As Above, so Below? The Limits of Evolutionary Considerations for Supporting Hypotheses About Consciousness

On a traditional top-down experimental approach to consciousness science, researchers start by investigating consciousness in humans, or closely related living animals, based on evidence from experimental paradigms that aim to directly disentangle conscious from unconscious processing. Only afterward are these insights (iteratively) extended beyond the human case to investigate and understand how consciousness is distributed more broadly. In A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness , Walter Veit radically departs from this approach by taking a Copernican turn in suggesting that we should first understand consciousness’ simple beginnings, and only afterward make sense of how these humble beginnings further complexified. Central to Veit’s approach is abruptly removing the reliance on insights about human consciousness by suggesting that evolutionary considerations can provide a credible source of evidence that can independently and directly support hypotheses about consciousness. My aim here is two-fold. Firstly, I will argue that using evolutionary considerations to support hypotheses about consciousness this way is problematic for principled reasons. The consequence is that evolutionary considerations fail to convincingly support Veit’s central hypothesis: That consciousness’ function is to enable organisms to deal with high pathological complexity. However, secondly, I will suggest that these considerations can nevertheless support an adjacent hypothesis: That an evaluative mode of being is required in general to deal with high pathological complexity irrespective of how consciousness is involved. Taken together, I conclude that consciousness science should not be turned upside down, and that Veit’s central hypotheses are better understood as hypotheses not directly concerned with consciousness.