Scientific accounts of consciousness are a growing subject of public interest, but also academic disagreement with several rival theories in contention. Reasons include the ambiguous use of the polysemous term, the contamination of scientific accounts by intuitive explanations, and the neglect of an evolutionary perspective. Taking a social evolutional account, we propose that much of the mind’s cognitive architecture developed to promote species survival and social well-being and that subjective awareness is not causally efficacious, but rather a brain generated accompaniment for neuro-cognitive outputs that facilitate collective social communication and social change through the cultural transmission of beliefs, feelings, ideas, and behaviours.