I think the fact that you and I are communicating with each other using insanely complicated leisure items, most likely sitting in expertly crafted buildings an

I think the fact that you and I are communicating with each other using insanely complicated leisure items, most likely sitting in expertly crafted buildings and surrounded by countless other signs of humanity's domination of our environment is proof enough that sentience is very evolutionarily favorable. Our minds are what made us the apex predators of the entire planet and allowed us to rise to levels of complexity orders of magnitude higher than any other creature around us. Sure, it's anthropocentric, but so is the entire world now, because of our species' intelligence.