Can Evolution Be Conscious? 1

Can Evolution Be Conscious? Introducing a Collection of Commentaries Published on This View of Life

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Table of Contents Contributors

03 Contributors Can Evolution Be Conscious? 05 by David Sloan Wilson, Mel Andrews, Maximus Thaler David Mel Maximus Liane Cultural Evolution, Insight, and Fundamental Theories of Consciousness Sloan Wilson Andrews Thaler Gabora 08 by Liane Gabora The Origins and Evolutionary Effects of Consciousness David Sloan Wilson is SUNY Mel Andrews is a Maximus is a PhD candidate Liane Gabora is Professor Distinguished Professor of philosopher of mind, at Binghamton University of Psychology at University By Eva Jablonka and Simona Ginsburg 15 Biology and Anthropology biology, and cognitive studying cultural evolution of British Columbia - at Binghamton University. science and a graduate of (Wilson Lab). His work Okanagan. Her research The Evolution of Consciousness Enables Conscious Evolution He is also President of Tufts University. Alongside focuses on the organismality focuses on creativity, how it 18 by Steven C. Hayes the Evolution Institute her friend Maximus of intentional communities, arose in the hominid lineage, and Editor in Chief of This Thaler, Mel runs an online in collaboration with the and in what sense culture Welcome to the Noösphere View of Life Magazine. course on new topics in Federation of Egalitarian evolves. 26 by Alice Andrews evolutionary theory. Communities. The Consciousness of Detachment and the Detachment of Consciousness 31 by Lenny Moss Can Evolution Be Conscious of Itself? Yes, It Can! 34 by Joe Brewer

One Culture, Two Cultures? How Many Cultures, How Long? 37 by Kurt Johnson Massimo Eva Jablonka & Steven C. Alice Pigliucci Simona Ginsburg Hayes Andrews Can Evolution be Understood as a Conscious Process? 40 by Stanley N. Salthe Massimo Pigliucci is a Eva Jablonka (right) is an Steven C. Hayes is Nevada Andrews teaches psychology Why Teleology is the Elephant in Evolutionary Theory’s Room blogger and author, as evolutionary biologist Foundation Professor and evolutionary studies at well as the K.D. Irani working in the Cohn at the Department of the State University of New by Felipe A. Veloso 43 Professor of Philosophy at Institute for the History Psychology at the University York at New Paltz. She is a the City College of New and Philosophy of Science of Nevada. His career has founding member/council York. He writes regularly and Ideas, Tel-Aviv. focused on an analysis member of the Applied at platofootnote.org and Simona Ginsburg (left) is a of the nature of human Evolutionary Psychology howtobeastoic.org. neurobiologist who retired language and cognition Society as well as the from the Open University of and the application of founder and former editor- Israel, where she headed the this to the understanding in-chief of The Evolutionary MA Program in Biological and alleviation of human Review: Art, Science, Culture. Thought. suffering.

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Lenny Joe Kurt Stanley N. Moss Brewer Johnson Salthe

Lenny Moss holds doctoral Joe Brewer is a complexity Dr. Kurt Johnson is Stanley N. Salthe is degrees in Comparative researcher, innovation professor of comparative Professor Emeritus in the Biochemistry (Berkeley) and strategist, experience religion at New York’s Department of Biology at Philosophy (Northwestern), designer, and serial social Interfaith Seminary, a Brooklyn College of the is the author of What entrepreneur who brings a former monastic, and City University of New Genes Can’t Do (MIT) and wealth of expertise to the co-author of the influential York, is a Visiting Scientist is currently a professor of adoption of sustainable book on world religions, The in Biological Sciences at philosophy at the University solutions at the cultural Coming Interspiritual Age. Binghamton University. of Exeter (UK). scale.

Can Evolution Be Conscious?

Felipe A. By David Sloan Wilson, Mel Andrews, Maximus Thaler Veloso

If you had a conventional biological education, Baptiste Lamarck and Herbert Spencer. You Felipe A. Veloso has an engineering background but then you were taught that evolution is not a would be wrongfully invoking orthogenesis. You his passion and research conscious process. Giraffes that stretch to reach would be thinking in terms of teleology, when interests quickly developed high foliage do not mysteriously cause their you should be thinking in terms of teleonomy. towards fundamental offspring to be taller. Instead, their offspring biology. In 2018, he left academia and continues are both taller and shorter and it is differences How very 20th Century. doing research in theoretical in their fitness that cause the giraffe population biology while working as to become taller over time. More generally, you As we approach the one-fifth mark of the a freelance inventor for a were taught that genetic variation is random with 21st Century, the concept of conscious Chilean start-up biotech company. respect to what is selected by the environment, evolution is becoming respectable again. which makes evolution blind rather than conscious. Before proceeding, let’s demystify the concept of “conscious” by listing some of its synonyms: If you were so foolish as to think otherwise, you deliberate, intentional, purposeful, calculated, would be guilty of errors associated with Jean- planned, volitional. All of these words imply

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directionality in the actions of an agent, who up with different solutions, just as different Moreover, even genetic evolution can be more evolutionary scientists and philosophers. works toward a goal rather than behaving populations of bacteria subjected to the directed than previously thought. For example, Each will be published individually over the randomly with respect to the goal. same selection pressures respond by genetic an environmental change might trigger an next few weeks and the collected links will evolution in different ways, based on different increase in mutation rates in genes especially appear below. All mechanisms of inheritance To see how an evolutionary process can be mutations that arise by chance. In short, while relevant to adapting to environmental change. will be featured, including genetics, directional, consider genetic algorithms in an evolutionary process has a component that This kind of directed genetic evolution is (or epigenetics, forms of social learning found in computer science. Some problems, such as is random with respect to what is selected, it should be) uncontroversial because it can many species, and forms of symbolic thought how a traveling salesman should minimize the can also have components that are directed, easily be shown to evolve from an undirected that are distinctively human. In addition, length of his path through different cities, are such as the target of selection and variation process of genetic evolution. authors were chosen who could speak to the notoriously difficult to solve because there are that is decidedly non-random with respect to practical implications of regarding evolution so many combinatorial possibilities. One way the target of selection. To make the concept of conscious evolution fully as a conscious process, in addition to basic to proceed is to represent different options respectable again, TVOL is pleased to feature scientific implications. Each author was asked (i.e., each path through the cities) as a string These two examples of conscious evolution this collection of commentaries by leading to address the following questions: of information, like genes on a chromosome, are so clear-cut, at least in retrospect, that and to select them on the basis of path length. you might think I am misrepresenting the Then variation is created by mutating the orthodox view, which treats the concept of strings and recombining them with each other, conscious evolution as a heresy. In a sense, Is conscious evolution a legitimate concept? emulating the process of genetic recombination. I am, because the orthodox view confines Numerous “generations” of this process do itself to genetic evolution. Yet, this by itself is If so, what are some examples? a good job of finding the shortest paths. The highly problematic. Darwin defined evolution whole process is consciously (= intentionally) in terms of variation, selection, and heredity, How does the concept of conscious evolution change our designed to solve a specified problem, but it still which is a resemblance between offspring basic scientific understanding of evolution? counts as an evolutionary process. and parents caused by any mechanism. Once genes were identified as one mechanism of How can we use the concept of conscious evolution to Or take conscious human decision-making as inheritance, they rapidly became treated as accomplish positive change in the real world? a second example. There is a clear objective the only mechanism, as if the only way that for evaluating alternative options, which is offspring can resemble their parents is by the target of selection in evolutionary terms. sharing their genes. This is patently false. The variation part of the evolutionary process Only toward the end of the 20th century did Hopefully, this collection will go a long way includes both a directed and undirected evolutionists start going back to basics by toward returning the concept of conscious component. We don’t suggest options at defining evolution in terms of heredity, not just evolution to normalcy. random; typically, we are guided by one set genes, and by identifying other mechanisms of of expectations or another. On the other heredity, such as epigenetics, forms of social hand, some options do appear to “come out learning found in many species, and forms of nowhere” and these are often the ones of symbolic thought that are distinctively that are chosen. That’s what brainstorming human. If evolutionary biologists previously is all about. One way to demonstrate the missed forms of evolution that are obviously importance of the random component is directed due to their narrow focus on genetic by giving the same problem to a number of evolution, that is something to be corrected, decision-making groups. They usually come not perpetuated.

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the primitive sort of consciousness present Another challenge for panpsychism is that it in everything to the clearly distinctive form strikes most people as counterintuitive; rocks of consciousness possessed by humans? and thermometers don’t seem conscious. Building on Chalmers’ double aspect theory However, much as a mirrored surface can of information4 which holds that information block outside light from reaching the interior has a phenomenal aspect, it was suggested of a sphere, the localized amplification of that an entity is conscious to the extent it information in a living system could effectively amplifies information.8 The origin of life through shield us from external consciousness; in other autocatalytic closure,13 and the origin of a self- words, the apparent paucity of consciousness organized understanding of the world and may be an illusion.8 one’s place in it—i.e., a worldview—through conceptual closure,7 induced phase transitions If one accepts this position that consciousness in the degree to which information, and thus is a universal primitive, then evolutionary consciousness, is locally amplified. Much as light processes are conscious, not to the same gets trapped and locally amplified in a diamond degree as the (locally amplified) conscious or a spherical mirror, organic systems provide a systems they give rise to, but to the same first level of locally amplifying information, and degree as everything else. thus consciousness, and human cognition forms a second such layer.

Evolution and Locally Amplified Consciousness

From here onward, let us restrict the discussion the term ‘conscious’ to be synonymous with to the locally amplified sort of consciousness ‘deliberate’ or ‘goal-directed’, most people would Cultural Evolution, Insight, that we ourselves experience. Although the probably view activities such as mind-wandering subjects of biological evolution are conscious or doodling, which would not be characterized as in this way, the underlying process of biological deliberate or goal-directed, to nevertheless be and Fundamental Theories of evolution is not obviously so, unless one conscious. Creative ideation may be preceded by considers situations wherein these ‘subjects’ a period of subconscious incubation followed by play a role in how the evolutionary process a sudden burst of insight,15 and experiments on Consciousness unfolds, as in cases of assortative mating, the ‘intuitive antecedents of insight’ have shown selective breeding, or genetic engineering. that, prior to insight, one is actually honing in on an idea even when one is not consciously aware By Liane Gabora However, a case for conscious evolution is more of doing so.2 Thus, ironically perhaps, the creative easily made with respect to cultural evolution. processes that fuel culture may be less conscious A Panpsychist Response to ‘Is Evolution Conscious’? The fact that cultural change is cumulative, than other cognitive processes (such as learning adaptive, and open-ended suggests that culture and planning). 3 To answer the question of whether or not approaches such as panpsychism bypass evolves, and computational models of cultural 6,12 evolution is (or could be) conscious, we must the problem of getting consciousness from evolution have been around for some time. It is interesting to note that the moment of first consider what makes something conscious. non-conscious components by positing that Since cultural evolution is fueled by the creative insight is often portrayed as a light bulb turning Approaches to consciousness can be divided into consciousness is a universal primitive.4,14,16 efforts of human minds which, by anyone’s on, and words involving light are used to talk two camps. Reductionist approaches attempt definition, are conscious, it would seem that about creative insight, e.g., flash of insight, 10 to explain how consciousness could arise out of Panpsychist approaches are faced with the consciousness plays a central role in cultural creative spark, and so forth. Creative insight non-conscious components.1,5 Fundamentalist combination problem:14 how do you get from evolution. However, although some view feels like a particularly conscious experience,

evolution-institute.org evolution-institute.org Can Evolution Be Conscious? 10 Can Evolution Be Conscious? 11 and consciousness itself is also discussed using 4. Chalmers, D. (1996). The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. the concept of ‘inner light’. 5. Churchland, P. S. (1986). Neurophilosophy: Toward a unified understanding of the mind-brain, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 6. Gabora, L. (1995). “Meme and variations: A computer model of cultural evolution” In (L. Nadel & D. Stein, How can the Notion of Conscious Evolution effect Eds.) 1993 Lectures in Complex Systems (pp. 471-486). Boston: Addison-Wesley. Positive Change in the World?’ 7. Gabora, L. (2000). “Conceptual closure: How memories are woven into an interconnected worldview,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 901, 42-53. It has been proposed that what evolves through We assimilate elements of culture by reframing 8. Gabora, L. (2002). “Amplifying phenomenal information: Toward a fundamental theory of consciousness,” culture are not discrete artifacts, gestures, them in our own terms, and we, in turn, contribute Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9(8), 3-29. and stories, but human worldviews, which as to culture by adapting ideas to our own needs 9. Gabora, L. (2013). “An evolutionary framework for culture: Selectionism versus communal exchange,” Physics mentioned above are the self-organizing webs and tastes. When our worldviews are integrated of Life Reviews, 10(2), 117-145. of knowledge and experience that guide how we as opposed to fragmented, we can more readily 10. Gabora, L. (2014). “Physical light as a metaphor for inner light.” Aisthesis, 7(2), 43-61. see and be in the world.9,11 It has been suggested see ideas from different perspectives; thus 11. Gabora, L. (2017). “Honing theory: A complex systems framework for creativity.” Nonlinear Dynamics, that worldviews locally amplify information by we are more likely to contribute creatively to Psychology, and Life Sciences, 21(1), 35-88. maintaining their self-organizing dynamics at culture in ways that are conducive to higher or 12. Gabora, L., & Tseng, S. (2017). “The social benefits of balancing creativity and imitation: Evidence from an the proverbial ‘edge of chaos’.8 Thus, although longer-term goals and to effect positive change. agent-based model,” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 11(4), 457-473. it is sometimes implied that directed is the It is interesting that exerting positive change 13. Kauffman, S. A. (1993). Origins of Order, Oxford University Press. opposite of random, the opposite of random is, in the world can, like insight, bring a sense of 14. Seager, W. (1995). Consciousness, information, and panpsychism. Journal of Consciousness Studies 2(3), in fact, deterministic, and it is the edge-of-chaos ‘inner light’. Perhaps in these moments, our 272-288. regime between these two extremes that may consciousness is heightened. 15. Wallas, G. (1926). The Art of Thought. London: J. Cape. be most conducive to consciousness. 16. Whitehead, A.N. (1929). Process and reality. New York: Macmillan.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by a grant (62R06523) from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

References 1. Baars, B.J., (1988). A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness. New York: Cambridge University Press 2. Bowers, K. S., Farvolden, P., & Mermigis, L. (1995). “Intuitive antecedents of insight.” In S. M. Smith, T. B., Ward, & R. A. Finke (Eds.), The Creative Cognition Approach (pp. 27-52). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 3. Boyd, R. and Richerson, P. J. (1985). Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985.

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many, but not all, games (e.g., competitiveness, one): artificial selection, Darwin’s own analogy featuring rules, done for fun, etc.), and the best for natural selection, which is likely to blame we can do is to form a search image for the for the unhappy consequence of a continued concept, based on the enumeration of examples confusion between teleology and teleonomy. that do or do not fall into its domain. So, taking But this is entirely uncontroversial: of course, on board Wittgenstein, and in agreement with human beings make conscious decisions, and it the Introduction, I think of conscious processes is human beings that design computer genetic as being also described by any or all of the algorithms (and computers, for that matter), following attributes: deliberate, intentional, so it is no surprise at all that these are (partly) purposeful, calculated, planned, volitional. conscious processes.

Notice that one attribute prominently not But it is a fallacy of equivocation to suggest featured in this list is directional, and another that, because human conscious decision making one is non-random. So to suggest, as some do, results in directional, non-random evolution, that evolution is a conscious process because therefore natural instances of directional, some mutations are not random, or because non-random evolution are further examples of natural selection clearly imposes a (local, both consciousness at play. Whose consciousness in time and space) direction to the evolutionary anyway? Is the suggestion that a natural process process is a non sequitur, it doesn’t follow. such as evolution is itself conscious? What Yes, 21st-century biology is discovering that would that even mean? Or are we conjuring a things are a heck of a lot more complicated 21st century variant of William Paley’s idea of than either Darwin or the architects of the an intelligent designer? Or what else? Modern Synthesis ever thought possible and that inheritance -- which for Darwin was a (Incidentally, and I write this parenthetically Conscious Evolution is a mystery – needs to be understood as far more because it’s about science communication, encompassing than just genetics.2 There is not science per se, do we really want to go epigenetics, niche construction, and cultural down that road again, confusing people with Category Mistake evolution, just to mention three phenomena talk of conscious evolution? I mean, Intelligent that have deservedly attracted a lot of attention Design creationism is already always lurking in of late.3,4,5 But this conceptual enrichment discussions about public education, ready to take By Massimo Pigliucci in evolutionary biology still does not make advantage of legitimate scientific debates such the teleonomic process of evolution into a as this one in order to further their ideologically teleological one. Teleological processes have a obscurantist agenda. If there are strong reasons I am not usually known for my orthodox thinking characteristics (a “family resemblance”), not by purpose, teleonomic ones, by contrast, appear to talk about conscious evolution, by all means. 1 about evolution, and yet in this case I have to rigid definitions based on a small set of necessary to have a purpose, but they don’t. Human But to do so on the basis of superficial analogies reject the premise of the current exercise: no, and jointly sufficient conditions. Wittgenstein’s conscious decision making is teleological, simply plays into the unscrupulous hand of evolution is not a conscious process, and to famous case study was the concept of “game.” while natural selection is teleonomic. That was apologists for creationism.) think so is an example of what philosophers call You may think it is trivial to give a good Darwin’s crucial insight, which spelled the death a category mistake, predicated on a fallacy of definition of what counts as a game, but that’s of natural theology, and it makes no sense to If my criticism is correct, then to talk about equivocation, to boot. How 20th century of me. far from the reality. There is no necessary and attempt to resurrect the zombie now. conscious evolution is to make a category sufficient set of conditions that clearly rules in mistake. This was a concept introduced by 20th- Let’s parse this out a bit. First off, consciousness the astounding variety of games -- from chess The Introduction mentions two examples of century philosopher Gilbert Ryle to describe is a complex and inherently fuzzy concept, and to soccer – while simultaneously ruling out conscious evolution: genetic algorithms and situations where one applies one attribute Wittgenstein taught us that such concepts are everything we don’t consider a game. Instead, human decision making. I would add a third (e.g., conscious) to a category of objects or best described by example or by a lose series of there are various threads running through one (which is actually a subset of the second phenomena (e.g., evolution) to which it clearly

evolution-institute.org evolution-institute.org Can Evolution Be Conscious? 14 Can Evolution Be Conscious? 15 does not belong. The classic example is that of a Of course, what appears to be a category visitor to Oxford University (where Ryle taught). mistake based on current science may turn The visitor is shown the campus, the buildings, out not to be in the light of future science. It is the faculty, the students, the administrators, conceivable that biologists will discover really and so forth. But at the end of the visit he solid reasons to think that evolution itself is asks: “okay, but where is the university?” thus conscious. Frankly, I can’t even imagine what the betraying a fundamental misunderstanding: pertinent evidence would look like, yet I’m open “the university” is the thing constituted by the to the possibility. But we have certainly done campus, the buildings, the faculty, and so forth. nothing remotely like that as of now. Indeed, let There is nothing above and beyond that. us remember that in the past we thought that natural processes were teleological in nature, Similarly with evolution: outside of the well- just think of Aristotle’s classification of causes, known instances of human-directed evolution and in particular of his final cause. Within the (like artificial selection, computer programming, framework of Aristotelian biology, it would and the like), we are talking about a natural make perfect sense, and it is not a category process characterized by certain properties mistake, to think about evolution in terms of (non-randomness), made possible by certain consciousness (of course, Aristotle didn’t really processes (natural selection, biased mutation think in terms of evolution in the first place, but pressure, developmental constraints, niche rather talked of the natural unfolding of things). construction, epigenetic inheritance, etc.), But the rejection of the Aristotelian approach, resulting in a teleonomic pattern. To additionally which natural theologians during the Middle apply the property of consciousness to it -- thus Ages and until the 19th century turned into making it teleological – is a category mistake the famous argument from design, is precisely because natural processes are not conscious, one of the greatest accomplishments not just though some results of a subset of natural of Darwin, but of modern science. Before we The Origins and Evolutionary Effects processes (namely, us) happen to be. attempt to reverse it, we better get both our logic and our facts very, very straight. of Consciousness

By Eva Jablonka and Simona Ginsburg

Evolution cannot be conscious, just as it the effects of human reflective consciousness cannot be unconscious, silly, clever, or anxious. are considered. However, the effects of However, conscious, sentient animals, including consciousness on evolutionary processes are References reflectively thinking humans, are one of the more general. 1. See Massimo Pigliucci and Gerd B. Muller (eds.), Evolution, the Extended Synthesis (MIT Press, 2010). most amazing products of evolution. So while 2. Ernst Mayr and William B. Provine (eds.), The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of the question “Can Evolution be Conscious?” How consciousness evolved and how Biology (Harvard University Press, 1998). has no meaning, it is meaningful to ask how consciousness has come to affect 3. Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb, Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and consciousness–the ability to have subjective evolutionary processes are related issues. Symbolic Variation in the History of Life (MIT Press, 2005). experiences, such as smelling a rose or feeling This is because biological consciousness– 4. F. John Odling-Smee, Kevin N. Laland, and Marcus W. Feldman, Niche Construction: The Neglected Process fear–has evolved, and how, once in place, it has the only form of consciousness of which we in Evolution (Princeton University Press, 2003). modified the rates and patterns of evolution. are aware–is entailed by a particular, fairly 5. Kevin N. Laland, Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made the Human Mind (Princeton University This is a particularly pertinent question when sophisticated form of animal cognition, an Press, 2017).

evolution-institute.org evolution-institute.org Can Evolution Be Conscious? 16 Can Evolution Be Conscious? 17 open-ended ability to learn by association or, include: the unification of stimuli and actions Since what conscious animals regard as good highly evolved mentality.4 The evolution of as we call it, “unlimited associative learning” and their accessibility to cognitive reference; or bad is context-dependent and not always consciousness did, of course, evolve much (UAL). Animals with UAL can assign value formation of representations of the body, optimal, new types of features can evolve. further: in some animals (birds such as corvids to novel, composite stimuli and action- the world and the relations between them Consider an animal that discovers that a rare and parrots, mammals such as primates and sequences, remember them, and use what (leading to the construction of a virtual though recurrent fermenting food source elephants, and possibly some hymenopterans has been learned for subsequent (future), “self”); goal-directed behaviors, driven gives it a very pleasurable feeling (even and cephalopods) imagination began to drive second-order, learning. In our work we by motivations and emotions, based on a though the food makes it slightly less vigilant), behavior. argue that UAL is the evolutionary marker flexible value system that can assign valence and the habit of consuming this somewhat of minimal consciousness (of subjective to any unified percept and action-sequence; addictive food and even searching for it in the The reflective consciousness of humans experiencing) because if we reverse- developmental flexibility that is based on right season spreads throughout the group. takes this mediated evolutionary effect engineer from this learning ability to the processes of selection, including selective The tradition may persist because of its strong of consciousness to a new level. Humans underlying system enabling it, this enabling attention; and the formation of a durable memorable and pleasurable effects, and lead have symbolic systems of representation system has all the properties and capacities (“thick”) present, which contains shadows of to the evolution of detoxifying enzymes, or and communication, and through symbolic that characterize consciousness. These the past and is oriented towards the future.1,2 to the consumption of foods with detoxifying language they can communicate about microbiota, so that the slightly deleterious the products of their imagination.5 Human effects of the tradition are ameliorated. The evolution has led to complex artefacts, to evolution of the change in the digestive system the domestication of plants and animals, to Learned behaviors became fundamental to the fight and flight or in the consumption of other foods was, in elaborate social systems, to human moral responses of mobile animals who lived in an ever-changing world, this case, driven by the pleasure the food gave laws, to exclusionary and cruel ideologies, and to the construction of the niches that these animals and their to its consumers, rather than its nutritional to wars and horrific human and animal value. Or consider a female selecting a mate suffering, and to looming catastrophic offspring inhabited. because he has complex patterns of color on ecological destruction led by short-sighted his wings and tail. The ability to perceive and future interests. However, our reflective enjoy these features leads to positive selection consciousness enables us to consider all The evolutionary entanglement of changing world, and to the construction of males even if such males pay a survival these. We are a strange species, the evolution consciousness and cognition means that of the niches that these animals and their cost for their attractiveness (a Fisherian of which can be driven by visions of a better animal behavior was driven not only by offspring inhabited. For example, if an animal sexual-selection scenario). It is not surprising future-world and by abstract values like the direct functional significance of their learned to exploit a novel and rich food that Darwin regarded animals that display justice, beauty and truth. There is, therefore, behavior, but by the mediated values of source and consequently tended to stay complex mate-choice as a sign that they had some hope. desires and aversions, which were assigned and reproduce in areas where this resource to ontogenetically-constructed composite was abundant, its offspring would have the percepts and actions. An animal that could same learning-environment and learning learn in such an open-ended manner opportunities and would seek a similar niche; could in theory assign value to an unlimited this would lead to habitat-specific habits, such number of percepts and action patterns, as new styles of parental care, food handling, and anticipate positive and negative effects and fight-flight behaviors. Any behavioral, References on the basis of neutral cues associated physiological or morphological feature that 1. Ginsburg, S. and Jablonka, E. (in press) The Evolution of Sensitive Soul: Learning and the Origins of with them. Such associative learning was a improved the ontogenetic adjustment to Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. game-changing adaptation: animals could a specific learning environment would be 2. Bronfman, Z. Ginsburg, S. and Jablonka, E. (2016). “The transition to minimal consciousness through the adapt ontogenetically rather than only selected, and would affect the evolution of evolution of associative learning.” Frontiers in Psychology 7, 1954. phylogenetically. We have argued that interacting species. Rapid learning-guided 3. Ginsburg, S. and Jablonka, E. (2010). “The evolution of associative learning: A factor in the Cambrian this learning capacity drove the Cambrian evolution and learning-guided arms races explosion.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 266, 11–20. explosion. Learned behaviors became have led to morphological and physiological 4. Darwin, C. (1871). The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. 1st edition. London: John Murray. fundamental to the fight and flight responses diversification.3 5. Dor, D. (2015). The Instruction of Imagination: Language as a Social Communication Technology. Oxford: of mobile animals who lived in an ever- Oxford University Press.

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as an emergent understanding central to a greater sensitivity to relevant environmental multi-dimensional, and multi-level extended features internally and externally is virtually evolutionary synthesis. assured to be a core product of evolution itself. Consciousness, as I’ve defined it, will thus not The etymology of the word conscious points only evolve; it is a key characteristic of the to its central quality: these are actions that fitness of complex evolved systems. occur “with knowledge.” Stripped to the bone, consciousness can be thought of simply Consider a life form that is better able to detect as the ability to respond to oneself and the the presence of a predator due to heritable environment and the regularities within and variations in its visual system. It is entirely between them. When human and nonhuman correct to say that such a life form has evolved to animals show a dramatic diminishment of such be more conscious of the presence of a predator. responding, such as during sleep or comas, The definition I offered earlier is fully satisfied: they are said to be “semi-conscious” or even visually detecting a predator is based on “unconscious.” In a similar but more incremental heritable variations in response to light and its way, as life forms evolve increasingly elaborate regularities, and the result is increased fitness. ways of responding to the external and internal Other than churlish arguments over word environment and its regularities, in such forms choice, it is an empirical fact that consciousness as sensation, perception, and learning, they are evolved. said to become more conscious of their reactions and their surroundings. An organism that cannot But was evolution itself conscious in such a case? show habituation due to repeated stimulation is less conscious of its environment than one that That is a tricky question because saying “yes” can; an animal that can detect and respond to seems agentic. Variations are blind, or so we are The Evolution of Consciousness antecedent-action-consequence regularities is told, and thus while the heritable changes in the more conscious than one that cannot. visual system created a relative advantage in avoiding predation and as a result became more Enables Conscious Evolution It is difficult to imagine a world in which frequent, it was not purposive. The original consciousness, so defined, is not a phenotypic change was blind. The visual system did not result of evolution. That is so because of this change in order to detect the predator. By Steven C. Hayes bedrock fact upon which evolution itself is constructed: No structural or behavioral This is only partially true (or I could just as phenotype is successful in all contexts and easily have said “that is partially false”) because A key challenge for evolutionary science is evolutionists deny its importance to the thus context sensitivity will generally be useful. responding in order to produce particular visual to provide an account of the evolution of understanding of their own field. Resource acquisition, resource utilization, effects is indeed part of the story behind the consciousness. While that is widely recognized, reproduction, protection of offspring, niche evolution of the visual system. Let me explain. evolutionists have also been socialized from For evolutionary science to play a role in construction, niche selection, predation, their very first moments in the field to believe society that takes full advantage of its avoidance of predation, avoidance of illness In the gene-centric era of evolutionary science, that a defining feature of their approach to life enormous scientific precision, scope, and or injury, and so on can only be understood it would be easy to miss key features of the is that evolution itself is not, has not been, and depth, this anomaly has to end. The reasons based on the selective features of the particular complex multi-dimensional and multi-level cannot be conscious. Taken together, this leads for this unfortunate clash of concepts are environments in which particular phenotypic system that actually gives rise to a successful to an anomaly: On the one hand, evolutionists multiple, but they are all outdated and variations occur and are inherited through visual system. A well-adapted visual system recognize and celebrate the central importance artificially limiting. Evolution can be, has been, genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, cultural, and requires more than a genetic capacity—it of the evolution of consciousness within the and is consciousness—not in the cartoon symbolic means. The selective power of requires properly arranged developmental story of life, and on the other hand, most forms imagined by a lay public, but rather environmental fit means that the evolution of processes that foster phenotypic development

evolution-institute.org evolution-institute.org Can Evolution Be Conscious? 20 Can Evolution Be Conscious? 21 such as peripheral and central nervous system development is impacted by patterns of sensory to say that organisms evolve consciously? At stimulation, growth, and coordination. If reinforcement as part of a multi-dimensional least when we reach the level of consciousness a kitten’s eyelids are sewn shut during key system. For example, animals will work to avoid represented by symbolic learning I think the developmental periods, it will never develop excessively bright lights or to produce positive answer is “yes.” a normal visual system, even if the duration changes in visual stimulation by head turning, of the visual deprivation is only a matter of exploration, or working to remove visual days.1 Note that behavior itself could result obstacles.2 Sensory preferences of this kind are in poorly arranged developmental sequences of such importance that they enter even into Human Symbolic Learning much like this if behavior linked to vision were animal rights conversations.3 In other words, not constrained. For example, a kitten could evolution created sensory preference patterns By 12-16 months, a normally developing human of ears when food is later presented. Backward in principle close its eyes too much, or hide that ensure that operant learning processes can infant who has learned that an object (say, a conditioning is very weak and does not enter its face in its mother’s underbelly for much of play their small but important role in fostering rubber duck) has a name (“duckie”) will orient into long backward sequences when chains the day, or stare at the sun for hours on end— healthy sensory and perceptual systems as toward the object when hearing the name, of events are provided (e.g., later presenting a all of which would interfere with the proper part of a much larger system of distal and without specific training to do so. Furthermore, foul odor before the bell may eventually lead to development of the visual system. A healthy proximal sources of control over mechanisms of if the rubber duck squeaks, the infant will know salivation at the odor, but not food avoidance kitten does not normally do so because visual development. that “squeak” is the sound “duckie” makes and based on backward associations with the odor). vice versa even if the name and the sound have The reason backward conditioning is weak is never been heard together. that environmental regularities are not normally The claim I am making is that relational learning is the robustly reversible or combinatorial, and thus central core of human language and cognition, and evolved a Said in another way, an instance of one-way there is limited selection pressure to develop contingency learning (object -> name) leads to that open learning process. If an animal avoids s an extension of cooperation. a robustly two-way street of symbolic meaning predation by running to a thicket when it sees a that is then recombinable into symbolic lion, it does not mean it will avoid predation by networks (object ↔ name). running to a lion when it sees a thicket.

Operant learning is purposive in a particular or to alter characteristic environments, changing Deriving a network of the kind I have just That lack of reversibility and combinatorial sense: changes in environmental contexts the selection pressures that lead to speciation described is called “stimulus equivalence” and capacity is not true of relations. If I am certainly produced by actions in the past serve to alter or other phenotypic developments.4 In that although it is readily shown in human infants, bigger than you, you are certainly smaller than the context for action now. Said in another way, sense, it is fairly obvious that this form of after decades of trying, it has not been reliably me. The derived relation is just as robust as operant learning is the past as the future in the increased consciousness altered the course of produced in non-humans.6 Furthermore, the known relation. The evolution of human present. This kind of learning affords a new kind evolutionary development. we have known for more than 30 years that language and cognition is based on this relational of conscious, purposive behavior—responding children who do not show stimulus equivalence property. in the present in order to produce something To some degree, all forms of evolved evolvability do not develop normal human language.7 in the future that has been produced in similar make a similar point. Bacteria that show more From the beginning of the act of naming itself, situations in the past. In other words, it is a more variation when placed in a growth medium that Stimulus equivalence marks a transition in some forms of relational learning are not limited elaborated form of consciousness based on is missing key amino acids are showing a very the evolution of consciousness because it is to formal relations. In the context of a cooperative an ability to respond to particular contingent limited form of “consciousness” that in turn will the first example of a learning process that is social group with some level of social referencing, regularities between environment and behavior. alter the course or evolutionary development.5 relational, not associative. joint attention, and perspective taking, regularities Operant learning impacts other evolutionary But operant and classical conditioning are a in naming can be made reliably reversible by processes such as niche construction and niche clear leap forward—one in which the temporal Learned associations and direct acting paralinguistic or other cues. If this object is a selection. Indeed, a good argument can be made and spatial features of an act in context alter contingencies are not robustly reversible “duckie” from the point of view of a speaker, then that the Cambrian explosion was due to the how the environment impacts future actions. or combinatorial. For example, in classical it can be entirely safe to assume within a given evolution of operant and classical conditioning, If we grant that consciousness evolves and that conditioning, providing food after a bell will lead troop or band that a “duckie” is this object from which made it possible for organisms to seek out consciousness impacts evolution, is it necessary to salivation to the bell, but not to a robust raising the point of view of a listener. Relational terms like

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“is” demarcate this particular kind of cooperative Evolutionists have noted that humans are world a little bit closer, even if the guard is a Only a minority of the US population believes regularity within a specific group.8 particularly adept in relational learning source of deprivation. that human beings are as they are due to tasks.12 In non-arbitrary contexts, these are natural processes of evolution. I can’t help The human infant and toddler quickly learn to defined by the relata themselves (e.g., a nickel is Said in another way, human cognition can change but think that is in part because evolution has apply other reversible relations, increasingly larger than a dime). What happens in symbolic the “selection criteria” for human behavioral and not yet been shown to matter to the average controlled by arbitrary contextual cues. If behavior is that particular relational responses cultural evolution. Genetic evolution depends Joanne or Joe. For that to change, evolutionists a human infant hears an unfamiliar name (e.g., “larger than”) are abstracted and then on life and death. Human behavioral evolution themselves need to show that they can solve it will search for an unfamiliar object in its brought under the control of social cues, not does not remove that truth but supplements it problems of human concern. But for applied environment and, if one is found, it will derive just the related events (such as being told that with cognitively available meaning and purpose. evolutionary science to emerge as a field, it is a two-way symbolic relation between the two.9 a nickel “is smaller than” a dime). That “relational When people consider their future and apply necessary to step up to the idea that evolution In other words, two relations of “different than” frame” allows any event to be related in any evolutionary scientific concepts to actions and can be conscious, and then to spend much more (the name is different than other names; the way to any other event by social attribution, policy choices to alter that future, the world is time on the role of human behavior in evolving object is different than other objects) leads to and then to enter into larger and larger derived consciously evolving. I believe that is a factual the future. The culture at large will not attend to a two-way “same as” relation (unfamiliar name symbolic networks. For example, a first grader statement, but it is also pragmatically and evolution in a major way, in my opinion, until it is <-> unfamiliar object). As additional relations can be told that a penny is smaller than a nickel politically useful to say that evolution can be clear that humanity has the capacity to evolve are added (comparisons, such as more / less; and that a nickel is smaller than a dime, and conscious in that way because it provides a use for on purpose, culturally and within a lifetime. opposition, such as hot/cold; contingency, such derive that a dime is larger than a penny. A evolutionary science that will alter the receptivity as if <-> then; person, such as I/you; etc.), vast three-year-old could not. Relational framing is of the public to this entire area of science. cognitive networks can emerge from very evolutionarily prepared but also learned. limited environmental inputs. Relational learning of this kind is the smoking There is expansive experimental literature on gun – the sine qua non of human language Symbolic learning is key to human consciousness, but this topic under the rubric of Relational Frame and cognition. We know that in part because human consciousness can comprehend and consciously apply Theory that shows the ontogenetic histories children who do not show this kind of learning multi-level and multi-dimensional evolutionary models to the needed to reveal these evolutionarily prepared show only limited verbal and intellectual responses.10 The claim I am making is that abilities, and whereas if they develop this accomplishment of human purposes. relational learning is the central core of human kind of learning, they begin to advance more language and cognition, and evolved as an rapidly.13 This suggests that the unit of symbolic extension of cooperation.11 learning is relational, not associative. Evolution begins with processes of blind Learning is a legitimate evolutionary dimension Impact of Human Consciousness on Evolution variation and selective retention, but it does that impacts on other evolutionary dimensions not stay there for the simple reason that at other levels and time frames. Symbolic evolvability itself evolves.14 The phrase “survival processes led to the principles of evolutionary Symbolic learning is another step forward in the verbally constructed future. Responding of the most evolvable” is far truer to the whole science itself—variations within the relational the evolution of consciousness because with of this kind is not only conscious, it allows of evolutionary data than the hoary phrase networks of particular people were expressed this repertoire of relational responding we symbolically intentional behavior. “survival of the fittest.” Symbolic learning and selected by accomplishment of their can respond to the past as the symbolically is key to human consciousness, but human scientific purposes individually and culturally. constructed future in the present. Only a rather The two-way street of human cognition consciousness can comprehend and consciously If these principles then lead human beings to small set of cognitive relations are needed to transforms the present based on cognitive apply multi-level and multi-dimensional change their behavior in order to achieve better solve problems through symbolic reasoning: networks about the future. The evolving evolutionary models to the accomplishment of outcomes, and if the success of these actions names of events and their features, if -> then future that is presented symbolically in human purposes. maintain them—as would be the case with any relations, and comparisons. Stated more present moments via human language can successful application of evolutionary science simply, human verbal problem solving involves alter the impact of the environment. Nelson Behavioral variation and selection within that was sustained because of its utility —it an “if/then/better” relational network that Mandela can treat a prison guard kindly, for the lifetime of individuals is not merely an seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that alters present action so as to coordinate with example, because that action brings a just expression of genes and cultural practices. evolution can be conscious.

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Applied evolutionary science is not just the is possible, it means that evolution itself can 6. A good initial review of that literature can be found in the book on relational frame theory cited in footnote 10 below. passive beneficiary of scientific understanding— indeed be deliberate, intentional, purposeful, 7. Devany, J. M., Hayes, S. C. & Nelson, R. O. (1986). “Equivalence class formation in language-able and it is the very field in which an extended calculated, planned, and volitional. These are language-disabled children.” Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 46, 243-257. doi: 10.1901/ evolutionary synthesis will be fostered. We can all merely terms for actions that are regulated jeab.1986.46-243 think of applied evolutionary science as a type by the “if / then / better” symbolic formations 8. For a more extended analysis of this idea, see Hayes, S. C. & Sanford, B. (2014). “Cooperation came first: Evolution of fieldwork in the evolution of human behavior. of human beings. Evolutionary principles can be and human cognition.” Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 101, 112-129. doi: 10.1002/jeab.64 No amount of laboratory knowledge is enough applied to and contained by these formulations 9. Lipkens, G., Hayes, S. C., & Hayes, L. J. (1993). “Longitudinal study of derived stimulus relations in an infant.” to be certain that the action of an organism is themselves. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 56, 201-239. doi: 10.1006/jecp.1993.1032 understood – but if this knowledge is applied in 10. Hayes, S. C., Barnes-Holmes, D., & Roche, B. (2001). Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian account of the actual environment in which the behavior We have evolutionary accounts of human language and cognition. New York: Plenum Press. occurs and predictable changes occur, the validity consciousness—now we need evolutionists to 11. See Hayes and Sanford, 2014 in footnote viii above. and utility of evolutionary science expands. apply those accounts to their own assumptions, 12. Penn, D., Holyoak, K., & Povinelli, D. (2008). “Darwin’s mistake: Explaining the discontinuity between human theories, and purposes. Understanding the and nonhuman minds.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31(2), 109-130. doi:10.1017/S0140525X08003543 When we have created a robust field of applied evolution of consciousness provides the 13. There is an extensive literature now of teaching relational framing skills to children with developmental evolutionary science, evolutionary science scaffolding for evolutionary science itself disabilities, for example see Cassidy, S., Roche, B., & Hayes, S. C. (2011). “A relational frame training intervention will be relevant to the world in a way that it is to consciously evolve, and to help human to raise intelligence quotients: A pilot study.” The Psychological Record, 61, 173-198. These skills are known to not now. And if applied evolutionary science individuals and groups do so as well.15 be the bridge from simply saying a name in the presence of an object to being able to show higher levels of intelligent behavior: Belisle, J., Dixon, M. R. & Stanley, C. R. (2018). “The mediating effects of derived relational responding on the relationship between verbal operant development and IQ.” Behavior Analysis in Practice. Doi: 10.1007/s40617-018-0215-2 14. Pigliucci, M. (2008). “Is evolvability evolvable?” Nature Reviews Genetics, 9, 75–82. 15. Rather than tie down this paper with dense referencing, I have done so fairly lightly. The following references are particularly useful in exploring the arguments I am making: 16. Wilson, D. S. & Hayes, S. C. (Eds.). (2018). Evolution and contextual behavioral science: An integrated framework for understanding, predicting, and influencing human behavior. Oakland, CA: Context Press / New Harbinger Publications; and Wilson, D. S., Hayes, S. C., Biglan, T., & Embry, D. (2014). “Evolving the future: Toward a science of intentional change.” Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 34, 395-416. doi:10.1017/ S0140525X13001593

References

1. Hubel, D. H. & Wiesdel, T. N. (1970). “Period of susceptibility to physiological effects of unilateral eye closure in kittens.” Journal of Physiology-London, 206, 419-436. Doi: 0.1113/jphysiol.1970.sp009022 2. An example of the motivational effects of visual variety on human infants is show by Caron, R. F., Caron, A. J., & Caldwell, R. C. (1971). “Satiation of visual reinforcement in young infants.” Developmental Psychology, 5(2), 279-289. Doi: 10.1037/h0031417. An example of the avoidance of intense illumination is shown by Taylor, N., Prescott, N., Perry, G., Potter, M., Le Sueur, C., & Wathes, C. (2006). “Preference of growing pigs for illuminance.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 96, 19-31. Doi: 10.1016/j.applanim.2005.04.016. 3. Young, R. J. (2003). Environmental enrichment for captive animals. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. 4. Ginsburg, S., & Jablonka, E. (2010). “The evolution of associative learning: A factor in the Cambrian explosion.” Journal of Theoretical Biology, 266(1), 11-20. 5. Hersh, M. N., Ponder, R. G., Hastings, P. J., & Rosenberg, S. M. (2004). “Adaptive mutation and amplification in Escherichia coli: two pathways of genome adaptation under stress.” Research in Microbiology, 155, 353-359. Doi: 10.1016/j.resmic.2004.01.020

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It’s next to impossible for scientific knowledge evolutionary teleological view would be that to evolve without the expression of ideas: no matter where you are in the cosmos, that mutations in the pleckstrin homology domain there is, under the right conditions, a direction of dynamin 2 cause dominant intermediate toward more complex, organized structures Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease;6 do nasturtium (both physical and non-physical). I think being/ leaves smell like cocaine?; the infinite monkey existence ‘wants’ to know. There is an organizing theorem.7 Science needs memes — the good, principle with a direction.” the bad, the ugly, and beautiful — in order to progress. Yes, even the bad and ugly. For even I hadn’t read Pierre Teilhard de Chardin back if the arrangement of these morphemes and then and knew nothing of his law of complexity memes contributes nothing novel that moves consciousness,10 which I’ve only recently learned us forth, perhaps a mind scanning these pixels of. Yet it seems likely that my ideas must have will be sparked by an idea or word that does, come from reading and listening to others who ultimately, advance us. And an error could cause had been influenced by Teilhard de Chardin. It a reader to propose some other idea that has was clearly in the ether/noösphere. It’s worth utility. You get the meme. noting that Thomas Nagel coined a similar phrase I hadn’t heard of when I came up with This commentary is what Susan Blackmore mine: teleological naturalism.11 might call a memeplex8 — and what I call a memesome.9 It’s a mine of memes for minds to This is a hardy meme. A dandelion of a meme, potentially chew, ingest, transform, replicate, actually. For some, i.e., religious fundamentalists and/or digest. It’s a memetic lottery. or scientists who distrust anything that has a scent of order and nonrandomness, it may seem In 2006 or so, I declared (mostly for fun) that I like an invasive weed, worthy of eradicating; Welcome to the Noösphere was an evolutionary teleologist and explained while others may see its beauty, utility, and my sense of my neologism, evolutionary naturalness. The strength of this meme, teleology, thusly: it seems to me, is due to the fact it’s as appealing By Alice Andrews affectively as it is rationally: it feels right “I think there are basic chemical and physical intuitively, but it’s also, ultimately, falsifiable. (as in particle physics) building blocks within In fact, a recent scientific experiment hints Noösphere: “The sphere of human consciousness and mental activity especially in regard to its the cosmos. My understanding is that O, N, C, at this cosmic view, what could also be called 1 influence on the biosphere and in relation to evolution.” H and other elements can be found throughout conscious evolution. A software program called the cosmos. I suspect that these building blocks Entropica was developed using the principles 1. Information is a fundamental property of the universe; tend toward a direction —to build ever more of thermodynamics to maximize its future it’s a concrete property of matter and energy complex systems when given the ideal ecology. freedom of action. Without specific goals given that can be quantified and measured.2 Perhaps consciousness arises (emergently) to the program, tool use, social cooperation, 2. The consciousness of something can be quantified from this non-random organizing complexity. and walking upright were generated. As the by measuring its integrated information.3 And I would argue that if you started on another creator of Entropica, Alex Wissner-Gross, planet with similar building blocks, and if you says: “In cosmology, for example, there have 3. Uncertainty is an attribute of information.4 set it into motion with the same conditions of been a variety of different threads of evidence elements that started here ~4 billion years ago, that our universe appears to be finely tuned 4. “Intelligence is a force that acts so as to maximize you’d eventually, perhaps, get consciousness for the development of intelligence, and, in future freedom of action.” It ‘wants’ to keep options open.5 again — similar to the concept of Nietzsche’s particular, for the development of universal The above axioms are based on the works of Seth Lloyd, Giulio Tononi, Lotfi A. Zadeh, and Alex ‘eternal return.’ I don’t believe the universe has states that maximize the diversity of possible 12 Wissner-Gross, respectively. a purpose in its typical use/sense, though. An futures.” This also aligns well with the grander,

evolution-institute.org evolution-institute.org Can Evolution Be Conscious? 28 Can Evolution Be Conscious? 29 larger view of conscious evolution that Kenneth Such debates seem unanswerable and the species, and to all living things. As Charles away, but merely illustrates a general principle R. Pelletier wrote about it in 197813 and Barbara impossible to reconcile, but that’s only because Eisenstein says: of connection, or dare I say it, oneness. The Marx Hubbard expounded on twenty years we’re using reductive, bifurcating reasoning. science is beginning to confirm what we have later in her book Conscious Evolution: What we need with many of the important The emerging science that seeks to explain intuitively known all along: we are greater than philosophical and scientific debates of the day [the desire to serve something transcending what we have been told. We are not just a skin- “The purpose of this metadiscipline is to learn is a quantum leap and lens — a recognition the separate self and the pain we feel from encapsulated ego, a soul encased in flesh. We are how to be responsible for the ethical guidance that there may not be one answer, but many the suffering of others], whether it invokes each other and we are the world.23 of our evolution. It is a quest to understand our answers depending on the context (i.e., the mirror neurons, . . . group evolution, . . . or developmental change, to identify inherent question being asked and the level of analysis). something further out, doesn’t explain them values for the purpose of learning how to I think this applies, for example, to regular-old cooperate with the processes toward chosen consciousness, and it’s why I think Dan Dennett and positive futures.”14 and Galen Strawson are both correct, depending on the context.19,20 We need a multilevel theory Currently, scientists don’t fully agree on how for consciousness. God is dead and so is biological evolution works. One useful way to Descartes. understand it, before all the messy details, is as an evolutionary epistemologist. W.W. Bartley But back to evolution. III, for example, sees evolution as “a knowledge process . . . in which information regarding Evolutionary biologists David Sloan Wilson the environment is literally incorporated, and Eliot Sober reconciled the either-or incarnated, in surviving organisms . . . “15 I love problem with their multilevel selection theory this — especially in light of one of the axioms of (MLS).21 Essentially, does natural selection this commentary: that information is a physical, work on cells, or genes, or individuals, or fundamental property of the universe. groups of individuals, or ideas? The answer is yes! Selection seems to work on different Apart from the fascinating and scientifically levels of information. As Einstein wrote heretical idea that mutations might not be (about light): random, there are two major memes/theories/ stories/ideas of evolution battling for epistemic “It seems as though we must use sometimes survival: inclusive fitness theory (of which kin the one theory and sometimes the other, selection is one instance)16 and group selection while at times we may use either. We are faced theory. Crudely, inclusive fitness theory says with a new kind of difficulty. We have two that the unit of selection for evolution is the contradictory pictures of reality; separately References gene; it measures the reproductive success neither of them fully explains the phenomena of 22 of individuals and their kin. Group selection light, but together they do.” 1. Noöpshere (n.d). Merriam-Webster Online. In Merriam-Webster. Retrieved from: theory, however, looks at a different level https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/noosphere (the group); it measures indirect, longer-term This is important for many reasons, but the 2. Lloyd, S. Quantum Information Science [PDF document]. Retrieved from: effects on fitness, such as those achieved when fact that group selection theory is likely http://web.mit.edu/2.111/www/notes09/spring.pdf groups of individual organisms cooperate and as true as other theories (such as inclusive 3. Oizumi, M.; Albantakis, L.; Tononi, G. (2014). “From the phenomenology to the mechanisms out-compete groups of non-cooperators. As fitness) depending on the question being of consciousness: integrated information theory 3.0.” PLoS Computational Biology, 10 (5). David Sloan Wilson and E.O. Wilson affirm: asked, is reassuring. It reminds us that we are https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003588 “Selfishness beats altruism within groups, many things: patterns of information (DNA) 4. Zadeh, L.A. (2006). “Generalized theory of uncertainty (GTU)-principal concepts and ideas.” Computational 17. altruistic groups beat selfish groups . . . [and] competing, surviving, reproducing, but also, Statistics & Data Analysis, 51(1), 15-46. doi:10.1016/j.csda.2006.04.029 traits with public benefits and private costs do too, that we are deeply connected to people 5. Wissner-Gross, A. (2013, November). A New Equation for Intelligence [Video file]. Retrieved from 18 evolve by natural selection.” who don’t share our DNA, to large social groups, http://www.ted.com/talks/alex_wissner_gross_a_new_equation_for_intelligence

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6. Zuchner S., Noureddine M., Kennerson M., Verhoeven K., Claeys K., De Jonghe P., Merory J., Oliveira S.A., Speer M.C., Stenger J.E., et al. (2005). “Mutations in the pleckstrin homology domain of dynamin 2 cause dominant intermediate charcot-marie-tooth disease.” Nature Genetics, 37:289–294 doi: 10.1038/ng1514 7. Infinite monkey theorem. (n.d.) In Wikipedia. Retrieved September 18, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem 8. Blackmore, S. J. (2000). The Meme Machine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 9. Andrews, A. (2002). Trine Erotic. New York: Vivisphere Press. 10. Teilhard, C. P., Huxley, J., & Wall, B. (1959). The Phenomenon of Man. New York: Harper. 11. Nagel, T. (2012). Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False.Oxford: Oxford University Press. 12. Wissner-Gross, A. (2013, November). A New Equation for Intelligence [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/alex_wissner_gross_a_new_equation_for_intelligence 13. Pelletier, K.R. (1978). Toward a Science of Consciousness. New York: Delta. 14. Hubbard, B. M. (1998). Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of our Social Potential. California: New World Library. 15. Bartley, W.W. III (1987). “Philosophy of Biology versus Philosophy of Physics.” In Radnitzky, G. & Bartley, W.W. III (Eds.), Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge (pp. 7-40). Peru, Illinois: Open Court Publishing. 16. Hamilton, W. D. (1964). “The genetical evolution of social behaviour II.” Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7, 17-52. 17. Wilson, D. S., & Wilson, E. O. (2007). “Rethinking the theoretical foundation of sociobiology.” The Quarterly Review of Biology, 82(4), 327-348. Retrieved from https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/522809 18. Wilson, D. S., & Wilson, E. O. (2008). “Evolution ‘for the good of the group.’” American Scientist, 96(5), 380-389. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240968781_Evolution_for_the_Good_of_the_Group 19. Dennett, D. C. (1991). Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown and Co. 20. Strawson, G. (2018). “The consciousness deniers.” The New York Review of Books. Retrieved from https:// The Consciousness of Detachment and www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/13/the-consciousness-deniers 21. Wilson, D.W. & Sober, E. (1994). “Reintroducing group selection to the human behavioral sciences.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 17 (4), 585-608. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00036104 the Detachment of Consciousness 22. Einstein, A. & Infeld, L. (1938).The Evolution of Physics: The Growth of Ideas From Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 23. Eisenstein, C. (2013). The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible. California: North Atlantic Books. By Lenny Moss

To speak of an evolution of consciousness as choose our course of action in a way that we a natural event is to be committed to the idea feel personally responsible for. We generally that consciousness can be a further expression do not feel responsible for acts, such as having of something which is not yet consciousness a seizure, that are not the result of a conscious but is a prerequisite for the possibility of choice. Whether or not we are free in an consciousness. absolute, metaphysical sense (a controversial issue) we can’t help but experience ourselves Consciousness means many things to many as being free in making choices for which we people. For present purposes let’s assume feel responsible, i.e., conscious choices. But for our sense of consciousness that which how does nature come to conjure the power of is associated with a kind of executive level self-consciousness? capacity to steer our own attention and

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I am going to argue for the claim that “nature insight into the meaning of detachment molecule whose structure is solely determined response patterns (First Hominin Detachment) explores greater levels of detachment” and that through its complete negation. Prior to by thermodynamic necessity (and thus has no enabled (and required) the emergence of an “detachment” is just such a property that is both the Big Bang, all existence (whatever that history). A major transition in detachment occurs entirely novel, normatively integrated form required for, and may evolve in the direction of, means) was contained in an infinitely dense, when a system emerges that actively constitutes of life. Homo erectus could live in permanent the possibility of self-consciousness. I will call this infinitesimally small singularity in which its own boundary and actively sustains its ability encampments with the controlled use of fire, evolutionary movement a ‘dialectics of detachment’ there was no space or time and all four basic to do so. We associate this level of detachment organize big mammal hunts, produce the and will, of course, have to explain what I mean by forces were united into one. The universe was with what we recognize as ‘life’. Acheulean hand-axe, leave Africa and colonize all of this! Ultimately, I hope to make it apparent born, space-time emerges, in an explosion of far reaches of the Euro-Asian landmass, long that consciousness just is what we call natural detachment. Without getting too bogged All states of detachment, are relative, none are before the appearance of spoken language, detachment at a certain stage, or more precisely down in the technical details of high-energy absolute. Levels of detachment exist in nested by way of a gesture and emotion mediated what natural detachment comes to call itself. physics and cosmology, the take-home lesson hierarchies. When a new level of detachment form of group consciousness. Modern humans is that a logic of detachments-built-upon- emerges, such as the boundary constituting, self- are the expression of a downward, ‘Second Curiously, our understanding of what detachments is set into motion from . . . the sustaining system (a simple cell), it also creates Hominin Detachment’ that results in the quasi- preceded the “Big Bang” provides important beginning. a space for downward detachments which independent, quasi-parasitic human individual, may be viewed as parasitic on the higher level that dialectically, has appropriated from the of detachment upon which it depends. Viruses consciousness of the group, the resources for emerge as expressions of downward (parasitic) identifying, as and with, a consciousness of its Homo erectus could live in permanent encampments with the detachment. Parasites and their hosts, lower Self. Those regimes of consciousness associated controlled use of fire, organize big mammal hunts, produce the and higher levels of detachment, dialectically with tribal myth, with animism, with religions of Acheulean hand-axe, leave Africa and colonize far reaches of the Euro- interact resulting in the transformations of the book, with the axial turn, with modernism, Asian landmass, long before the appearance of spoken language, by each and the appearance of new capacities that with scientism, with political liberalism, with either side of the equation alone could not have socialism and so on can be reconstructed in terms way of a gesture and emotion mediated form of group consciousness. produced. Compartmentalization and other of dialectical interplays between the legacies of forms of cellular complexity emerged initially First and Second Hominin Detachments (i.e., as host defenses against viruses. The mobility as still “Creatures of the Group” who strive for It has been theorized that cosmic detachment respond to a perturbation (such as being hit by of viruses has come to characterize the vast individuated self-identity and understanding). begins with the separation of gravity from the a photon) by moving in space along three axes majority of complex genomes and impart the unity of fundamental forces, resulting in the (3), rotating (4), or elevating the energy level of capability of generating de novo variation, not Increasing levels of detachment constitute a formation of elementary particles and anti- its electron (5). It is thus accorded five degrees on a random single point-mutation basis, but form of directionally. The universe as a whole through segmental duplications and movements can be said to owe its existence to processes of particles followed by an inflation into space- of freedom. A simple diatomic molecule, like O2, time triggered by the detachment of the strong can also vibrate along its common axis so adds that result in species defining gene families. detachment and at least in certain precincts of nuclear force. As yet inexplicable asymmetries an additional degree of freedom. Detachment is the universe dialectics of increasing detachment in the appearance of baryons (matter) versus always about the emergence of higher degrees Philosophical Anthropologists have long have been set into motion. While consciousness antibaryons (anti-matter) are a sine qua non of relative independence. The more degrees of since recognized that human ancestors lost may not be an inevitable result of any dialectics for the early persistence of our universe. It freedom the greater the detachment. As our their instinctive specializations and viewed of detachment, inasmuch as consciousness is is now believed that the possibility of mass is universe has evolved it has given rise to subunits as organisms became the highly dependent part and parcel of that level of detachment that predicated upon the detachment of the particle with greater and greater abilities to buffer weaklings of nature. But what was new under can reflect back upon itself, it is surely immanent called the Higgs boson and the associated Higgs themselves against the “the ambient winds” the sun was the appearance of a “Hominin to the logic of increasing detachment. field. The detachment of the Higgs boson, and (be it bombardment by radiation or predation Supergroup” whose loss of adaptive instinctual thus of mass, then constitutes the horizon for all by voracious carnivores). A particle with rest subsequent detachments in our universe. mass that creates a well in space-time is more detached than a particle (like a photon) with Physicists characterize the “possibility space” of a no rest mass. A macromolecule, like a protein- simple system in terms of its “degrees of freedom”. based enzyme, whose folding history affects its For example, a simple atom like hydrogen can future actions is more detached than a simpler

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We already have a situation where human the length of our intestines (needed to break beings, which are subject to the workings of down tough materials and neutralize bacteria evolution themselves, can become aware of that might cause harm). This opened up the their role as shapers of the environment to possibility for more energy to go into growing consciously select which animals get bred and larger brains, a positive feedback of cascading for what desirable outcomes they are doing so. changes that enhanced our ancestral abilities It is not sleight-of-hand to say that this meets for creating cultural systems. the criteria for evolution to be aware of itself. But such a narrative ploy—clever though it may Laland’s argument is specifically about be—does little more than scratch the surface social learning. Humans, it seems, are rare of what humans can do to intentionally shape among animals for our ability and desire to our own evolutionary processes. teach things to each other. This gives us the two ingredients necessary for cumulative To grasp what we are truly capable of, it will culture to occur—high fidelity of copying and be necessary to unpack more of the unique extensive mentoring to learn complex skills. As patterns that have come to dominate our our ancestors gained the ability to select which ancestral line as a profoundly cultural species. skills are learned, we began to consciously I will summarize the arguments made by Joe shape how cumulative culture plays out from Henrich and Kevin Laland in their recent books, one generation to the next. titled The Secret of Our Success and Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony respectively, to make The important thing for our species is that we this argument.1,2 profoundly shape our social environments with tools and practices that alter what our children Henrich explains how humans are able can learn. Thus, we become inheritance Can Evolution Be Conscious of Itself? to achieve their spectacular success as a systems for culture that build upon and work species because of the ways that we build in parallel with the inheritance systems upon what we learned before. Refining and associated with our genes. This is called gene- Yes, It Can! extending our technologies is one way to go culture coevolution and humans do it like no from slightly misshaped stones with sharper other species on Earth.3 edges to eventually building rocket ships that By Joe Brewer place one of our own on the moon. This is As more among us become aware of gene- called cumulative culture and there is little culture coevolution, we can begin to evidence that any other species is able to consciously choose what kinds of social Imagine this situation: A dog breeder discovers On the Origin of Species that explains how create it. We humans have been shaping our systems we’d like to create that future that he can select from docile parents to get “artificial” selection works among animal own evolutionary process by building on what generations will inherit. For example, we might puppies that are more easily trained to do what breeders—which is then extended to the rest of came before to achieve desired goals for quite choose to build energy infrastructure around he asks. He has just employed an evolutionary the natural world by removing the person who literally millions of years. a portfolio of renewables that free us from process to alter the reproductive fitness of some might do the selecting and letting it happen as fossil fuels and the disruptions to planetary dogs that serve his goals. He did this without an emergent pattern from the environment. One example of this is the invention of climate associated with burning them. Or we understanding how evolution works, yet with The new situation is one where any person techniques for making and maintaining fires. might choose to employ the many findings confidence that some kind of predictable who is consciously aware of the mechanisms Along with this incredible technology came the from prevention science to raise our children inheritance was likely to be in play. involved in evolution can now make conscious cooking practices for tough meat that is both in nurturing environments that increase their choices about what gets inherited for future difficult to digest and can carry pathogens that abilities to regulate emotions and cooperate Now add to the story that a biologist named generations. make us sick. By harnessing an external system with others. In this manner, we would increase Charles Darwin has just written a book called for digestion, we gained the ability to reduce the likelihood that future societies are

evolution-institute.org evolution-institute.org Can Evolution Be Conscious? 36 Can Evolution Be Conscious? 37 managed as democracies instead of some form What I hope to have conveyed in this brief essay of authoritarian control by dominant force. is that (1) evolution can be conscious of itself; (2) humans, in particular, can be conscious of Evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson has the ways that evolution shapes who we are; and said that we must become “wise managers of (3) with awareness and skill, it is even possible our own evolutionary process” and this requires for us to shape the inheritance systems for that we first become aware that it is possible to future generations through careful analysis, do so. My colleagues and I birthed the Cultural planning, and implementation. With many Evolution Society to help researchers around global threats confronting our now-planetary- the world to find one another—increasing in-scale species, it is urgently incumbent upon their ability to cooperate—and more recently us to do so. we launched the Center for Applied Cultural Evolution to help practitioners learn what evolutionary approaches have to offer them as they grapple with incredibly complex challenges in their communities.

One Culture, Two Cultures? How Many Cultures, How Long?

By Kurt Johnson

When asked “Can Evolution be Conscious?” “atop” that evolutionary process? reactions can occur aptly reflecting the “informal definition” (as stated in most dictionaries) There is a historic landscape of siloed thinking of schizoid, that is, “having inconsistent or on this question across evolutionary biology seemingly contradictory elements.” I’ll use the and a more recent field -- consciousness studies. References term further below. Underlying assumptions and points of entry on the conversation differ greatly. These span the 1. Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our This results because the question immediately range from reductionist mechanics (and all that Species, and Making Us Smarter (Princeton University Press, 2018). arises, is one referring to “simply” the basic discipline has contributed to our knowledge of 2. Kevin N. Laland, Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made the Human Mind (Princeton University mechanics of biological evolution or also what evolutionary process) to the implications of the Press, 2017). becomes involved when an intelligent species, role of a top tier species like Homo sapiens as a 3. Herbert Gintis, “Gene–culture coevolution and the nature of human sociality,” Philosophical Transactions of of conscious agency and choice, is included “natural selector-in-chief”. Global thinking across the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 366(1566): 878-888. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0310

evolution-institute.org evolution-institute.org Can Evolution Be Conscious? 38 Can Evolution Be Conscious? 39 this landscape is rather like a mosaic, with the given the inherent interrelations of life-related shifts in prevailing paradigms and worldviews cultures, someone has to be at the wheel. If not, gaps between the pieces varying in width and, gases and liquids in the process of Plate Tectonics. (even social media), and the actual effects on we may find, in hindsight, that evolution took us metaphorically, how much grout has been placed An academic discipline, modern “Discursive multitudes of elements in the global environment somewhere we didn’t want to go.” therein to create any bridges. Theory” (21 million entries at Google) examines itself and the relationship to biodiversity, how human narratives and resulting actions environmental sustainability and so on. Across Where to from here? There seems little doubt First of all, we have to acknowledge a broad create undeniable effects. Examples widely all these arenas, both the media (and fate) of that this discussion worldwide is moving toward landscape encompassing humankind’s range from the obvious effect on human humankind as well as the process of evolution are more integration and fewer silos. If we look at historically subjective and objective ways history of certain books (Adolf Hitler’s Mein inextricably intertwined. the “mosaic” of the discussion mentioned above, of knowing -- whether reflecting the more Kampf or Thomas Paines’ Common Sense as we can hope the gaps between the component conventional view of C. P. Snow’s “Two Cultures” only two examples) to consequences, intended As David Sloan Wilson said at recent conversations are naturally narrowing with time. (and a later suggested “Third Culture”), or and unintended, of the “greening” of various conferences “Steering Toward the Omega However, this is a global conversation with all the the views of current “integral philosophies” industries in the latter 20th Century when a Point”: [my paraphrase] “When it comes to foibles that come with that. Only time will tell. recognizing various interactive domains or more “green narrative” was required by “political evolution’s relation to humankind and its universes of discourse ranging from the more correctness” and had unintended consequences subjective (like arts and “spirituality”) to more on both corporate cultures and environment objective (conventional science) in the endeavors arenas like pollution, resource extraction, of humankind. Moreover, in common parlance, deforestation and biodiversity. The latter depending on what “circles” one is in, some example embraces myriad aspects influencing domains may be considered “in” (valid to discuss) fundamental elements of biological evolution in and others “out” (considered invalid to discuss). geosphere and biosphere.

There are, at one extreme of this landscape Controversially, these interactions could be (and far from the conventional) views that construed as reflecting Dr. Rupert Sheldrake’s center everything, material and otherwise, on contentious theories of “morphic fields”— consciousness itself. These must be mentioned the view that there are collective subjective and may be a wave of the future. This view, effects on reality that influence the actual developed (among others) by Drs. Deepak direction of development and events. Indeed, Chopra, Stuart Hameroff, Rudolf Tanzi, Peter conflating the more conventional examples Russell, Frederico Faggin and colleagues above with those of Sheldrake reflects the through the annual “Science and Nonduality sometimes “schizoid” nature of the current Conference” is well summarized in the popular global discussion (in some circles, Discursive literature by Chopra. Theory as an “in” [valid to discuss]; Morphic Fields as an ‘out” [not valid to discuss]). Within more conventional boundaries, a sizable mainstream literature exists on the complex An ambitious and extensive document by the feedback mechanisms by which the conscious Canadian Research Institute currently influential activities of human agency affect the core in the United Nations community reports in mechanical elements of biological evolution detail on the varieties of interaction between itself. Every time humans, in what Teilhard de complex elements of human culture, feedback Chardin referred to as the realm of consciousness loops regarding human behavior, and resulting [“noosphere”], do something affecting elements effects on the global environment both now and of the geosphere or biosphere humankind is projected into the future. Interactions are highly part of influencing myriad aspects of the course nuanced, including innumerable interconnections of evolution. Today we are even aware that of cultural narratives, religious beliefs, roles of geosphere and biosphere are not clearly distinct, science and technology in societies, changes and

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one can consider a population’s situation in this evolution? Above I suggested that it might be way as well. Thus: held to entail directionality via final causation. We can see that once a population has, say, • Formal Cause: relevant environmental taken up swimming, then adaptations to walking conditions or flying would no longer be possible. But here • Material Causes: population genotypes we might recall, for example, the handfish or • Efficient Causes: organism interactions the flying fish! This only tells us that watery with environmental challenges followed by situations are many, and complex. The handfish reproduction of the survivors can escape by swishing its tail, and the flying fish • Final Cause: adaptedness of the population sculls with the lower lobe of its tail fin while aloft. Swimming in these cases was not abandoned, but, Adaptedness to local conditions was taken as supplemented. However, considering our own the attractor in the logic of the basic Fisherian earliest ancestors, the sarcopterygians, they did understanding of natural selection,3 although eventually leave the water altogether. However, the currently predominant Dobzhanskian living in shallow stagnant waters in swamps, approach views selection as a continuing gene they had been walking on their muscular fins and pool adjustment in the context of ever-changing breathing air long before departing the waters. environmental conditions. Clearly, a ‘moving’ They were preadapted to living completely out of target, is still logically an attractor – and is water.5 Was preadaptation an actual condition? logically a final cause. Had landlubbing become predestined instead of fortuitous? In order to examine the possibility that biological evolution may be viewed as a conscious process, We now face the dichotomy between chance one must define ‘consciousness’ appropriately. and choice.6 My perspective on this involves Can Evolution be Understood Upon Googling ‘consciousness,’ we find one the ‘internalist’ discourse.7,8 Internally a system major definitional attractor: the condition of makes a choice; if apparent externally and not being aware. While awareness is a reasonable fitting some theoretical scheme, it appears to as a Conscious Process? definition of consciousness in many applications, be random. Both things are ‘true’. Internalism it is unusable here, being too organism-based. attempts to understand a system from within, Looking further at these definitions we find: “the the inquirer being a part, and therefore unable to By Stanley N. Salthe moral consciousness of a nation.” Or “the state of see itself as if from outside. being ... responsive to one’s surroundings”. And there is Caroline Jones’s “ ... consciousness as a Internalism is modest in scope, being focused My approach is explored by considering the concept of convergent evolution should also much more diffuse participation in the energies of locally, as things are happening, and would 1 Aristotelian Causal Categories, focusing on be considered an important application of finality the universe.”4 If a collectivity may be conscious, be reported in the present progressive tense. 2 Final Cause. I then consider the possibility of in evolutionary biology. it is freed from limitation to neural systems. If Examples in serious discourse moving in the understanding this question from an ‘internalist’ moral consciousness might be assigned to a internalist direction have been Maturana and perspective. Even basic physics entertains finality – nation, that means it is embodied in laws, valued Varela’s ‘autopoiesis’, dialectics, phenomenology, in the Second Law of thermodynamics. behaviors and favored circumstances. Then, a operationalism in physics, second-order Organism ontogeny could be non-controversially Thermodynamic equilibrium is attained via population is, in Darwinian discourse, responsive cybernetics, the ‘emic’ approach in anthropology, viewed as finalistic. That is, it can be viewed as multiple pathways. This final inevitability is to its surroundings. aspects of quantum mechanics. being globally entrained by full realization, as implicit in Big Bang cosmology. Also, the logical well as being pushed forward by local efficient inevitability of finality is demonstrated by the Then we might ask: suppose we do view While externally we might describe, say, a dinner causes. The fact that it can surmount many fact that dynamical systems theories involve evolution as conscious, what would that tell us -- the setting, menu, and so on -- internally the experimental impediments argues for this. Then, structural attractors. In evolutionary biology, that we would otherwise not understand about representation of the dinner could be reports on

evolution-institute.org evolution-institute.org Can Evolution Be Conscious? 42 Can Evolution Be Conscious? 43 a sequence of tastes. Note the incommensurable As a system hardens into senescence, it becomes kinds of knowledge here – externally we unable to marshall the requisite variety needed test things, internally we ‘prove’ them (in the to survive perturbations and gets recycled. Buddhist sense) to ourselves. The reason for Then, might evolution be understood in an taking the internalist stance is that generativity internalist mode? Might that be how we would cannot be approached externally. In that context locate its consciousness? Again, what difference nothing new is produced except by error, giving would this make to our understanding of us, e.g., the mutation model in current evolution biological evolution? Perhaps it could lead more discourse. Internally chance is choice. Important of us to love its products more than we do? internally would be the concept of vagueness. Might it allow us to anticipate some of its current Fuzziness is a step in this direction but is still trajectories in organisms that we relate to? And externalist. Any system during its development could that ultimately inform social or political changes by becoming more definitely embodied. policies?

Why Teleology is the Elephant in Evolutionary Theory’s Room

By. Felipe A. Veloso

Imagine humans one day fulfill what is currently This species would deserve a place in the References only a dream for the discipline known today as history of life on Earth. So, how do we explain synthetic biology: to create a whole new species its evolutionary debut using concepts from 1. Salthe SN (2006) “On Aristotle’s conception of causality,” General Systems Bulletin 35:11. from simple organic molecules. No, not by classical evolutionary theory? Was it natural 2. McGhee G, Convergent Evolution: Limited Forms Most Beautiful (MIT Press, 2011). combining biomolecules, or larger structures we selection? No. Was it allopatric, parapatric, 3. Salthe SN “Semiotics in biology: Inside neo-Darwinism,” J. Biosemiotics 1: 505-518. obtained from living systems. Imagine we create or sympatric speciation — phenomena at the 4. Jones CA (2018) “A Common Sense. A conversation with Caroline A. Jones,” Edge, 3:15:18. at some point a new life form from scratch. As any geographical level?1 No. Was it lateral gene 5. Salthe SN (1972) Evolutionary Biology. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. other, this life form will be able to self-sustain and transfer,2 polyploidization,3 or hybridization4 — 6. Salthe, SN (2008) “Vitalism versus physical-chemical explanations.” In: Jorgensen SE and Fath BD (eds) The to self-reproduce with variation, and thus able to phenomena at the molecular level? No. Encyclopedia of Ecology. Elsevier, pp. 3694-3699. undergo evolution by natural selection. We will 7. Salthe, SN (2012c) “The uncanny position of ‘Now’ in science.” In Tracing the Road to Reality. Simeonov PL, have a new species on our planet — whatever our We may try with less standard concepts. Was Smith LS, Ehresman AC (Eds) Springer. pp. 279-282. definition of species, it will be indisputably new. it the Baldwin effect?5 No. Kin selection?6 No. 8. Salthe SN (2014) “Creating the Umwelt: from chance to choice,” Biosemiotics 7: 351-359.

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Group selection?7 No. Multilevel selection?8 No. with teleological properties: the “end-directed” The concept of emergent and intrinsic higher- Otherwise, biology will forever be the reverse- Epigenetics?9 No. . . properties that unequivocally characterize life. order constraints on lower-order dynamics, engineering of uber-fancy organic robots or simply teleodynamics, was pioneered by T. that get imperfectly replicated — and thus This thought experiment is, of course, beginning This common denominator is, I suggest, Deacon18-20 and has been followed up by others overhauled — throughout the eons by a process to get as silly as the brilliant Monty Python’s the substantial update evolutionary theory like M. Montévil & M. Mossio,21 R. Logan,22 J. we call evolution. Even sillier than Monty Cheese Shop skit — only not funny, so I should currently lacks. Note, however, that to say even Sherman,23 S. Kauffman,24 and myself. Python’s Cheese Shop, and making no one stop. In lay terms, we would simply and finally an individual cell is an agent or, in other words, laugh. A bad joke within an increasingly science- say that humans made new life come into being. an autonomous, causally efficacious system in What to call a teleodynamics-updated distrusting society25 that seems to long for any (Let’s try for now not to make matters worse by the world, is a huge claim. The dynamics of the evolutionary theory? I’m not sure “conscious everyday life purpose, if not explained, at least saying that humans consciously made new life individual cell, for it to be an agent, must be to evolution” is a helpful term, because acknowledged by science. Because teleology come into being.) some extent indecomposable in a fundamental consciousness is usually associated with the does exist. You — not the roughly 134 trillion sense — otherwise said dynamics are only mind, and most living systems don’t have one. trillion atoms in your brain26,27 — purposefully That said, one may argue the thought the effect of what molecules, inanimate and “Teleological evolution”, on the other hand, decided to read this commentary, didn’t you? experiment is pointless. Not because creating purposeless, do. Interestingly, “individual” suggests (at least to me) the wrongful notion life from scratch is a fundamental impossibility comes from individuus, which is the Latin for that natural selection is purposeful. Whatever — that’s a tough case to make — but because the Ancient Greek átomos, or indivisible. name it will bear — one hopefully descriptive, we’ll never be smart enough to do it or, rather yet not misleading — we surely need it. more cynically, we’re already stupid enough to In this respect, I have argued that a destroy ourselves before we do it. Granted. necessary condition for individuation — specifically, for the multicellular individuation Imagine then the first system able to self- unique to eukaryotes — is a regime underpinned sustain and self-reproduce to have ever by “self-organizing” systems whose dynamics existed. Beyond reasonable doubt one are statistically independent from each other such system, however simple, did exist. It (at least within certain critical regions in turns out that here — apart from the half- space).11,12,13 suppressed adverb “consciously” — the answer to all explanations suggested in the thought When two statistically independent “self- Acknowledgments experiment will be the same: No. That first organizing” systems found in chromatin14 system spontaneously came into being. In become coupled across the extracellular I wish to thank David Sloan Wilson, Maximus Thaler, and Mel Andrews for inviting me to contribute to this other words, it somehow emerged. space such that the constraints — understood commentary. as the thermodynamic boundary conditions Charles Darwin was fully aware of this issue, as that allow energy to be released as work15 — evidenced by the wonderful, triumphant, and required by each system are generated by the no less intellectually honest last paragraph of others, the multicellular individual emerges. References On the Origin of Species.9 And it does so as an intrinsic (with respect

to the whole cell population), higher-order 1. S. Gavrilets, Perspective: Models of speciation: what have we learned in 40 years?, Evolution 57 (10) 13 Yes, at least one agent did emerge spontaneously constraint on lower-order cellular dynamics. (2003) 2197–2215. DOI:10.1554/02-727. in the history of the Universe, and another There is also compelling evidence for aging 2. P. J. Keeling, J. D. Palmer, Horizontal gene transfer in eukaryotic evolution, Nat. Rev. Genet. 9 (8) (2008) 605– (conscious) agent could figure out how to elicit at the multicellular-individual level explained 618. DOI:10.1038/nrg2386. the spontaneous emergence of a new agent as a direct byproduct of this emergent 3. S. P. Otto, J. Whitton, Polyploid Incidence and Evolution, Annu. Rev. Genet. 34 (1) (2000) 401–437. DOI:10.1146/ 16 — with no standard (or not-that-standard) higher-order constraint. (The consensus annurev.genet.34.1.401. evolutionary mechanisms involved whatsoever evolutionary account is that aging is the result 4. M. L. Arnold, Natural hybridization and evolution, Oxford University Press, 1997. in either case. The common denominator here of hundreds of millions of years of relaxed 5. J. M. Baldwin, A New Factor in Evolution, Am. Nat. 30 (354) (1896) 441–451. Available from: 17 is not consciousness, but the spontaneous selection on late-life maintenance traits.) https://doi.org/10.1086%2F276408, DOI:10.1086/276408. emergence of systems that are agents, systems 6. D. C. Queller, J. E. Strassmann, Kin selection, Curr. Biol. 12 (24) (2002) R832. DOI:10.1016/s0960-9822(02)01344-1.

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