Consciousness Comes from DNA

By CARL SAGAN AND ANN DRUYAN (EDITED BY JOHN HARTMAN)
Is the origin of consciousness an unfathomable mystery? Does it require the insertion of an immaterial soul into each human being, but no other animal, at the moment of conception?

Consciousness and self-awareness are, in the West, widely esteemed as the essence of being human (although the absence of self-awareness is considered a state of grace and perfection in the East); the origin of consciousness is imagined to be a unfathomable mystery, or — not so different — the consequence of the insertion of an immaterial soul into each human being, but into no other animal, at the moment of conception.  [Read more] ...