Comment by coffeecantcode
2 months ago
That example I gave of the emergence of consciousness being a result of a growing brain was just an example and not necessarily what I believe, but it was on based this article from 2016:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.00821
Which really just breaks down consciousness potentially being a byproduct of having a drastically higher number of neurological connections than lesser developed animal brains.
So combining the two, the growing brain, caused by an increase in size of the visual cortex to detect snake patterns, increased the number of neurological connections and as a result the brain gradually became consciously aware. That’s just one theory that I used.
And I 100% agree it’s okay to say that we don’t know, we don’t. And I don’t! But that won’t stop me from thinking about it like, a lot.
Edit: spelling
So do you agree with me that the statement "consciousness transcends evolutionary necessity" is not necessarily correct?
From that point yeah, “transcends evolutionary necessity” like you said, is a positive claim.
More accurate to my intent would be “consciousness is untethered by evolutionary necessity” maybe?
This is just changing your phrasing to say the same thing. It's still a claim unsupported by evidence.
My contention is that the absolute most we can say about the topic of the evolution of consciousness is "we don't yet know how or why consciousness evolved."
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