Natural Selection Argument

Physical systems have functions in a given setting that can be represented by computation but are not necessarily exhausted by computation. Such functions would be accessible to natural selection and it is possible that certain of them are relevant for consciousness. Examples might include oscillation/resonance in a physical system, quantum entanglement, or electromagnetic field behaviour. The physical function might have relevance in a given context which is not captured in a digital simulation of that function. See also Church Turing Thesis.

Physical phenomena may also be able to implement activities that would be non-computable if modelled using a particular computational technique. For instance, it might be impossible to draw on the exact value of pi or exactly solve the evolution of a complex system or large-scale quantum entanglement using computational techniques in digital architectures, but physical systems embodying that behaviour naturally encode the exact calculation (even though we may be limited in our ability to read out values from the implied calculation).

There are also diverse theories within panpsychism that would identify consciousness in evolved systems without requiring it to have a specific function.