Evolutionary origin and the development of consciousness

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.

Automated summary

This review combines advancements in anthropology and neuroscience to study the adaptive value of human consciousness. It takes an interdisciplinary perspective on the origin of consciousness and refutes common misconceptions, emphasizing the neural correlates and the connection between neuroscience and behavioral sciences. Various explanations of consciousness are presented, along with a theoretical explanation on subjective experience as an overlap between neural dynamics and stimulation. The framework proposed lays the foundation for quantitatively describing subjective feelings and a naturalistic science of consciousness.