Consciousness is the key to understanding human existence. Many have attempted to determine the fundamental nature of consciousness based on deductive reasoning. In contrast to that, Consciousness-Based Evolution has exploited empiric evidence for the evolution of physiology from the unicell to man based on cell-cell communication as the origin of consciousness, each intermediary step representing an innate effort to maintain homeostasis by harnessing the energy flow initiated by The Big Bang. By tracing vertebrate evolution as development and phylogeny, focusing on specific emergent steps using a Bayesian approach, individual traits can be seen as exaptations of earlier ways in which existential threats were resolved over the course of evolution. You, the readers, are the beneficiary of those insights.