I've been listening to Annaka Harris on [Sam Harris's podcast](https://samharris.org/podcasts/159-conscious/). One interesting takeaway: - If consciousness evolved, it must have had an evolutionary value or be co-occurring with another trait that does. - In case none of the above are true, it would follow that consciousness just *is* -- evolution would have been a force in play to make it *appear* at some stage in our development, but if evolution wasn't involved, it seems likely that consciousness would be just a side-effect of matter existing. Or of matter doing computation, if you follow the "information integration" theory. My hypothesis, no particularly insightful: consciousness and the self is a requisite for complex communication, and thus has actual evolutionary value in social animals.