The value of consciousness: experiences worth having.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences November 13, 2025 Léa Moncoucy, Krzysztof Dołęga, Catherine Tallon-Baudry et al. 5 citations
Phenomenal experience—what it feels like to be an organism—has intrinsic value that cannot be reduced to evolutionary cost-benefit calculations. While all organisms act for reasons shaped by extrinsic evolutionary pressures, some also act for reasons of their own, sometimes even in ways detrimental to their survival. This shift marks a fundamental change in nature: subjective experience broadens an organism's capacity to act not merely in response to objective evolutionary value but also according to preference-driven subjective value associated with items, situations, events, or other agents. Subjective value can serve both as a driver of behavior and as a target for behavior, making it irreducible to extrinsic forms of value.