A friendly interview with an important neuroscientist makes that starkly clear:
In short, no one knows how human consciousness, which includes great novels, symphonies, and science discoveries contributes to “evolution.” Bacteria and insects are much more numerous than humans. Some would argue that they are more successful. That fact that this is the level of discussion, even today, tells us a lot.
Nearer the close of the interview:
[Tim Adams:] Have your thoughts on that ever taken any spiritual swerve – in terms of the why of there being something rather than nothing?
[Anil Seth:] It’s more that I think there’s hubris in assuming that everything will submit to a mechanistic programme of explanation. I think it’s intellectual honesty to acknowledge that the existence of conscious experience as a phenomenon in a universe for which we generally have physicalist accounts seems weird. I want to figure out the ways in which we can undermine this seeming weird. – Tim Adams, “Neuroscientist Anil Seth: ‘We Risk Not Understanding the Central Mystery of Life’” at the Guardian, (August 21, 2021)
What Seth is saying is that he wants to undermine the feeling that human consciousness is different from what happens to clams and sand dollars.
If that doesn’t work? Well, it never has.
News, “The science “advances” disproving the mind are ever more elusive” at Mind Matters News
So many establishment figures do not appear to want to notice the obvious point: Materialism is failing. Popular but failing.
Make no mistake: It matters: Your mind vs. your brain: Ten things to know