Because the experience of the consciousness evolved from our underlying brain physiology? Despite being a vibrant area of neuroscience, current research on consciousness is characterized by disagreement and controversy, with several competing rival theories.
The reasons for the evolution of consciousness
A recent scoping review of over 1,000 papers identified over 20 different theoretical accounts. Philosophers such as David Chalmers argue that no single scientific theory can truly explain consciousness.
We define consciousness as embodied subjective awareness, including self-awareness. In a recent paper published in Interalia (which is not peer-reviewed), we argue that one reason for this is the powerful role played by intuition.
We are not alone. Social scientist Jacy Reese Anthis writes that “much of the debate about the fundamental nature of consciousness takes the form of a carousel of intuitions, with different sides each bringing their own strong intuitions and pitting them against each other.”
Fundamental intuitive beliefs, such as that our mental processes are distinct from our physical bodies (mind-body dualism) and that our mental processes give rise to and control our decisions and actions (mental causality), are supported by a lifetime of subjective experiences.
These beliefs are found in all human cultures. They are important because they serve as the foundational beliefs of most liberal democracies and criminal justice systems. They are resistant to counter-evidence. This is because they are strongly supported by social and cultural concepts such as free will, human rights, democracy, justice, and moral responsibility. All of these concepts assume that conscience plays a central controlling influence.
Intuition, however, is an automatic cognitive process that has evolved to provide rapid and reliable explanations and predictions. In fact, it does so without our needing to know how or why we know it. The results of intuition, then, shape how we perceive and explain our everyday world without the need for extensive reflection or formal analytical explanations.
While useful and indeed crucial to many daily activities, intuitive beliefs can be wrong. They can also interfere with scientific literacy.
Intuitive accounts of consciousness ultimately put us in the driver’s seat as the “captains of our own ship.” We think we know what consciousness is and what it does simply by experiencing it. Mental thoughts, intentions, and desires are seen as determining and controlling our actions.
The wide acceptance of these tacit intuitive accounts helps explain, in part, why the formal study of consciousness was relegated to the fringes of mainstream neuroscience until the late twentieth century.
The problem for scientific models of consciousness remains how to accommodate these intuitive accounts within a materialist framework consistent with the findings of neuroscience. Although there is no current scientific explanation for how brain tissue generates or maintains subjective experience, the consensus among (most) neuroscientists is that it is a product of brain processes.
If so, why did consciousness, defined as subjective awareness, evolve?
Consciousness presumably evolved as part of the evolution of the nervous system. According to several theories, the key adaptive function (providing an organism with benefits for survival and reproduction) of consciousness is to enable volitional movement. And volition is something we ultimately associate with will, agency, and individuality. It is therefore easy to think that consciousness evolved to benefit us as individuals.
However, we have argued that the consciousness may have evolved to facilitate key adaptive social functions. Rather than helping individuals survive, it evolved to help us transmit our experienced ideas and feelings into the wider world. And this may benefit the survival and well-being of the larger species.
The idea fits with the new way of thinking about genetics. While evolutionary science traditionally focuses on individual genes, there is growing recognition that natural selection among humans operates at multiple levels. For example, culture and society influence the traits passed down between generations: we value some more than others.
Central to our analysis is the idea that sociability (the tendency of groups and individuals to develop social bonds and live in communities) is a fundamental survival strategy that influences how the brain and cognition evolve.
Adopting this social evolutionary framework, we propose that subjective awareness has no independent capacity to causally influence other psychological processes or actions. An example would be the initiation of a course of action. The idea that subjective awareness has a social purpose has been described previously by other researchers.
However, to say that subjective awareness is devoid of causal influence is not to deny the reality of subjective experience or to say that experience is an illusion.
Although our model removes subjective awareness from the traditional driver’s seat of the mind, this does not imply that we do not value private internal experiences. Indeed, it is precisely because of the value we place on these experiences that intuitive accounts remain persuasive and widespread in systems of social and legal organization and in psychology.
Although it is counterintuitive to attribute agency and personal responsibility to a biological set of nerve cells, it is logical that highly valued social constructs, such as agency, truth, honesty, and fairness, can be meaningfully attributed to individuals as responsible persons in a social community.
Think about it. While we are deeply rooted in our biological nature, our social nature is largely defined by our roles and interactions in society. As such, the mental architecture of the mind should be highly adapted to the exchange and reception of information, ideas, and feelings. Accordingly, while brains as biological organs are incapable of responsibility and action, legal and social traditions have long held individuals accountable for their behavior.
The key to a more scientific explanation of subjective awareness is to accept that biology and culture work together to shape the way brains evolve. Subjective awareness comprises only a part of the brain’s much larger mental architecture, designed to facilitate the survival and well-being of the species.
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