Susan Blackmore, Psychologist; Visiting Professor, University of Plymouth; Author, Consciousness: An Introduction. Article excerpt.

Evolution by means of natural selection (or indeed any kind of selection — natural or unnatural). This simple three-step algorithm explains, with one simple idea, why we live in a universe full of design.

It explains not only why we are here, but why trees, kittens, Urdu, the Bank of England, Chelsea football team and the iPhone are here.

At its heart there seems to be a tautology. It seems as though you are saying nothing when you say that ‘things that survive survive’ or ‘successful ideas are successful’. To turn these tautologies into power you need to add the context of a limited world in which not everything survives and competition is rife, and also realise that this is an ever-changing world in which the rules of the competition keep shifting.

In that context being successful is fleeting. Copy the survivors many times with slight variations and let them loose in this ever-shifting world, and only those suited to the new conditions will carry on.

The world fills with creatures, ideas, institutions, languages, stories, software and machines that have all been designed by the stress of this competition.