Evolution doesn’t make mistakes because evolution just is. Like entropy, it’s just a kind of pattern/behavior that can emerge from complex systems.
Sometimes evolution leads animals to have traits that become unfavorable enough to prevent traits from being passed on; thats not a mistake, its literally the driving principle of evolution.
As for self awareness, theres lots of gray area in that term. However, social structures have emerged numerous times across the tree of life. Those structures require at least some self awareness. Very successful animals seem to have more self awareness than others because when you interact with beings like you it’s useful to know they are beings like you.
Point is that if knowing what other members of your species might be doing is useful to you or your species survival—which it typically is for tool weilding species—social awareness and self awareness will eventually be selected.
You aren’t self aware because evolution thought “I should make something self aware.” You’re self aware because thinking meant your ancestors could reproduce more. They invented language because naming things made thinking easier and allowed group thinking which allowed them to reproduce more. And eventually they named something “self awareness.”
Evolution doesn’t make mistakes because evolution just is. Like entropy, it’s just a kind of pattern/behavior that can emerge from complex systems.
Sometimes evolution leads animals to have traits that become unfavorable enough to prevent traits from being passed on; thats not a mistake, its literally the driving principle of evolution.
As for self awareness, theres lots of gray area in that term. However, social structures have emerged numerous times across the tree of life. Those structures require at least some self awareness. Very successful animals seem to have more self awareness than others because when you interact with beings like you it’s useful to know they are beings like you.
Point is that if knowing what other members of your species might be doing is useful to you or your species survival—which it typically is for tool weilding species—social awareness and self awareness will eventually be selected.
You aren’t self aware because evolution thought “I should make something self aware.” You’re self aware because thinking meant your ancestors could reproduce more. They invented language because naming things made thinking easier and allowed group thinking which allowed them to reproduce more. And eventually they named something “self awareness.”