With the advent of social groups as an evolutionary development in coping with the physical environment, a tandem evolutionary process was added into the mix. The same evolutionary process simply functioned in the social environment. Qualities and characteristics which at first emerge simply from the biological evolutionary process begin to be engaged in new and creative ways in the social environment.
The evolutionary process now functioning in both the biological and social environments gives rise to greater awareness of the environment, greater mental engagement with the environment.
Different animals have different predispositions, qualities, characteristics. Some have a set of attributes which encourage experimentation with the physical environment. In some populations these same tendencies are applied to the social environment. Some have greater abilities to analyze situations, conceptualize a variety of conclusions and choose between conceived options. Because these are cognitive attributes, new abilities in each generation can be passed on to others through social mechanisms.
The capacity to create mental maps of both physical and social landscapes, found in many different species, is a first step toward thinking patterns that made possible the generation of imagination. Abilities to recognize patterns in nature expanded to identifying and taking advantage of repeating patterns in social environments. The use of mirror neurons led to not just the capacity to mimic the actions of others but to imagine what others might be thinking and feeling.
Communication among members of a group is another cognitive skill that began to develop in many species and populations. It allows for interaction toward shared goals, even across great distances, as well as a means for enhanced teaching capability to the young. Auditory communications have been developed further in some populations than in others. For the more complex end of that spectrum of communication we use the term "language."
Gradually, in some populations of animals, degrees of conscious awareness of and engagement with an increasing mental world of ideas, thoughts, memories, and conceptual projections begins to develop. Simply by the basic evolutionary process, particular skills, capabilities, thought processes provide advantages to certain social environments. An increasing variety of mental characteristics and skills began becoming more prevalent. Just as particular biological characteristics benefit some populations more than others, particular mental characteristics proved more beneficial than others.
Language along with capacities for creating conceptual frameworks, and skills for manipulation of mental objects, became increasingly apparent aspects of the mental universes in sentient animal populations.
With the evolution of cognitive characteristics and skills in response to both material and social pressures we see the gradual development of consciousness to increasing degrees in sentient animals. As cognitive traits evolve in this secondary environment we see the beginnings and development of increasing complexity and nuance of what we have called the "mind.”
Cognitive evolution moves at an even more rapid rate than social evolution. The more cognitive skills any given population acquires, the faster it begins acquiring new cognitive skills. The secondary evolutionary track made possible by social environments has now given rise to a third environment, the cognitive environment. Sentient animals are now living and evolving in three levels of environment simultaneously.
So what happens when mind itself evolves?
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