> I can't make the leap from evolution selecting for consciousness for some utility to dualism. Can you make that more explicit for me? The philosophical objec

> I can't make the leap from evolution selecting for consciousness for some utility to dualism. Can you make that more explicit for me? The philosophical objection to the idea that consciousness is functional is that, it this were so, then consciousness would be able to affect the physical world. I feel this way, and because (and ONLY because) I felt that way I move my arm. But how did my actual "feeling" of anything cause my neural network to exhibit different outward behavior than it would have had I not felt anything at all? From there, the claim is that you need to import dualism (by saying that the world of feelings somehow communicates back with the particles that and energy that make up the neurons). I don't think that's the only way to solve the problem, but it's a common objection.