title: Evolutionary pressures and a stable world for animals and robots: a commentary on Merker.
abstract: In his article on The Liabilities of Mobility, asserts that "Consciousness presents us with a stable arena for our actions-the world ..." and argues for this property as providing evolutionary pressure for the evolution of consciousness. In this commentary, I will explore the implications of Merker's ideas for consciousness in artificial agents as well as animals, and also meet some possible objections to his evolutionary pressure claim.
authors.affiliation: Computer Science Division, The Institute for Intelligent Systems, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152, USA. franklin@memphis.edu
authors.forename: Stan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Franklin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003243:Consciousness / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D012371:Robotics