Richard Dawkins on Consciousness

“Survival machines that can simulate the future are one jump ahead of survival machines that who can only learn of the basis of trial and error. The trouble with overt trial is that it takes time and energy. The trouble with overt error is that it is often fatal. ...The evolution of the capacity to simulate seems to have culminated in subjective consciousness. Why this should have happened is, to me, the most profound mystery facing modern biology.”

““Continuously Updated Virtual Reality” is the idea that every brain constructs a virtual reality model of the world through which the animal is moving. The virtual reality software is continuously updated in the sense that, although it might theoretically be capable of simulating scenes of wildest fantasy (as in dreams), it is in practice constrained by data flowing from the sense organs. What the animal perceives is a virtual reality rendering of objects in the real world. Visual illusions such as Necker cubes and other alternating figures are best interpreted in these terms. The data sent to the brain by the retina are equally compatible with two virtual models of a cube. Having no basis to choose, the brain alternates. The virtual world that our brain constructs is, no doubt, very different from that of a squirrel, a mole, or a whale. Each species will construct virtual models that are useful for its particular way of life.”