Evolution's Gift: Subjectivity and the Phenomenal World

A particular system of brain mechanisms, called the retinoid system, is proposed as the evolutionary adaptation responsible for the existence of subjectivity and our sense of being here in a surrounding 3D world. The structural and dynamic properties of the retinoid system successfully predict a novel conscious experience in which the brain constructs a vivid visual representation of of an object moving in space without a corresponding image projected to the retinas. Implications of the retinoid system for human creativity and our scientific understanding of the universe are suggested.