Consciousness in Evolution: Sketch for a New Model – A Speculation

It is hypothesized that hierarchically negentropic systems (defined herein),including organisms, are associated with partially non-local information/probability fieldswhich, a) entail or express interiority, b) engender “entangled learning” with similarnegentropic systems, and c) cause otherwise random processes, including mutation inbiotic systems, to become somewhat non-random. These effects, which are believed to bedriven by quantum interactions, modify those identified with the Modern EvolutionarySynthesis. A series of tenets, or broad organizing principles, related to such systems andtheir associated fields, are enumerated. An empirical test which could potentially falsifycertain aspects of the hypothesis is given.