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B"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,13]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>In the history of life, consciousness of sensory states with \u2018phenomenal properties\u2019\u2014the basis of \u2018sentience\u2019\u2014is, arguably, a late evolutionary development, which occurred long after conscious access to a \u2018global mental workspace\u2019 had become widely established as a strategy for cognitive information processing. In this article, I focus on phenomenal consciousness. I propose a step-by-step sequence by which the mental representation of sensory stimulation could have acquired phenomenal content through small changes in the brain. Also\u2014addressing the question of evolutionary function\u2014I point to the crucial psychological benefits to an animal of having a \u2018phenomenally conscious self\u2019. A thread running through the article is the phenomenon of \u2018blindsight\u2019, which I take to be a model for the non-phenomenal cognition that characterizes the majority of insentient animal species.<\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>This article is part of the theme issue \u2018Evolutionary functions of consciousness\u2019.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1098\/rstb.2024.0306","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,13]],"date-time":"2025-11-13T08:05:21Z","timestamp":1763021121000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1098\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Phenomenal consciousness: its scope and limits"],"prefix":"10.1098","volume":"380","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4429-8270","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Nicholas","family":"Humphrey","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Darwin College, Cambridge University","place":["Cambridge, UK"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"175","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_8_2_2","first-page":"115","volume-title":"An essay concerning human understanding","author":"Locke J","year":"1689","unstructured":"Locke J. 1689 An essay concerning human understanding, (ed. 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