We are conscious because we are objects extended deep in time — consciousness is all of that history rolled up in us.

Astrobiologist and theoretical physicist at Arizona State University

Yeah. I think if you’re thinking about this thinking about living things as these giant causal structures or these objects that are deep in time or whatever language we end up using to describe it seems to me that consciousness is about the fact that we have a conscious experience is because we are these temporally extended objects. Consciousness and the abstraction that we have in our minds is actually a manifestation of all the time that’s rolled up in us.