After the Lateness Problem: An Evolutionary Challenge to Generator Theories of Consciousness

Summary

Generator theories of consciousness, which claim consciousness is produced by complex physical systems, face a structural evolutionary problem. They must simultaneously explain consciousness's origination, continuity, and convergence across evolutionary history. The paper shows this quadrilemma cannot be resolved within generator models, as the failure is inherent. Non-generator alternatives avoid this specific issue but have their own challenges. The argument does not endorse any theory but clarifies what any adequate account of consciousness must address at an evolutionary scale.

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Abstract

Author's Note (May 2026) This is a revised version of a paper first deposited in March 2026. The revision makes three changes. First, the abstract has been rewritten to more accurately reflect the paper's scope: the core argument is a pressure argument against generator theories of consciousness at the evolutionary scale, and the paper does not advance a specific positive theory as its conclusion. Second, sections that previously developed a particular filter model framework at length as a proposed resolution have been substantially reduced. The paper now ends with a brief discussion of what the evolutionary quadrilemma requires of any adequate theory, and notes that non-generator alternatives face their own distinct challenges without advocating for any particular framework. The philosophical argument is unchanged. Abstract Generator models of consciousness, the family of theories holding that consciousness is produced by sufficiently complex physical systems, face not only a cosmological problem, identified as the Lateness Problem in the companion paper to this work, but a distinct and underexamined evolutionary problem. This paper argues that any generator model must provide three simultaneous accounts of consciousness in evolutionary history: an account of its origination (how phenomenal consciousness first entered evolutionary history at all), its continuity (how it persisted, deepened, and remained the same kind of thing through changing biological forms), and its convergence (how independently evolved or diverging biological lineages came to exhibit recognisably similar phenomenal structures). The paper demonstrates that generator models cannot coherently provide all three accounts on their own terms, and that the failure is structural rather than contingent on the details of any particular theory. Non-generator alternatives (filter models, panpsychism, Russellian monism, and cosmopsychism) do not inherit this specific quadrilemma, because they do not commit to consciousness being produced from a previously non-conscious reality. But they face their own distinct challenges. The argument does not establish which alternative is correct. It establishes what any adequate theory of consciousness must be able to account for at the evolutionary scale. The origination problem alone generates four options, and none is stable on generator terms.

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