Our awareness is probably the result of a random mutation eons ago. It was carried forward in our species just like any other physical trait, and probably exists in other species, too. Maybe we developed a consciousness to buffer our increasingly complex minds from the onslaught of random environmental information, or maybe it was just a fluke, who knows — but we can be sure its generation and retention depends on matter, just like the rest of us.

My conception of our awareness is totally organic. The model I subscribe to does not involve a third party, but I do believe our consciousness evolves, both individually and socially:

As technology changes our lives, we are now transitioning out of an era of biological evolution, and humans are entering a period of fine-tuning. Effectively, our species is finding its identity in the same manner a maturing individual gains insight. And while outliers hold back the slow progress we are making, eventually we will evolve to the point our species, as a whole, is sufficiently aware of itself that we can move on to a later period of evolution by choice through logic. Clearly we aren’t there yet.

Despite how we romanticize it, our consciousness is fairly simple. It accounts for everything we know about ourselves and the reality around us. Without it we wouldn’t even be aware we exist.

So what exactly happens when it ends?