How Did Consciousness Evolve?
“Serit arbores, quae alteri saeclo prosint, ut ait Statius noster in Synephebis."
- Cato Major I.24
From “How Did Consciousness Evolve? An Illustrated Guide”
Driven by learning, consciousness and cognition evolved further. In some lineages, selection for increased learning capacity led to the gradual evolution of imaginative, dreaming animals. They did not just learn about aspects of their world; they also learned about how events unfolded in time. They recalled past events— they could recall when and where a particular event happened, and they planned ahead by recombining aspects of their recollections and evaluating the planned, imagined event. These animals, which inhabit the third floor in Dennett’s generate-and-test tower, could imagine different scenarios and choose between them.
There are many examples of imaginative planning by birds and mammals, and there are more limited examples of the imaginative ability of some fish, bees, and cuttlefish. It is likely that imagination evolved gradually and to different degrees in different species. Curiously, most imaginative animals are social. Are their social sensibilities related to their imaginative capacities? Whatever the answer and however striking animal imagination is, it remains in the private domain. The ability to communicate about what one imagines is peculiar to humans.
Taking it to the next logical level, we begin to see the collective imagination as a marker separating one human species from the next, while physical attributes tend to remain the same over evolutionary timelines. Creative expression, communication and imagination are all that remain to distinguish Homo planetarius from Homo sapiens. Those who notice what others have overlooked are capable of naturally selecting a more beneficial outcome for the evolution of human consciousness. It’s simply a matter of choice, not a matter of genetics. As evolutionary biologist Mary Jane West-Eberhard put it: “Genes are followers, not leaders, in evolution.”
Worth considering is hope vs. hopelessness and how optimism fuels imagination. I notice that travel is different for me now, because I rarely imagine living in a place, whereas when I was young, that idea was part of what made it intriguing and fun. Now I am more interested in putting down roots in one place. Instead, my focus has shifted towards helping my company to become profitable, thereby allowing me to put down roots in other places too, like maybe the Moon or Mars.
Some evolutionary biologists claim that reverse evolution isn’t possible. Certainly we are unlikely to see a complete regression back to the apes. However, I do think that with our increased awareness of how to direct the trajectory of human evolution, there are obvious behaviors that will be counterproductive. There are choices that will keep humanity trapped in an endless cycle of repetition, generation after generation, producing only clones but never triggering evolutionarily leaps of consciousness.
