Evolutionary origin and the development of consciousness

•This study integrates objective and subjective outlooks on the conscious process.•Stochasticity of neural system is experienced in the form of subjective reality.•Human consciousness is a subjective ability to control one’s own intentions.•Being conscious in light of one’s intentions must be acquir...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews 2022-02, Vol.133, p.104511-104511, Article 104511
Main Author: Kanaev, Ilya A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Brain - physiology
Consciousness - physiology
Evolutionary development
Human consciousness
Humans
Neurosciences
Self-control
Social cohesion
Social selection
Working memory
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Summary:•This study integrates objective and subjective outlooks on the conscious process.•Stochasticity of neural system is experienced in the form of subjective reality.•Human consciousness is a subjective ability to control one’s own intentions.•Being conscious in light of one’s intentions must be acquired during the lifetime.•Enough working memory and necessity of social cohesion give way to 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.
ISSN:0149-7634
1873-7528
DOI:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.12.034