Evolutionary Pressures and a Stable World for Animals and Robots: A Commentary on Merker

In his article on The Liabilities of Mobility, Merker (this issue) 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.