Apparently he really had perished when the Deus Ex Machina was destroyed, but his disembodied consciousness had evolved beyond the need for a body.

His bottom line is that human consciousness evolved in parallel with language, as humans learned to think verbally and form sophisticated concepts.

Birds start to nest there and, gradually, consciousness evolves into a 'spirit of the rock'.

And if they do not help, why should consciousness have evolved?

According to the traditional interpretation, the other seven consciousnesses are "evolving" or "transforming" consciousnesses originating in this base-consciousness.

Contextually, there is often an idea of a transcendent and more qualitative mind of one's spirit towards which a person strives, or towards which consciousness evolves.

They are beings whose consciousness can evolve just like ours, and it doubtlessly does, but I have no firsthand knowledge of how this happens.

And a global consciousness is now evolving on issues like human rights and the environment - in good part thanks to the U.N.

Many authors since de Chardin have written about the creation of some sort of "overmind," into which human consciousness might someday either evolve or subsume.

Nicholas Humphrey's project, to establish a theory of how consciousness evolved, begins by returning to sensation.