Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute
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04/27/2026
What is consciousness for?
In a recent paper in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, DISI faculty Kristin Andrews along with Noam Miller propose the “social origins of consciousness” hypothesis.
Rather than emerging to help individuals navigate the physical world, they argue that consciousness may have first evolved to solve a social problem: how to coordinate with others once behavior became flexible and unpredictable.
Drawing on evidence across species, they show that organisms consistently prioritize social connection—often choosing it over food or avoiding physical pain. Attention is drawn to others, and disruptions in social alignment carry strong negative signals.
On this view, consciousness is not just about internal experience, but about tracking, predicting, and maintaining relationships with other agents.
Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2024.0300
Photo: Diagram of human consciousness from Geometrical Psychology (c. late 19th century) by Benjamin Betts
“What are the mechanisms that enable organisms to detect and respond to the actions of others?”
Two DISI alumni, Gabriel J. Severino and Sasha L. Winkler, along with researchers Randall D. Beer, and Ann-Sophie Barwich investigate how organisms detect when another agent is actually responding to them.
Using minimal embodied neural networks, they show that social interaction doesn’t depend on a single behavior or signal, but emerges from timing and coordination.
Across very different strategies, successful systems all shared one mechanism:�detecting temporal patterns of responsiveness, and stabilizing only when those patterns are present.
Social intelligence, here, is a dynamic relationship. 🧠
Read the full paper here: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article/381/1943/20250098/480104/Social-contingency-in-embodied-neural-networks
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