Evolutionary Origin and the Development of Consciousness.
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews December 1, 2021 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.12.034 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
Consciousness likely evolved as an adaptive trait, not an epiphenomenon. This review combines anthropology and neuroscience to argue that subjective reality arises from the stochastic dynamics of an individual's control system, where intrinsic neural activity and external stimulation continuously overlap. This framework supports a naturalistic, quantitative science of qualitative experience and refutes fallacies that separate neural correlates from evolutionary origins or subjective reality. The work emphasizes that physical correlates and subjective experience are inseparable, grounding conscious processes in a realistic ontology.
Study at a glance
| Design | review |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Consciousness is an adaptive trait best understood as the subjective experience of stochastic neural dynamics, inseparable from its physical correlates. |
Abstract
This review seeks to combine advances in anthropology and neuroscience to investigate the adaptive value of human consciousness. It uses an interdisciplinary perspective on the origin of consciousness to refute the most common fallacies in considering consciousness, particularly, disregarding the evolutionary origin of the subjective reality in looking for the neural correlates of consciousness and divorcing studies in neuroscience and behavioural sciences. Various explanations linked to consciousness in the field of neuroscience, supplemented with the theoretical explanation of an experience as an ongoing process of overlap between intrinsic neural dynamics and stimulation can be summarised as the stochastic dynamics of one's control system experienced by the individual in the form of subjective reality. This framework elaborates on the world-brain research program and lays foundation for the quantitative description of one's qualitative feelings and naturalistic science of consciousness. Furthermore, this study highlights the philosophical perspective of the inseparability between the physical correlates and the subjective reality contributing to the realistic ontology of conscious processes.