The Evolutionary Advantage of the Human Mind

Recent neuroscientific experiments have fundamentally revised classical conceptions of consciousness, free will, and human agency. Beginning with the pioneering work of Benjamin Libet and extended by subsequent studies conducted by Patrick Haggard, John-Dylan Haynes, Aaron Schurger, and others, empirical evidence has consistently demonstrated that the initiation of voluntary action precedes the conscious awareness of intention. These findings directly undermine the classical philosophical model in which consciousness is treated as the primary source of decision-making, choice, and moral responsibility. Importantly, these experimental results do not merely refine existing theoretical frameworks but render untenable a broad intellectual tradition encompassing Cartesian dualism, Kantian autonomy of the will, and rationalist and existentialist accounts of freedom as an originating act of consciousness. Within contemporary neuroscientific models, consciousness no longer appears as the driving force of behavior but rather as a temporally delayed integrative layer that becomes active only after the initiation of action-related neural processes. Crucially, however, this temporal delay delineates a functional window within which an incipient action may still be inhibited, as demonstrated in studies of voluntary veto and motor suppression. This paper introduces the authorial concept of Dominanta X, defined as a temporal architecture of awareness that functions as a neuroethical firewall between precognitive automatism and behavioral execution. Dominanta X does not initiate impulses; instead, it enables their suspension, redirection, or cancellation. The initiating automatism itself is structured by cognitive implants—deep, preconceptual matrices of behavioral availability that determine which impulses can emerge and dominate prior to conscious access. It is argued that the capacity to delay action constitutes a genuine evolutionary advantage in humans. This capacity allows the system to hold conflicting impulses, simulate consequences without immediate bodily execution, and engage in anti-instinctive forms of behavior under conditions of social and technological complexity. In this sense, the human being may be regarded as an evolutionary vanguard not due to superior computational intelligence, but owing to a fragile and energetically costly mechanism of temporal self-inhibition. In conclusion, the paper examines contemporary technological pressures that systematically erode this function of consciousness and substantiates the necessity of cognitive firewalls—diagnostic (ICE) and neuroethical (ICE–N)—aimed at preserving the evolutionary role of consciousness under conditions of increasing automation.