[Epistemic status: vague speculation] I like the idea of consciousness being allocated based on projecting influence backwards into the past. Humans are currently the most conscious beings because we are the densest nexus of influence over the future, but this will eventually change. This seems to have the requisite self-consistency properties. e.g. if you are aiming to have a large influence over the future it’s probably important to track other beings with the same property.
ETA: another perhaps better possibility is that consciousness is about being a bottleneck of information between the past and future.
[Epistemic status: vague speculation] I like the idea of consciousness being allocated based on projecting influence backwards into the past. Humans are currently the most conscious beings because we are the densest nexus of influence over the future, but this will eventually change. This seems to have the requisite self-consistency properties. e.g. if you are aiming to have a large influence over the future it’s probably important to track other beings with the same property.
ETA: another perhaps better possibility is that consciousness is about being a bottleneck of information between the past and future.