I think it comes with having a bigger and more complex brain, which has definitely been selected for over time, therefore consciousness could just be a side effect of that
This is kind of what I think, our brains evolved (a) giving us more control over our local environment in terms of space, hunting, etc. and (b) increasing our communication skills with other humans. Consciousness, or awareness of self and others, grew out of that. BTW, guys, that is purely speculation on my part, I don't think that there's a real good theory to explain it yet. However, it explains why biologists represent the absolute peak of human evolution. :)
Maybe consicousness is a by-product of intelligence. Intelligence is certainly a benefit. It allows us to make tools to survive in almost any habitat. Intelligence allows humans to be the ultimate apex predator. There are also multiple types of intelligence. Social intelligence allows us to work together and pass information to others. Cultural things, such as art, music, and stories connect us and are important for socializing. Could there be such an advanced society without social/cultural intelligence? Maybe. But socializing and mutual interest in abstract things like art enables people to get together, changing of ideas, and eventually orchestral musicals and quantum theories.
Maybe you are thinking to narrow.
The ability to withstand our impulses/instincts seems very beneficial for social animals like us. Our consciousness enables us to withstand them.
Music and art are a form of communicating, and communication is a core trait of humans.
>being able to comprehend the far reaches of the universe to the miniscule within the quantum world
This is easy.
Imagine you have equivalent humans that differ only in the ability of abstract comprehension and curiosity. The group without is surviving in their environment decently like any other animal. They do fine- but they don't change over many many years. But the group with these skills will constantly be finding new useful things like tools, patterns in seasons, basic understanding of elements, wider mental maps of the world etc etc etc. They are constantly experimenting which turns enough just enough useful new finds to make it worth it.
>how does finding beauty in music or art
This is less easy - but it could be a biproduct.
A sense of aesthetic can give you a sense of whether something is good, useful and healthy. Senses of displeasure seem to correlate with disease, a barren environment, and unuseful (broken) tools. Senses of pleasure seem to correlate with health, more healthy environments to live in (bar some counterexamples), and usefulness of a tool. For instance a rock that is either perfectly round or the perfect sharp shape will be prettier than a scraggily rock that's not useful. A counter example is a beautiful dangerous landscape - but speaking for myself my instincts tell me "observe that from afar" rather than "I want to be there" - which could keep me safe.
The evolutionary origins of music are highly debated. Perhaps its to do with pattern recognition. Perhaps to do with community cohesion and socialisation - a little bit similar to the way that birds sing for each-other not for other animals. Speaking of birds perhaps a component of song is courting rituals - the number of love-songs that exist in our culture would attest to that.
These are all just conjectures. The theory of evolution is a theory because we have not invented time travel yet. But in short yes for every human behaviour there is a conjectured evolutionary reason for it.
Wouldn’t singing as a way to attract another person be a result of music already being positively stimulating to humans? In other words, that the attraction to music was evolved earlier than the motivation to sing or use instruments in order to attract another human?
Well then how did bird song evolve? If a species must evolve a sense of musicality and enjoyment of music before it can learn to sing then birdsong would be dead in the water.
Musicality evolving out of courtship songs would roughly occur in this order.
species can make sounds > species use call sounds to attract each-other's attention > species begins to use rhythmical calls > species uses rhythmical calls for courtship > sexual selection begins to occur and rhythms and pitches diversify for the sake of better courtship > species gains a sense of musicality to understand the differences between the calls > musicality is co-opted for other functions
Not saying that is what happened in humans - its very speculative. But it is a possibility.
I don’t quite understand the terminology. When you say species begins to use rhythmical calls, are you referring to singing? If so, why would a species feel motivated to sing to the opposite sex in the case that music is not yet attractive to the species?
It appears that humans desire novel stimuli, which is evidenced by people feeling motivated to travel to new places, perceive rarity such as winning an award, and so on. Perhaps, the human desire towards music is a result of desiring novel stimuli. Novelty eventually diminishes, so the attraction towards a song should diminish if it is the novelty of the song that makes it attractive to humans. Assuming that people desire new songs, and that the excitement of newly released albums and songs eventually diminishes, there may be evidence that the attraction to music is a by-product of the desire for novel experiences. I could be wrong though.
>Perhaps, the human desire towards music is a result of desiring novel stimuli.
Decent idea. Certainly a simpler explanation.
>When you say species begins to use rhythmical calls, are you referring to singing? If so, why would a species feel motivated to sing to the opposite sex in the case that music is not yet attractive to the species?
No I think you've missed the point a little.
So a species would start of making a sound, any sound.
"a!" - perhaps that is just to get some attention. Then "a-a-a!" if its more urgent.
Then in a communal setting perhaps you would get attention with a slower rhymical set; "a--a--a--a." - perhaps that just means "I want attention, look at me."
Form there people start doing this towards people they fancy. At which point people start competing with different patterns of rhythm; "a-a--a-a--a-a". As this proliferates more notes and patterns are added until whole songs exist almost exclusively for courtship purposes.
From there we start to like different tunes - which could also as a trait co-opted into different aspects of life such as social life etc.
Again - not saying its what happened with humans but its plausible. Evolution only needs every step to make sense from the last.
So some populations/species in the past found it beneficial to have more consciousness (I’m thinking of some ancestors of humans, chimps, orcas, elephants), did our lineage just select harder for consciousness?
Not always. There are some traits that evolved randomly that served no deleterious or beneficial purpose but were passed down anyway. And some traits that may have initially been neutral could become positive later.
Forget "consciousness" then, just focus on the rest of the question. Beauty, music, appreciation of abstract-ish concepts.
Defining consciousness takes too much time and in my experience doesn't get anyone anywhere useful lol
Music and art likely promoted social cohesion and kept tribes together as well as provided an outlet during stressful times. The ability to self-ponder was likely very effective in our survival as we are pretty pathetic in terms of physical prowess as far as the animal kingdom goes. We can plan out not only our behaviour, but that of predators and others. Theory of Mind (being able to model yourself in other's minds as well as model how others model you) is going to be very effective for hunting in groups.
Our ability to ponder science is more of a byproduct of the above. However, we are not as intelligent as we give ourselves credit. Scientific thinking is highly artificial and most people report to snap judgments and illusory thinking (I recommend the book "Why religion is natural and science is not" which delves into this even more).
I'd take it more of a *byproduct* of natural selection. Natural selection has gifted us with big brains that are very flexible. We can strategise, anticipate, communicate, collaborate, deduce, and create. It just so happens that these fundamental skills which obviously developed to enable early humans to survive in the wilderness also allow us to develop mathematics, music, art, science, and technology. From an evolutionary perspective it seems to be an emergent property of having a complex brain. During the process of going from pre-human to human we seem to have passed a point where our collective brain power allowed us to create a *culture*, rather than having a mental "great reset" with each generation, and that allows each successive generation to build on the knowledge of previous generations – we discovered we were smart enough to make knowledge outlast individuals.
I (not a biologist) see it as an evolutionary mistake (or if not a mistake an “unintended” development). As in: yes, intelligence is definitely a benefit for survival but being able to take our own lives and decide not to have babies aren’t beneficial developments in biological terms. Now we see life as more than surviving and procreating, and we’re even capable of erasing humanity in its entirety in days, which is no good for the survival of the species
Consciousness has been selected for in humans, so it likely does benefit us. (It has also evolved in other species depending on your definition). But you are thinking of evolution on the wrong scale. Natural selection does not lead to things that "benefit our species," it has no foresight or goal. It acts on the individual level, meaning conscious humans were better able to survive and reproduce than non-conscious ones. My theory would be that it is socially beneficial or helps us solve complex problems.
If you are interested in reading more about the evolution of consciousness, I suggest "Other Minds" by Peter Godfrey Smith
Consciousness isn’t what you defined it as, but I’m assuming you just mean the way the human mind thinks and works, what would be called “sentience” in sci-fi. Most animals are to a degree sentient, in that they mostly all have a nervous system and many have a central brain, but where to draw the line at what is or isn’t conscious is hard
mammals, reptiles, and birds have developed neurological structures that add an exponential amount of potential for depth of thought. I would say that, while humans are a whole lot smarter than other mammals, reptiles, and birds, the basic structure of our “consciousness” is the same. At least, that’s according to the Attention Schema theory of consciousness, which is an evolutionary focused consciousness theory rather than the usual psychologist stuff that doesn’t have legs in reality)
Anyway, back to the question, not everything is about efficiency. Also, the theory of human self-domestication posits that once we started becoming a bit more tribal and social, we rapidly started self-domesticating, leading to bigger groups, who became even more tame and friendly, and so on. Natural selection favoured these social groups, they were better at surviving than smaller, more internally aggressive groups.
So once humans started forming tribes, the group itself adopted some of the qualities of natural selection, but the people in those tribes had essentially escaped natural selection and started the process of self-domestication, therefore leading to our loss of muscle, increase in brainpower, and let us think things like artistic values and such. Our increased intelligence let us advance our societies. We as individuals lost most of our violent tendencies, but warfare became more political so we could be happy people while still killing and taking.
It is impossible to understand human evolution without looking at the history of human culture and how societies developed, because they are tied.
Yes in a way. There are studies showing that the evolution of complex language has also brought about reflective consciousness. For example people that have no exposure to language until later in life have a moment where they become aware of themselves in a way that they were not previously.
It's called the hard problem of consciousness. No one knows the answer to this question. Every chemical reaction in your body, the senses, movement, behavior, thinking - literally everything could have easily happened in the exact same way without there being someone experiencing it.
In a manner of speaking. Consciousness is not one single thing that can be pinpointed in a brain, though more powerful brains are certainly a requirement. There's no consciousness gene or mutation. It's an emergent property of a cascade of adaptations.
A lot of that may simply be a side effect, not the benefit, of having a more complex brain and better understanding the world around us. There are obvious advantages to intelligence, problem solving, tool use, information communication. All the other stuff is just a side effect of that.
Take the entire art of cooking and cuisine. That all comes from our tongues having evolved to identify what is poisonous and what is nutritionally rich, and our brains evolving to make us happy when we consume something with high calories necessary for survival back in the past, as a result we have manipulated those sensations to create an entire art and industry
Nawh, aesthetics come from math. Beauty is just a natural reflection of math, I say. Symmetry, healthy plants, proper color, ripeness. Muscle balance, health. You know? Circles and hexagons. Bees get it. Efficiency.
Idk how better to say it cause I'm a big dumb. But I think it's effective for natural selection, to recognize "beauty". But really, we're recognizing fitness and efficiency. Effectiveness. Naturally, as proper physics expresses it.
Beautiful vistas light up out neurons because "oh hey great view, much safe, much capability. Good searching for little exploring."
Edit: sounds, music, mating, calling, vibration vibrates best at notes G and C and whatever. Good mate hits good vibration notes. Takes work, takes health. Takes further ability to notice subtle physics thing. Good song, good mate. Music good.
The Bible says we are made in the image of God. I believe this isn’t about physical form. It’s about consciousness. Does a dog or a snake have consciousness? A brain complex enough to even think about God, or Heaven? Truth is, we don’t know. But a brain complex enough to alter its environment to suit its purposes, communicate, cooperate, explore nature—do science, create and appreciate the arts, and establish a relationship with God, must be on a level to reflect God’s image. Here come all the “Christians” to tear that apart!
I think finding beauty in the world does benefit us, in a lot of ways. It’s a mistake to try to figure out how every trait could help every individual reproduce. Humans are extremely complex and extremely social animals, that’s the biggest reason why we’ve been so successful.
To be fair, conscience really helped with science, which is what pushed us so far into domination of the planet. So.... Maybe it isn't natural selection, but more like collective strength?
You know how when you want to get electricity to travel through a wire you get the side effect of the system heating up a bit? Well consciousness is the side effect of developing a complex structure of neurons for analyzing information within the environment and ourselves. We survived because it was very beneficial for us in the sense that it made us ready to develop culture and tools in the early hominids.
You'd have to define what you mean by consciousness to have a real discussion about this.
Obviously an "unconscious" (asleep/knocked out) human wouldn't do very well. You've got to be conscious to get things done.
The ability to mentally model your own mind and body, your own actions, and your potential future paths through life seems pretty useful to me...if that's what you mean. You need a complicated brain to do those things and we already had a pretty complicated brain due to selective pressures involved in being proficient in verbally communicating and navigating complex social interactions.
Art is actually good for your brain in many ways. You know how animals play hunt to practice hunting? Humans play think, and use art as both a way to hold knowledge (songs where a common way to memorize things for much of human history) and a way to practice higher order thinking. This a common perspective on the human mind, but not proven as far as I am aware. But the point being there are many positives to humans as individuals and as groups in art and it by no means is useless evolutionarily.
Consciousness is basically a way to simulate world internally. Very important for complicated problem solving. Dreaming is there to generalize the learning and avoid overfit. Our color vision is good and we find ripe fruits very juicy and beautiful. We also get very alerted, when we se warning colours. Rott and other usually unhealthy things stink. Many traits are also assumed to influence mate finding and child care. Of course consciousness is a result of selection. Now, the exact answer depends if you include e.g. sexual selection in natural selection. Some do, some use a more narrow definition.
Consciousness doesn't grant us appreciation for art and music, only our ability to reliably create it. We have gigantic memories, and we like things that stimulate and replicate good (or, at least, interesting) memories or feelings, which IS useful. The appreciation is more of a side effect.
Consciousness is more than wonder and appreciation. But even if we think about just those aspects of consciousness there seems to be obvious benefit in these as they bread curiosity which feeds invention. Also, there is pretty solid evidence that these advanced conscious behaviors have evolved separately in different parts of the brain in different species. (Convergent evolution) Covid birds display very advanced conscious behaviors which have been mapped to completely district areas of the brain than in mammals. Also… I would argue all phenotypes physical, mental, emotional are products of natural selection
Isn't it also bold to assume that all human life is conscious? There are the obvious cases of people being brain dead for medical reasons, but there are also a large contingent of people that have no inner monologue and no ability to self reflect. Did they miss that evolutionary boat?
I think it comes with having a bigger and more complex brain, which has definitely been selected for over time, therefore consciousness could just be a side effect of that
This is kind of what I think, our brains evolved (a) giving us more control over our local environment in terms of space, hunting, etc. and (b) increasing our communication skills with other humans. Consciousness, or awareness of self and others, grew out of that. BTW, guys, that is purely speculation on my part, I don't think that there's a real good theory to explain it yet. However, it explains why biologists represent the absolute peak of human evolution. :)
Maybe consicousness is a by-product of intelligence. Intelligence is certainly a benefit. It allows us to make tools to survive in almost any habitat. Intelligence allows humans to be the ultimate apex predator. There are also multiple types of intelligence. Social intelligence allows us to work together and pass information to others. Cultural things, such as art, music, and stories connect us and are important for socializing. Could there be such an advanced society without social/cultural intelligence? Maybe. But socializing and mutual interest in abstract things like art enables people to get together, changing of ideas, and eventually orchestral musicals and quantum theories.
Maybe you are thinking to narrow. The ability to withstand our impulses/instincts seems very beneficial for social animals like us. Our consciousness enables us to withstand them. Music and art are a form of communicating, and communication is a core trait of humans.
Withstanding impulses is just another impulse, you don't need consciousness for that.
>being able to comprehend the far reaches of the universe to the miniscule within the quantum world This is easy. Imagine you have equivalent humans that differ only in the ability of abstract comprehension and curiosity. The group without is surviving in their environment decently like any other animal. They do fine- but they don't change over many many years. But the group with these skills will constantly be finding new useful things like tools, patterns in seasons, basic understanding of elements, wider mental maps of the world etc etc etc. They are constantly experimenting which turns enough just enough useful new finds to make it worth it. >how does finding beauty in music or art This is less easy - but it could be a biproduct. A sense of aesthetic can give you a sense of whether something is good, useful and healthy. Senses of displeasure seem to correlate with disease, a barren environment, and unuseful (broken) tools. Senses of pleasure seem to correlate with health, more healthy environments to live in (bar some counterexamples), and usefulness of a tool. For instance a rock that is either perfectly round or the perfect sharp shape will be prettier than a scraggily rock that's not useful. A counter example is a beautiful dangerous landscape - but speaking for myself my instincts tell me "observe that from afar" rather than "I want to be there" - which could keep me safe. The evolutionary origins of music are highly debated. Perhaps its to do with pattern recognition. Perhaps to do with community cohesion and socialisation - a little bit similar to the way that birds sing for each-other not for other animals. Speaking of birds perhaps a component of song is courting rituals - the number of love-songs that exist in our culture would attest to that. These are all just conjectures. The theory of evolution is a theory because we have not invented time travel yet. But in short yes for every human behaviour there is a conjectured evolutionary reason for it.
Wouldn’t singing as a way to attract another person be a result of music already being positively stimulating to humans? In other words, that the attraction to music was evolved earlier than the motivation to sing or use instruments in order to attract another human?
Well then how did bird song evolve? If a species must evolve a sense of musicality and enjoyment of music before it can learn to sing then birdsong would be dead in the water. Musicality evolving out of courtship songs would roughly occur in this order. species can make sounds > species use call sounds to attract each-other's attention > species begins to use rhythmical calls > species uses rhythmical calls for courtship > sexual selection begins to occur and rhythms and pitches diversify for the sake of better courtship > species gains a sense of musicality to understand the differences between the calls > musicality is co-opted for other functions Not saying that is what happened in humans - its very speculative. But it is a possibility.
I don’t quite understand the terminology. When you say species begins to use rhythmical calls, are you referring to singing? If so, why would a species feel motivated to sing to the opposite sex in the case that music is not yet attractive to the species? It appears that humans desire novel stimuli, which is evidenced by people feeling motivated to travel to new places, perceive rarity such as winning an award, and so on. Perhaps, the human desire towards music is a result of desiring novel stimuli. Novelty eventually diminishes, so the attraction towards a song should diminish if it is the novelty of the song that makes it attractive to humans. Assuming that people desire new songs, and that the excitement of newly released albums and songs eventually diminishes, there may be evidence that the attraction to music is a by-product of the desire for novel experiences. I could be wrong though.
>Perhaps, the human desire towards music is a result of desiring novel stimuli. Decent idea. Certainly a simpler explanation. >When you say species begins to use rhythmical calls, are you referring to singing? If so, why would a species feel motivated to sing to the opposite sex in the case that music is not yet attractive to the species? No I think you've missed the point a little. So a species would start of making a sound, any sound. "a!" - perhaps that is just to get some attention. Then "a-a-a!" if its more urgent. Then in a communal setting perhaps you would get attention with a slower rhymical set; "a--a--a--a." - perhaps that just means "I want attention, look at me." Form there people start doing this towards people they fancy. At which point people start competing with different patterns of rhythm; "a-a--a-a--a-a". As this proliferates more notes and patterns are added until whole songs exist almost exclusively for courtship purposes. From there we start to like different tunes - which could also as a trait co-opted into different aspects of life such as social life etc. Again - not saying its what happened with humans but its plausible. Evolution only needs every step to make sense from the last.
Every existing trait is the result of natural selection
So some populations/species in the past found it beneficial to have more consciousness (I’m thinking of some ancestors of humans, chimps, orcas, elephants), did our lineage just select harder for consciousness?
Not always. There are some traits that evolved randomly that served no deleterious or beneficial purpose but were passed down anyway. And some traits that may have initially been neutral could become positive later.
Beneficial traits =/= natural selection, just traits that didn't ultimately lead to enough selection pressure for extinction.
Absolutely not true.
Tell me what consciousness is, and maybe we can begin to think about this question.
Forget "consciousness" then, just focus on the rest of the question. Beauty, music, appreciation of abstract-ish concepts. Defining consciousness takes too much time and in my experience doesn't get anyone anywhere useful lol
Music and art likely promoted social cohesion and kept tribes together as well as provided an outlet during stressful times. The ability to self-ponder was likely very effective in our survival as we are pretty pathetic in terms of physical prowess as far as the animal kingdom goes. We can plan out not only our behaviour, but that of predators and others. Theory of Mind (being able to model yourself in other's minds as well as model how others model you) is going to be very effective for hunting in groups. Our ability to ponder science is more of a byproduct of the above. However, we are not as intelligent as we give ourselves credit. Scientific thinking is highly artificial and most people report to snap judgments and illusory thinking (I recommend the book "Why religion is natural and science is not" which delves into this even more).
Its part of being social. Being social helped us survive.
I'd take it more of a *byproduct* of natural selection. Natural selection has gifted us with big brains that are very flexible. We can strategise, anticipate, communicate, collaborate, deduce, and create. It just so happens that these fundamental skills which obviously developed to enable early humans to survive in the wilderness also allow us to develop mathematics, music, art, science, and technology. From an evolutionary perspective it seems to be an emergent property of having a complex brain. During the process of going from pre-human to human we seem to have passed a point where our collective brain power allowed us to create a *culture*, rather than having a mental "great reset" with each generation, and that allows each successive generation to build on the knowledge of previous generations – we discovered we were smart enough to make knowledge outlast individuals.
I (not a biologist) see it as an evolutionary mistake (or if not a mistake an “unintended” development). As in: yes, intelligence is definitely a benefit for survival but being able to take our own lives and decide not to have babies aren’t beneficial developments in biological terms. Now we see life as more than surviving and procreating, and we’re even capable of erasing humanity in its entirety in days, which is no good for the survival of the species
Consciousness has been selected for in humans, so it likely does benefit us. (It has also evolved in other species depending on your definition). But you are thinking of evolution on the wrong scale. Natural selection does not lead to things that "benefit our species," it has no foresight or goal. It acts on the individual level, meaning conscious humans were better able to survive and reproduce than non-conscious ones. My theory would be that it is socially beneficial or helps us solve complex problems. If you are interested in reading more about the evolution of consciousness, I suggest "Other Minds" by Peter Godfrey Smith
Consciousness isn’t what you defined it as, but I’m assuming you just mean the way the human mind thinks and works, what would be called “sentience” in sci-fi. Most animals are to a degree sentient, in that they mostly all have a nervous system and many have a central brain, but where to draw the line at what is or isn’t conscious is hard mammals, reptiles, and birds have developed neurological structures that add an exponential amount of potential for depth of thought. I would say that, while humans are a whole lot smarter than other mammals, reptiles, and birds, the basic structure of our “consciousness” is the same. At least, that’s according to the Attention Schema theory of consciousness, which is an evolutionary focused consciousness theory rather than the usual psychologist stuff that doesn’t have legs in reality) Anyway, back to the question, not everything is about efficiency. Also, the theory of human self-domestication posits that once we started becoming a bit more tribal and social, we rapidly started self-domesticating, leading to bigger groups, who became even more tame and friendly, and so on. Natural selection favoured these social groups, they were better at surviving than smaller, more internally aggressive groups. So once humans started forming tribes, the group itself adopted some of the qualities of natural selection, but the people in those tribes had essentially escaped natural selection and started the process of self-domestication, therefore leading to our loss of muscle, increase in brainpower, and let us think things like artistic values and such. Our increased intelligence let us advance our societies. We as individuals lost most of our violent tendencies, but warfare became more political so we could be happy people while still killing and taking. It is impossible to understand human evolution without looking at the history of human culture and how societies developed, because they are tied.
Yes in a way. There are studies showing that the evolution of complex language has also brought about reflective consciousness. For example people that have no exposure to language until later in life have a moment where they become aware of themselves in a way that they were not previously.
That's very interesting.
Know what humans don't benefit from? High opinions of their own opinions. 😅
It's called the hard problem of consciousness. No one knows the answer to this question. Every chemical reaction in your body, the senses, movement, behavior, thinking - literally everything could have easily happened in the exact same way without there being someone experiencing it.
In a manner of speaking. Consciousness is not one single thing that can be pinpointed in a brain, though more powerful brains are certainly a requirement. There's no consciousness gene or mutation. It's an emergent property of a cascade of adaptations.
A lot of that may simply be a side effect, not the benefit, of having a more complex brain and better understanding the world around us. There are obvious advantages to intelligence, problem solving, tool use, information communication. All the other stuff is just a side effect of that. Take the entire art of cooking and cuisine. That all comes from our tongues having evolved to identify what is poisonous and what is nutritionally rich, and our brains evolving to make us happy when we consume something with high calories necessary for survival back in the past, as a result we have manipulated those sensations to create an entire art and industry
Nawh, aesthetics come from math. Beauty is just a natural reflection of math, I say. Symmetry, healthy plants, proper color, ripeness. Muscle balance, health. You know? Circles and hexagons. Bees get it. Efficiency. Idk how better to say it cause I'm a big dumb. But I think it's effective for natural selection, to recognize "beauty". But really, we're recognizing fitness and efficiency. Effectiveness. Naturally, as proper physics expresses it. Beautiful vistas light up out neurons because "oh hey great view, much safe, much capability. Good searching for little exploring." Edit: sounds, music, mating, calling, vibration vibrates best at notes G and C and whatever. Good mate hits good vibration notes. Takes work, takes health. Takes further ability to notice subtle physics thing. Good song, good mate. Music good.
The Bible says we are made in the image of God. I believe this isn’t about physical form. It’s about consciousness. Does a dog or a snake have consciousness? A brain complex enough to even think about God, or Heaven? Truth is, we don’t know. But a brain complex enough to alter its environment to suit its purposes, communicate, cooperate, explore nature—do science, create and appreciate the arts, and establish a relationship with God, must be on a level to reflect God’s image. Here come all the “Christians” to tear that apart!
I think finding beauty in the world does benefit us, in a lot of ways. It’s a mistake to try to figure out how every trait could help every individual reproduce. Humans are extremely complex and extremely social animals, that’s the biggest reason why we’ve been so successful.
To be fair, conscience really helped with science, which is what pushed us so far into domination of the planet. So.... Maybe it isn't natural selection, but more like collective strength?
You know how when you want to get electricity to travel through a wire you get the side effect of the system heating up a bit? Well consciousness is the side effect of developing a complex structure of neurons for analyzing information within the environment and ourselves. We survived because it was very beneficial for us in the sense that it made us ready to develop culture and tools in the early hominids.
You'd have to define what you mean by consciousness to have a real discussion about this. Obviously an "unconscious" (asleep/knocked out) human wouldn't do very well. You've got to be conscious to get things done. The ability to mentally model your own mind and body, your own actions, and your potential future paths through life seems pretty useful to me...if that's what you mean. You need a complicated brain to do those things and we already had a pretty complicated brain due to selective pressures involved in being proficient in verbally communicating and navigating complex social interactions.
Art is actually good for your brain in many ways. You know how animals play hunt to practice hunting? Humans play think, and use art as both a way to hold knowledge (songs where a common way to memorize things for much of human history) and a way to practice higher order thinking. This a common perspective on the human mind, but not proven as far as I am aware. But the point being there are many positives to humans as individuals and as groups in art and it by no means is useless evolutionarily.
Consciousness is basically a way to simulate world internally. Very important for complicated problem solving. Dreaming is there to generalize the learning and avoid overfit. Our color vision is good and we find ripe fruits very juicy and beautiful. We also get very alerted, when we se warning colours. Rott and other usually unhealthy things stink. Many traits are also assumed to influence mate finding and child care. Of course consciousness is a result of selection. Now, the exact answer depends if you include e.g. sexual selection in natural selection. Some do, some use a more narrow definition.
Consciousness doesn't grant us appreciation for art and music, only our ability to reliably create it. We have gigantic memories, and we like things that stimulate and replicate good (or, at least, interesting) memories or feelings, which IS useful. The appreciation is more of a side effect.
Consciousness is more than wonder and appreciation. But even if we think about just those aspects of consciousness there seems to be obvious benefit in these as they bread curiosity which feeds invention. Also, there is pretty solid evidence that these advanced conscious behaviors have evolved separately in different parts of the brain in different species. (Convergent evolution) Covid birds display very advanced conscious behaviors which have been mapped to completely district areas of the brain than in mammals. Also… I would argue all phenotypes physical, mental, emotional are products of natural selection
Isn't it also bold to assume that all human life is conscious? There are the obvious cases of people being brain dead for medical reasons, but there are also a large contingent of people that have no inner monologue and no ability to self reflect. Did they miss that evolutionary boat?
It does and doesn’t. To imagine more than what is known, is Darwinism at its finest. To believe in a fantasy, is irrefutably irrational logic.