Why did consciousness evolve?

Answer 1

When a crab sees a piece of food, the locating vectors are registered in the animals sensory phase space. The information is reconfigured using tensors, in the crab's motor phase space so that the pincer may extend to the location of the meal.

No one knows if the crab is conscious of this event, but we believe that sensory-motor co-ordination would be improved if the animal was aware of what it was doing. If the computations exist in a mathematical space then consciouness might exist there also. As long ago as 1926, Bertrand Russell pointed out that consciousness does not exist in physical space but in perceptual space.

We have shown that upon emergence from anesthesia, the dynamics of the Electroencephalogram (EEG), increase from 2 to 3 phase space dimensions, as consciousness is regained.

Studies of over 20 species of fauna show a linear increase in EEG dimension with an increase in brain complexity. Using extant animals as surrogates for their evolutional ancestors, we see that 3 phase space dimensions, which correlate with consciousness in the human, are achieved between the appearance of the fishes and the amphibians. Very approximately, this occurs 375 million years ago. It is interesting that at about the same time, atmospheric oxygen increased to the level we enjoy today (it dipped again later), and the first quadruped vertebrates appeared on land. We do not claim that frog consciousness is the same as human consciousness but it does at least seem that the frog has the neural equipment to enjoy a kind of consciousness. It is also relevant to note that complex neural function is extremely expensive in terms of glucose and oxygen consumption. Available oxygen may have been the limiting factor.

Peter T. Walling M.D.

Department ofAnesthesia.

Baylor University Medical Center.

Dallas .Texas peterwalling@gmail.com