be fair, modern science was still a long way off). They created numerous theories and hypotheses that remain relevant to this day, at least insofar as they cannot be refuted.
“I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am” — René Descartes
Roughly, along with philosophy, the young science of physiology also took up this baton. A major achievement was that physiology provided extensive empirical experience, which laid the foundation for future neuroscience. The idea that consciousness is contained in the brain laid the groundwork for research from the perspective of neurobiology.
“Without a nerve, there is not a single part of the body, not a single movement that is called voluntary, not a single sense” — Galen
Drawing on philosophical and physiological foundations, young psychology entered the scene at the end of the 19th century. Its main stumbling block was that it observed mostly only external reactions, or internal sensations, on the basis of which various theories and hypotheses were built, which in turn faced a number of scientific problems. Psychology could not look “under the hood” of what it was studying, which was necessary at least for a reductionist approach (with the possible exception of cognitive and neuropsychology, but these are relatively new fields). But we must give them their due: some of their theories of consciousness are still relevant, or at least not refutable.
Here, it is also necessary to note the contribution of such exact sciences as mathematics (systems theory, game theory, etc.), computer science, and cybernetics to the development of the concepts that underpin how systems and their components function. Although consciousness is not their direct object of study, their findings are used to develop various interpretations of consciousness, which subsequently gave rise to hybrid approaches in cognitive science. Modern AI, which is now closely intertwined with the problem of consciousness, has grown out of these disciplines.
Bernard Baars — is a scientist who proposed the GNW theory, according to which there is a “struggle” in the brain between ideas for access to consciousness
It is also worth noting ethology — the science that studies animal behavior. It was from there that the idea emerged that not only humans can be bearers of consciousness.
Donald Griffin — is a scientist and the founder of cognitive ethology. He proposed the idea that consciousness may not be unique to humans
At the same time, young anthropology was actively developing, and it also faced the problem of consciousness in the context of social/cultural evolution. The question “Why did people need consciousness, and when did it appear?” is one of the most important questions in the problem of consciousness.
Clifford Geertz — was a scholar who proposed the idea that consciousness arises from an individual’s interaction with symbolic systems
It turns out that the topic of consciousness has always stirred people’s minds and been perceived as real? To some extent, yes, but it’s hard to say whether, for example, peasants — who made up the largest part of society for many centuries — thought about it. It can almost be said with certainty that only a small fraction of the population, in the form of philosophers and scientists, consciously approached this topic.
We have examined the intellectual history of this topic, but what about our main question — when did the topic of consciousness become widespread?
From an intellectual concept to a chewing gum‑like product.
Naturally, we should start with literature, and more specifically with the era of modernism. Literature served as a kind of bridge between complex philosophy/science and the average person, and later cinema joined in, reaching an even broader audience. Both of these primarily relied on the psychological perception of consciousness as a kind of subjective experience that did not delve too deeply into scientific or philosophical abstractions.
One of the very first, up to the present day, mass works addressing the topic of consciousness
Later, closer to the 1980s, the rapidly developing science‑pop movement got involved, and it managed to convey complex biological and psychological theories to ordinary people. With a certain degree of caution, we can say that it was the 20th century that brought the idea of consciousness to the masses — that is, new genres and trends in literature and cinema, and ultimately science‑pop.
Douglas Hofstadter is one of the pioneers in popularizing the topic of consciousness
When did people become acquainted with consciousness?
Next, I will present a number of data and statistics so that we can draw some conclusions from them regarding everything mentioned above.
As can be seen from the graph, books that in one way or another address the issue of consciousness have been published since the first half of the last century. Frankenstein stands out here in particular; it can probably be said to have laid the foundation for an artistic movement, but it only took root a century later. Over the course of the century, local peaks can be observed, but the 1990s stand out the most. By the end of the 1990s, the quantity declines, but starting in the 2000s, it returns to the previous levels, then declines again until 2010, after which the given rate practically does not decrease until a new peak in 2019. After that, the quantity returns to the levels seen before 2019, and then reaches a new maximum in 2025.
Regarding the top‑selling lists, we can single out 1966, when 4 books were released, led by “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes. The next such milestone can be identified as 2016, when 5 books were released, featuring two bestsellers at once: “We Are Legion We Are Bob” by Dennis E. Taylor and “Dark Matter” by Blake Crouch.
If we divide the list by conventional periods, then before the start of the growth in the 90s, the list of top books is as follows:
“Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley, 1818
“I, Robot” by Isaac Asimov, 1950
“Solaris” by Stanisław Lem, 1960
“Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, 1966
“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick 1968
“Neuromancer” by William Gibson, 1984
From the 90s to 2019:
“Altered Carbon” by Richard K. Morgan, 2002
“We Are Legion We Are Bob” by Dennis E. Taylor, 2016
“Dark Matter” by Blake Crouch, 2016
There are more books, but fewer hits (with the exception of 2016 itself).
And finally, the last period turns out to be the most modest:
“Clara and the Sun” by Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021
A record number of books are published during this period, and sales naturally decline.
Now, let’s take a look about pop — science:
Books release years:
If we talk about the growth in book production per year, we can start from 1992 — it set the pace up until the new peak in 2011. Then the relatively high pace continues until 2020, when the most active period of book production begins. The Coronavirus pandemic also occurred in 2020–2022, which may have indirectly influenced the growth of book production, but this is not accurate)
Regarding bestsellers, the following books fall into the relatively first period before 1992:
“What is Life” 1944 Erwin Schrodinger
«The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind» 1976 Julian Jaynes
“Cosmos” 1980 Carl Sagan
“The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” 1985 Oliver Sacks
“The New Mind of the King” 1989 Roger Penrose
Various factors influenced the success of the books, such as the book “Cosmos” with its well-known in scientific circles, Carl Sagan. Here we see a cult figure whose influence plays a role (+ the TV series of the same name was released along with the book). It can be assumed that it was from the “Cosmos” that the topic of consciousness began to be cultivated in science pop, although to be fair, this is not the central theme in the book.
Such an abundance of bestsellers, given the low density of book releases per year and the time intervals between the release of subsequent books, is natural — there is little supply, but there is demand for interesting topics. These bestsellers still sell well, especially in synergy with the release of new books and media products, as well as alongside such landmark events as the LLM boom.
The Next period (1992–2011) bestselling books:
“Language as Instinct” 1994 Steven Pinker
“Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind” 1998 Vileyanur Ramachandran and Sandra Blakesley
“On Intelligence” 2004 Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakesley
“In Search of Memory” 2006 by Eric Kandel
“Who am I? And if so, how much?” 2007, Richard Precht
“We are our brain. From the womb to Alzheimer’s” 2010, Dick Frans Swaab
The period became even denser, along with an increase in bestsellers.
From 2011 to 2020:
“Thinking, Fast and Slow” 2011, Daniel Kahneman
“The Beginning of Infinity” 2012, David Deutsch
“Subliminal: “How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior” 2013, Leonard Mlodinow
“Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” 2013, Carol Dweck
“The Future of the Mind” 2014, Michio Kaku
“The Soul of an Octopus” 2015, Sy Montgomery
“Homo Deus” 2017, Yuval Noah Harari
«How to Change Your Mind» 2018 Michael Pollan
«Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind» 2019 Annaka Harris
The period turns out to be very dense for the release of hits, along with a relatively large release of books per year, especially at the beginning of the period.
And since 2020, the list has become much more modest:
“Being You: A New Theory of Consciousness” 2021 Anil Seth
“An Immense World. How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around” 2022 Ed Yong
The most productive year can be considered 2021, during which a total of 11 books were published, led by “Be Yourself: A New Theory of Consciousness” by Anil Seth.
This situation looks logical: the period is marked by the largest book release, which inevitably affects demand. The market is saturated, and also, perhaps, by this moment the viewer has already “had enough” of this topic. We also shouldn’t forget that during this period, both media projects and fiction literature are actively being released, which also competes for buyers’ attention.
It’s also worth mentioning the “elephant in the room” — namely, the Chinese and Indian markets. There are practically no official figures, and the markets are huge, so, of course, you can make estimates and extrapolate, but that’s not certain). Naturally, the results could change significantly with China and India included.
Finally, let’s take a look about media products:
Release years:
Here, we can conditionally distinguish the period from 1999 to 2011, then from 2011 to 2018, and the peak since 2018.
Hits by period
1968–1999:
2001: A Space Odyssey 1968
Total Recall 1990
1999–2011:
The Matrix 1999
Memento 2000
A.I. Artificial Intelligence 2001
Vanilla Sky 2001
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 2004
Shrouded in Mystery 2004
I, robot 2004
The Island 2005
Inception 2010
Island of the Damned 2010
2011- 2018:
Source code 2011
Black Mirror 2011
Trans 2013
Lucia 2013
Her 2013
Transcendence 2014
Ex Machina 2014
Chappie 2015
Self/less 2015
Westworld 2016
Split 2016
Blade Runner 2049 2017
NieR: Automata 2017
2018–2026:
Ready Player One 2018
Detroit: Become Human 2018
Awe! 2018
Altered Carbon 2018
Platform 2019
Cyberpunk 2077 2020
Everything Everywhere All at Once 2022
M3GAN 2022
Severance — Dan Erickson 2022
The Creator 2023
JUNG_E 2023
Wandering Earth 2 2023
Poor Things 2023
Regarding the hits. It’s clear that mega‑hits were mostly released during the “empty period,” and at first glance this can be explained by the low release density and the fact that the audience was not yet seasoned. The period starting in 1999 became even denser and more commercially successful. The next period, starting in 2011, became even denser, but only one mega‑hit was released during it. And, strangely enough, the densest period — both in terms of release and sales — saw two mega‑hits.
Let me remind you that these data don’t mean anything by themselves., not to mention how interested people are in this topic in reality: most people go to movies out of boredom or for company. But one way or another, the facts are the facts, and we can see the growth in the number of projects being released, which means that, in a sense, they are needed.
It’s also worth making a remark about the notorious Indian market, and especially the Chinese market. These markets have a large number of consumers, but not all projects from this list caught their eye, so I’ll say again that “popular project” is a relative term (mostly hits are divided into Western, Indian and Chinese).
It’s also worth mentioning TV series, documentaries, and games. Their audience is much smaller than that of cinema, but on their own scale, I also highlighted the hits.
P.S. I remembered the Silent Hill franchise late, and it isn’t included in the statistics.
General correlation
After running 3 graphs through the AI for correlation analysis, it producedthe following figures:
If we compare the three previous graphs, two main periods stand out:
1 — from approximately 2007 to 2011;
2 — from approximately 2018 to 2023.
That is, two periods of relative, synchronous growth. Naturally, this does not mean that the entire correlation is driven solely by demand for consciousness‑related content.
There is also a small observation regarding regions other than the Western one. All of them begin to appear closer to the 21st century. The Japanese, being the most Westernized, started earlier than anyone else.
Let me remind you once again that all these three lists are approximate, meaning that it cannot be said that every item in them has 100% relevance to the topic of consciousness. Of course, most of them, in one way or another, approach the issue of consciousness from different “positions” and highlight it, but most likely there are positions where consciousness will be on the periphery of the picture, and in some cases it will not be obvious (this mainly applies to fiction works). One way or another, I personally couldn’t watch all the movies and read all the books, so I relied on the AI consultative group, trying to double‑check the information with each of them. Also, you shouldn’t assume that if there are products and even hits among them, then there must be interest in them — that’s not necessarily the case. Growth can be interpreted in different ways, and it should be seen more as a correlation than as a direct cause‑and‑effect relationship. It’s like with a store, for example. According to the paperwork, revenue is growing, and other indicators are too, but there’s a catch: this store is engaged in money laundering, and there’s no real growth in the need for stores.
Search queries and word frequency
Now, it’s worth mentioning the search statistics (see the link above). I chose keywords such as “consciousness,” “self‑awareness,” and several others from related categories, and entered them into Google Trends and Google Ngram. I’ll say right away that this shouldn’t be considered objective, as the sample size is small (this is especially true for the fact that China is practically absent from these statistics, since they use a different search engine), and there are certain oddities in the graphs themselves. But overall, for the bigger picture, as an additional argument, why not? (I don’t think Google would deliberately distort such data.) So, what do we get? Most of the graphs show an increase in searches specifically around the 20s. There are also exceptions: “free will” on YouTube, where, on the contrary, there’s a decline; “life is a simulation” also shows a drop, but the graph itself is strange — perhaps the query itself was not formulated correctly for Trends. On the other hand, “simulation theory” looks quite normal and shows the opposite result, except on YouTube, where popularity has fallen.
Regarding Google Ngrams, there is also a growth trend closer to the 1990s. But if we compare the titles I searched for, namely: Consciousness, Self-awareness, Free will, Mind, Identity, Simulation theory, AI consciousness, Artificial consciousness, it turns out that books with the titles “mind,” “consciousness,” and “identity” are much more common than the others.
In general, there is a correlation, but there are also local “fluctuations” related either to service errors or to specific specifics, because, naturally, for example, the topic of AI is not 100 % tied to the topic of consciousness, and it has its own dynamics and factors. (I also looked at the data in Spanish, and there is also growth starting in the early 90s/00s.)
(I also watched the most popular Youtube videos on the topic of consciousness. The first impression is that this topic is only addressed to Russian (i’m from Russia) and English speakers on YouTube, although it can be noted that English is an international language, meaning that there may be more than just Anglo — Saxons here. The Russian segment and the English segment have about the same number of videos, but the English segment started talking about this topic much earlier — about 12 years before ours. Since publication, they have gained large views: from 5 to 12 million. Our segment came online about 3 years ago, and the average views are around 1 million, which is roughly the same as for English‑speaking users in recent years. We can very roughly estimate that the core audience on YouTube is about 2 million people. The videos that have accumulated far more views over time may well be the result of hype or YouTube’s algorithms. This is just a note, and it’s not worth drawing any significant conclusions from this, if only because we don’t know the engagement levels associated with those views.)
What could have contributed to the popularization of consciousness?
Now it’s worth considering related events in the world that could have influenced the demand for our topic.
Perhaps we should start with the self‑development market, or, as it’s also called, the self‑help market. This includes many separate sectors, from training coaches to books on popular psychology. The market began to develop actively in the 2000s and reached a relative peak in 2016. The market continues to grow actively and, according to forecasts, will only continue to expand. You could say that people started looking in the mirror and understanding their problems — awareness emerged (or at least they were made to believe so). I think there is a generational shift taking place here, which is quite clearly visible, for example, between the boomer generation (1945–1965) and millennials (1980–1995) and subsequent generations.
(As for me, judging by my parents (they are boomers), they are not interested, or even say they do not perceive mental health as well as ordinary physical health (although the line here is shaky). They were raised in a collective spirit, where your pain meant nothing, and some kind of “mental” health” sounded kind of ridiculous, not to mention the issues of consciousness from the point of view of philosophy and biology, which they did not care about. A person was just a person, without any of those subtleties (here it’s appropriate to recall Soviet‑era psychiatry). But starting with millennials, these people already create a different impression. Self-development in any form (meditation, educational books, the demand for psychologists, etc.) is already quite normal for them, especially in our time. These are just my observations — a lyrical digression)
The market couldn’t have appeared out of nowhere; naturally, it has consumers. How does this relate to our topic? It’s practically directly related. Content on the topic of consciousness is partially part of this industry. A correlation with growth is observed.
The overarching field of science that studies consciousness is cognitive science. Cognitive science brings together research in psychology, linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience, computer science, and related fields. The rapid development of these sciences began in the second half of the 20th century. Cybernetics, with its computing machines, played a huge role — they once again raised the question of consciousness. This spurred all the aforementioned disciplines into heated debates and interdisciplinary research, which continue to this day. This is the picture of the growth in the number of publications demonstrated in the article “What does bibliometrics in an interdisciplinary field tell us?: The case of cognitive science” by T. A. Beril and A. Enji:
The number of scientific publications on cognitive science per year:
Again, there is a correlation with our previous graphs.
And here it is by country:
As can be seen, the “West” is firmly entrenched in science, which was also evident in our content material.
Here, it’s worth mentioning education in these very cognitive sciences — is there any growth there? There is. Growth has been observed throughout cognitive disciplines, especially in psychology during this century. Growth is also observed in the AI sector, no matter how banal it may sound).
But the data is only for the USA, so extrapolate at your own risk)
Could UFOlogy have had an influence?
Probably yes, rather than no. Why? Ufology itself presupposes extraterrestrial, intelligent life, which inevitably raises the question: “How do they think?”, “What do they feel?”, “What kind of culture do they have?”, etc. These and other questions immediately lead to the thought: “Who are we?”, “What makes a person a person”, and so on, which immediately brings us to our topic. (It is interesting that ufology emerged precisely in the second half of the 20th century. this coincided with the growth of both cognitive science and popular culture in general, which took up these ideas in movies and books.)
And once again, this is your AI.
Well, the crowning achievement of this new branch of the discussion about consciousness can be called the successes of LLM technologies. Practically every day, the public, business, and science are discussing this topic, raising questions about cognitive abilities, the changing labor market, and moral issues. Of course, here we should be talking more about imitating humans than about real cognitive abilities, but with each generation of technology, they are getting better and better.
Who is right?
So, what’s thebottom line? What about our three opinions, which we voiced at the beginning? Why has everyone suddenly started talking about consciousness? If we compare this with my personal hypothesis, which I started with when I began working on this article — that the topic of self‑awareness has been actively discussed recently, mainly due to the successes of LLMs and neuroscience — it turned out to be incorrect. Yes, interest has grown significantly recently, partly due to the circumstances mentioned, but mass popularity is more likely to emerge in the second half of the 20th century, and in literature even earlier (think of Frankenstein from the early 19th century). In the second half of the 20th century, we already see both cinema and books. And real growth begins in the 1990s. Some graphs show that the peak has already been passed. It is also worth noting that the growth of all the factors I have cited tells us that people may have been thinking about this problem for thousands of years (perhaps even peasants), which we can see in the intellectual sphere, but starting in the 20th century, the social and technological environment is changing. All these millions of “silent” minds were able to afford to go to the cinema, buy a book (and, more importantly, learn to read), and with the advent of the internet, they were finally able to discuss all of this. It turns out that everyone is partly right. It is difficult to precisely determine what exactly influenced the popularity; rather, it is a combination of factors of varying significance.
It can definitely be said that this topic will not go away from us anytime soon, and perhaps we will see a new surge and new peaks in this area. The problem of consciousness has not been solved, and, in my opinion, we are not yet close to it, although some theories already quite logically describe and link our activity to the brain, but these discoveries, as is always the case, give rise to a host of other problems.
About the work done
This article was introductory (to be honest, I didn’t plan for it to turn out to be so long — at least in terms of the amount of work involved. I rewrote a lot of it in the process, and now I have some objections regarding certain things, but I’m so tired of writing this «introductory little article» that I’ll just leave it as it is — the best is the enemy of the good. I’ve never written anything like this before, especially not in public. I really wanted to discuss the things that keep me awake, and at the same time, to learn something new in the process.). In the future, I also plan to discuss issues related to consciousness, cognitive sciences, and other related and personally relevant topics in the format of an article/essay. Also, I may publish news from the field of cognitive science and perhaps something else. I don’t consider the lists of books and media content that resulted from this work to be ultimate, i.e., 100 % relevant to the topic of consciousness, but overall, most of them touch on the topic of consciousness in one way or another. The article was originally written in Russian, so I hope for your understanding if there are any mistakes. I hope you will provide feedback on them so that we can complete their “crystallization” and get truly useful lists for those who want to delve into this topic. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I would be glad to hear them.
I did a little personal "research" and that's what happened…
Disclaimer
This publication is for entertainment purposes and aims to engage and spark discussion on the topic under consideration. The publication and the author do not claim or assert that the content is scientific. The author is not an expert in this or any related field. When preparing the material, the author strived for objectivity and accuracy of the information. It is recommended to double‑check the information!
Greetings to all of you — the reflective individuals on my channel.
You’ve probably wondered why, over the past few years, or perhaps even decades, questions related to such a phenomenon as consciousness have suddenly become so prominent. Some might say that it’s precisely in the last few decades that people have gained access to the internet, and a speculative topic like consciousness (speculative here in a more positive sense) has been perfectly suited for mass consumption. Others say that this is related to the current technological stage: the development of neuroscience, which has come very close to the brain, and, naturally, the rapid growth of AI, which is becoming more and more human‑like. And some intellectual minds will tell me: “This is your personal information bubble. «Here are the books from the past few thousand years — enjoy» This is also true, and we’ll check it.
Of course, you can find many more positions that answer our question, and all of them are partly correct, but reality, as always, is more complex. Let’s try to figure it out. But first, it’s worth understanding when, in general, did people start thinking about consciousness?
“Consciousness” is a new phenomenon?
To begin with, it’s worth understanding where this topic originates.
Alongside early philosophy, religion was one of the first to address this issue. Here, consciousness was interpreted differently — as the soul, a certain substance that enables matter to think and perform moral actions. Religions managed to objectify this ephemeral phenomenon, but, naturally, a scientific explanation was still a long way off. Around the same time, the word “consciousness” itself emerged.
Philosophers, however, decided to rely on logic and their observations in this matter. Based on logic, philosophers tried to lift the veil of mystery, but the object still did not lend itself to a purely scientific explanation (and to be fair, modern science was still a long way off). They created numerous theories and hypotheses that remain relevant to this day, at least insofar as they cannot be refuted.
Roughly, along with philosophy, the young science of physiology also took up this baton. A major achievement was that physiology provided extensive empirical experience, which laid the foundation for future neuroscience. The idea that consciousness is contained in the brain laid the groundwork for research from the perspective of neurobiology.
Drawing on philosophical and physiological foundations, young psychology entered the scene at the end of the 19th century. Its main stumbling block was that it observed mostly only external reactions, or internal sensations, on the basis of which various theories and hypotheses were built, which in turn faced a number of scientific problems. Psychology could not look “under the hood” of what it was studying, which was necessary at least for a reductionist approach (with the possible exception of cognitive and neuropsychology, but these are relatively new fields). But we must give them their due: some of their theories of consciousness are still relevant, or at least not refutable.
Here, it is also necessary to note the contribution of such exact sciences as mathematics (systems theory, game theory, etc.), computer science, and cybernetics to the development of the concepts that underpin how systems and their components function. Although consciousness is not their direct object of study, their findings are used to develop various interpretations of consciousness, which subsequently gave rise to hybrid approaches in cognitive science. Modern AI, which is now closely intertwined with the problem of consciousness, has grown out of these disciplines.
It is also worth noting ethology — the science that studies animal behavior. It was from there that the idea emerged that not only humans can be bearers of consciousness.
At the same time, young anthropology was actively developing, and it also faced the problem of consciousness in the context of social/cultural evolution. The question “Why did people need consciousness, and when did it appear?” is one of the most important questions in the problem of consciousness.
It turns out that the topic of consciousness has always stirred people’s minds and been perceived as real? To some extent, yes, but it’s hard to say whether, for example, peasants — who made up the largest part of society for many centuries — thought about it. It can almost be said with certainty that only a small fraction of the population, in the form of philosophers and scientists, consciously approached this topic.
We have examined the intellectual history of this topic, but what about our main question — when did the topic of consciousness become widespread?
From an intellectual concept to a chewing gum‑like product.
Naturally, we should start with literature, and more specifically with the era of modernism. Literature served as a kind of bridge between complex philosophy/science and the average person, and later cinema joined in, reaching an even broader audience. Both of these primarily relied on the psychological perception of consciousness as a kind of subjective experience that did not delve too deeply into scientific or philosophical abstractions.
Later, closer to the 1980s, the rapidly developing science‑pop movement got involved, and it managed to convey complex biological and psychological theories to ordinary people. With a certain degree of caution, we can say that it was the 20th century that brought the idea of consciousness to the masses — that is, new genres and trends in literature and cinema, and ultimately science‑pop.
When did people become acquainted with consciousness?
Next, I will present a number of data and statistics so that we can draw some conclusions from them regarding everything mentioned above.
Let’s first turn to the number and circulation of fiction and non‑fiction books about consciousness. (the lists of books and media products themselves will be in the file) Here its link:
Content
Number of fiction books published per year:
As can be seen from the graph, books that in one way or another address the issue of consciousness have been published since the first half of the last century. Frankenstein stands out here in particular; it can probably be said to have laid the foundation for an artistic movement, but it only took root a century later. Over the course of the century, local peaks can be observed, but the 1990s stand out the most. By the end of the 1990s, the quantity declines, but starting in the 2000s, it returns to the previous levels, then declines again until 2010, after which the given rate practically does not decrease until a new peak in 2019. After that, the quantity returns to the levels seen before 2019, and then reaches a new maximum in 2025.
Regarding the top‑selling lists, we can single out 1966, when 4 books were released, led by “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes. The next such milestone can be identified as 2016, when 5 books were released, featuring two bestsellers at once: “We Are Legion We Are Bob” by Dennis E. Taylor and “Dark Matter” by Blake Crouch.
If we divide the list by conventional periods, then before the start of the growth in the 90s, the list of top books is as follows:
From the 90s to 2019:
And finally, the last period turns out to be the most modest:
A record number of books are published during this period, and sales naturally decline.
Now, let’s take a look about pop — science:
Books release years:
If we talk about the growth in book production per year, we can start from 1992 — it set the pace up until the new peak in 2011. Then the relatively high pace continues until 2020, when the most active period of book production begins. The Coronavirus pandemic also occurred in 2020–2022, which may have indirectly influenced the growth of book production, but this is not accurate)
Regarding bestsellers, the following books fall into the relatively first period before 1992:
Various factors influenced the success of the books, such as the book “Cosmos” with its well-known in scientific circles, Carl Sagan. Here we see a cult figure whose influence plays a role (+ the TV series of the same name was released along with the book). It can be assumed that it was from the “Cosmos” that the topic of consciousness began to be cultivated in science pop, although to be fair, this is not the central theme in the book.
Such an abundance of bestsellers, given the low density of book releases per year and the time intervals between the release of subsequent books, is natural — there is little supply, but there is demand for interesting topics. These bestsellers still sell well, especially in synergy with the release of new books and media products, as well as alongside such landmark events as the LLM boom.
The Next period (1992–2011) bestselling books:
The period became even denser, along with an increase in bestsellers.
From 2011 to 2020:
The period turns out to be very dense for the release of hits, along with a relatively large release of books per year, especially at the beginning of the period.
And since 2020, the list has become much more modest:
The most productive year can be considered 2021, during which a total of 11 books were published, led by “Be Yourself: A New Theory of Consciousness” by Anil Seth.
This situation looks logical: the period is marked by the largest book release, which inevitably affects demand. The market is saturated, and also, perhaps, by this moment the viewer has already “had enough” of this topic. We also shouldn’t forget that during this period, both media projects and fiction literature are actively being released, which also competes for buyers’ attention.
It’s also worth mentioning the “elephant in the room” — namely, the Chinese and Indian markets. There are practically no official figures, and the markets are huge, so, of course, you can make estimates and extrapolate, but that’s not certain). Naturally, the results could change significantly with China and India included.
Finally, let’s take a look about media products:
Release years:
Here, we can conditionally distinguish the period from 1999 to 2011, then from 2011 to 2018, and the peak since 2018.
Hits by period
1968–1999:
1999–2011:
2011- 2018:
2018–2026:
Regarding the hits. It’s clear that mega‑hits were mostly released during the “empty period,” and at first glance this can be explained by the low release density and the fact that the audience was not yet seasoned. The period starting in 1999 became even denser and more commercially successful. The next period, starting in 2011, became even denser, but only one mega‑hit was released during it. And, strangely enough, the densest period — both in terms of release and sales — saw two mega‑hits.
Let me remind you that these data don’t mean anything by themselves., not to mention how interested people are in this topic in reality: most people go to movies out of boredom or for company. But one way or another, the facts are the facts, and we can see the growth in the number of projects being released, which means that, in a sense, they are needed.
It’s also worth making a remark about the notorious Indian market, and especially the Chinese market. These markets have a large number of consumers, but not all projects from this list caught their eye, so I’ll say again that “popular project” is a relative term (mostly hits are divided into Western, Indian and Chinese).
It’s also worth mentioning TV series, documentaries, and games. Their audience is much smaller than that of cinema, but on their own scale, I also highlighted the hits.
P.S. I remembered the Silent Hill franchise late, and it isn’t included in the statistics.
General correlation
After running 3 graphs through the AI for correlation analysis, it produced the following figures:
If we compare the three previous graphs, two main periods stand out:
1 — from approximately 2007 to 2011;
2 — from approximately 2018 to 2023.
That is, two periods of relative, synchronous growth. Naturally, this does not mean that the entire correlation is driven solely by demand for consciousness‑related content.
There is also a small observation regarding regions other than the Western one. All of them begin to appear closer to the 21st century. The Japanese, being the most Westernized, started earlier than anyone else.
Let me remind you once again that all these three lists are approximate, meaning that it cannot be said that every item in them has 100% relevance to the topic of consciousness. Of course, most of them, in one way or another, approach the issue of consciousness from different “positions” and highlight it, but most likely there are positions where consciousness will be on the periphery of the picture, and in some cases it will not be obvious (this mainly applies to fiction works). One way or another, I personally couldn’t watch all the movies and read all the books, so I relied on the AI consultative group, trying to double‑check the information with each of them. Also, you shouldn’t assume that if there are products and even hits among them, then there must be interest in them — that’s not necessarily the case. Growth can be interpreted in different ways, and it should be seen more as a correlation than as a direct cause‑and‑effect relationship. It’s like with a store, for example. According to the paperwork, revenue is growing, and other indicators are too, but there’s a catch: this store is engaged in money laundering, and there’s no real growth in the need for stores.
Search queries and word frequency
Now, it’s worth mentioning the search statistics (see the link above). I chose keywords such as “consciousness,” “self‑awareness,” and several others from related categories, and entered them into Google Trends and Google Ngram. I’ll say right away that this shouldn’t be considered objective, as the sample size is small (this is especially true for the fact that China is practically absent from these statistics, since they use a different search engine), and there are certain oddities in the graphs themselves. But overall, for the bigger picture, as an additional argument, why not? (I don’t think Google would deliberately distort such data.) So, what do we get? Most of the graphs show an increase in searches specifically around the 20s. There are also exceptions: “free will” on YouTube, where, on the contrary, there’s a decline; “life is a simulation” also shows a drop, but the graph itself is strange — perhaps the query itself was not formulated correctly for Trends. On the other hand, “simulation theory” looks quite normal and shows the opposite result, except on YouTube, where popularity has fallen.
Regarding Google Ngrams, there is also a growth trend closer to the 1990s. But if we compare the titles I searched for, namely: Consciousness, Self-awareness, Free will, Mind, Identity, Simulation theory, AI consciousness, Artificial consciousness, it turns out that books with the titles “mind,” “consciousness,” and “identity” are much more common than the others.
In general, there is a correlation, but there are also local “fluctuations” related either to service errors or to specific specifics, because, naturally, for example, the topic of AI is not 100 % tied to the topic of consciousness, and it has its own dynamics and factors. (I also looked at the data in Spanish, and there is also growth starting in the early 90s/00s.)
(I also watched the most popular Youtube videos on the topic of consciousness. The first impression is that this topic is only addressed to Russian (i’m from Russia) and English speakers on YouTube, although it can be noted that English is an international language, meaning that there may be more than just Anglo — Saxons here. The Russian segment and the English segment have about the same number of videos, but the English segment started talking about this topic much earlier — about 12 years before ours. Since publication, they have gained large views: from 5 to 12 million. Our segment came online about 3 years ago, and the average views are around 1 million, which is roughly the same as for English‑speaking users in recent years. We can very roughly estimate that the core audience on YouTube is about 2 million people. The videos that have accumulated far more views over time may well be the result of hype or YouTube’s algorithms. This is just a note, and it’s not worth drawing any significant conclusions from this, if only because we don’t know the engagement levels associated with those views.)
What could have contributed to the popularization of consciousness?
Now it’s worth considering related events in the world that could have influenced the demand for our topic.
Perhaps we should start with the self‑development market, or, as it’s also called, the self‑help market. This includes many separate sectors, from training coaches to books on popular psychology. The market began to develop actively in the 2000s and reached a relative peak in 2016. The market continues to grow actively and, according to forecasts, will only continue to expand. You could say that people started looking in the mirror and understanding their problems — awareness emerged (or at least they were made to believe so). I think there is a generational shift taking place here, which is quite clearly visible, for example, between the boomer generation (1945–1965) and millennials (1980–1995) and subsequent generations.
(As for me, judging by my parents (they are boomers), they are not interested, or even say they do not perceive mental health as well as ordinary physical health (although the line here is shaky). They were raised in a collective spirit, where your pain meant nothing, and some kind of “mental” health” sounded kind of ridiculous, not to mention the issues of consciousness from the point of view of philosophy and biology, which they did not care about. A person was just a person, without any of those subtleties (here it’s appropriate to recall Soviet‑era psychiatry). But starting with millennials, these people already create a different impression. Self-development in any form (meditation, educational books, the demand for psychologists, etc.) is already quite normal for them, especially in our time. These are just my observations — a lyrical digression)
The market couldn’t have appeared out of nowhere; naturally, it has consumers. How does this relate to our topic? It’s practically directly related. Content on the topic of consciousness is partially part of this industry. A correlation with growth is observed.
The current state of the market and its forecast:
Links to detailed market analysis:
1
2
What about science?
The overarching field of science that studies consciousness is cognitive science. Cognitive science brings together research in psychology, linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience, computer science, and related fields. The rapid development of these sciences began in the second half of the 20th century. Cybernetics, with its computing machines, played a huge role — they once again raised the question of consciousness. This spurred all the aforementioned disciplines into heated debates and interdisciplinary research, which continue to this day. This is the picture of the growth in the number of publications demonstrated in the article “What does bibliometrics in an interdisciplinary field tell us?: The case of cognitive science” by T. A. Beril and A. Enji:
The number of scientific publications on cognitive science per year:
Again, there is a correlation with our previous graphs.
And here it is by country:
As can be seen, the “West” is firmly entrenched in science, which was also evident in our content material.
A couple more articles on this topic:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233824457_Interdisciplinarity_at_the_Journal_and_Specialty_Level_The_Changing_Knowledge_Bases_of_the_Journal_Cognitive_Science
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0626-2?utm_source
Here, it’s worth mentioning education in these very cognitive sciences — is there any growth there? There is. Growth has been observed throughout cognitive disciplines, especially in psychology during this century. Growth is also observed in the AI sector, no matter how banal it may sound).
Here are the articles on this subject :
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ia9SJdlpcQikG1Tn9aEpVN15Uxp3bvFjvkzo2Xw1sX4/edit?usp=sharing
But the data is only for the USA, so extrapolate at your own risk)
Could UFOlogy have had an influence?
Probably yes, rather than no. Why? Ufology itself presupposes extraterrestrial, intelligent life, which inevitably raises the question: “How do they think?”, “What do they feel?”, “What kind of culture do they have?”, etc. These and other questions immediately lead to the thought: “Who are we?”, “What makes a person a person”, and so on, which immediately brings us to our topic. (It is interesting that ufology emerged precisely in the second half of the 20th century. this coincided with the growth of both cognitive science and popular culture in general, which took up these ideas in movies and books.)
And once again, this is your AI.
Well, the crowning achievement of this new branch of the discussion about consciousness can be called the successes of LLM technologies. Practically every day, the public, business, and science are discussing this topic, raising questions about cognitive abilities, the changing labor market, and moral issues. Of course, here we should be talking more about imitating humans than about real cognitive abilities, but with each generation of technology, they are getting better and better.
Who is right?
So, what’s the bottom line? What about our three opinions, which we voiced at the beginning? Why has everyone suddenly started talking about consciousness? If we compare this with my personal hypothesis, which I started with when I began working on this article — that the topic of self‑awareness has been actively discussed recently, mainly due to the successes of LLMs and neuroscience — it turned out to be incorrect. Yes, interest has grown significantly recently, partly due to the circumstances mentioned, but mass popularity is more likely to emerge in the second half of the 20th century, and in literature even earlier (think of Frankenstein from the early 19th century). In the second half of the 20th century, we already see both cinema and books. And real growth begins in the 1990s. Some graphs show that the peak has already been passed. It is also worth noting that the growth of all the factors I have cited tells us that people may have been thinking about this problem for thousands of years (perhaps even peasants), which we can see in the intellectual sphere, but starting in the 20th century, the social and technological environment is changing. All these millions of “silent” minds were able to afford to go to the cinema, buy a book (and, more importantly, learn to read), and with the advent of the internet, they were finally able to discuss all of this. It turns out that everyone is partly right. It is difficult to precisely determine what exactly influenced the popularity; rather, it is a combination of factors of varying significance.
It can definitely be said that this topic will not go away from us anytime soon, and perhaps we will see a new surge and new peaks in this area. The problem of consciousness has not been solved, and, in my opinion, we are not yet close to it, although some theories already quite logically describe and link our activity to the brain, but these discoveries, as is always the case, give rise to a host of other problems.
About the work done
This article was introductory (to be honest, I didn’t plan for it to turn out to be so long — at least in terms of the amount of work involved. I rewrote a lot of it in the process, and now I have some objections regarding certain things, but I’m so tired of writing this «introductory little article» that I’ll just leave it as it is — the best is the enemy of the good. I’ve never written anything like this before, especially not in public. I really wanted to discuss the things that keep me awake, and at the same time, to learn something new in the process.). In the future, I also plan to discuss issues related to consciousness, cognitive sciences, and other related and personally relevant topics in the format of an article/essay. Also, I may publish news from the field of cognitive science and perhaps something else. I don’t consider the lists of books and media content that resulted from this work to be ultimate, i.e., 100 % relevant to the topic of consciousness, but overall, most of them touch on the topic of consciousness in one way or another. The article was originally written in Russian, so I hope for your understanding if there are any mistakes. I hope you will provide feedback on them so that we can complete their “crystallization” and get truly useful lists for those who want to delve into this topic. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I would be glad to hear them.
Reflect, but not too much.