[fuligo]

I'm not sure the original comment deserves this clarification, you'll be hard pressed to find someone on this forum who didn't already know about the nature of mutations.

The point is though that while the mutations themselves are "accidents" and the result is always characterized by a certain randomness, evolution as a problem-solving algorithm isn't itself accidental. While some (or even many) if the characteristics of an organism might be incidental, some major features tend to have a good reason for being selected. Self-awareness, I assert, is such a feature, because it carries implications too large not to have an effect on selection.

[ForHackernews]

> Self-awareness, I assert, is such a feature, because it carries implications too large not to have an effect on selection.

You might assert that, but there's virtually no evidence to support that assertion, and interesting philosophical arguments to the contrary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

Now, if what you mean by "self-awareness" is just the ability of an organism to monitor its own condition and respond accordingly, then we're in agreement, but I find that a very uninteresting assertion and it means that we're not really talking about "consciousness" except inasmuch as a thermostat is conscious: http://consc.net/notes/lloyd-comments.html

[Retra]

P-zombies are not an interesting philosophical argument anymore than "Angels dancing on pins" is an interesting argument.