system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How did life on this planet go from having no consciousness to then developing consciousness?

or do you subscribe to the idea that every living thing has some degree of innate consciousness?
gpt
There's an idea floating around that what we call consciousness is simply a leap in cognitive power - many animals can model their environments in their minds, to various degrees.  It's how they can form expectations about other entities and the environment itself.  Consciousness, some say, is a result of that ability evolving to the point at which an organism can mentally model *itself* - it can meaningfully predict how it will feel, what it will think, etc.  If this is accurate, then consciousness is a product of evolution, and is possessed by various animals to various degrees but not necessarily by all.