CIRCULAR REASONING
Suzanne, you wrote:
-- A plant can have its responses hard-wired into its physical makeup because it has a very limited set of needs and no interests. We, on the other hand, (probably along with most other animals) live in an extraordinarily variable environment. And we at least have a wide range of physical, psychological, emotional, and social needs and interests. Selective attention seems to be especially important here. The amount of information available to us in almost any environment is far too large to be handled on an automatic basis. Consciousness seems to provide the ability to respond selectively to that environment (or fail to respond) in relevantly flexible ways. Needless to say, I don't think that any of this requires us to look for some nonphysical story about consciousness. --
** I have two comments, Suzanne:
a) The original term to describe "epiphenomenon" as following an Emergent is Resultant. In fact, emergents and resultants were concepts that played a significant role in the understanding of evolution. To me, they are simply essential for that understanding.
b) Utilitarian arguments have no place in the understanding of evolution. You are stating or positing that we have a wide range of needs and interests, that there is too much information availble, and that consciousness is very useful to deal with those situations. The fact is, consciousness is the motor behind those "needs" and the avalanche of information. There is no need of explaining the "importance" of consciousness. It is a natural development, with no "interest" for "Nature." Nature does not create: it is a creation of the Laws of Physics. Humans are one of the latter's products, the only one that can use those very same Laws to create in a conscious manner.
Your argument becomes circular when critically analized:
"Consciousness creates needs and information. If not for the *fortunate* evolutional emergence of consciousness, we would be unble to deal with those *problems*."
As conscious beings, some of us "need" to find the physical explanation for consciousness. By physical, it should be understood chemical, biological, mental, emotional and everything else required for the understanding of the human brain's metathinking capabilities. Metathinking is the ability to think about thinking, a faculty that elevates awareness to the vertex of consciousness. **