From chemistry to cognition: the adaptive origins of consciousness under constraint
Frontiers in Neuroscience September 1, 2026 Jeff Stibel
Consciousness is often treated as an evolutionary anomaly, a costly capacity with unclear adaptive origins. Here, cognition and consciousness are distinguished as separate evolutionary lineages, with consciousness arising when an organism must coordinate otherwise distinct regulatory processes to resolve competing demands affecting its own viability. Its functional precursors predate nervous...