Why are we conscious? Evolution has been blamed. For some unexplained reason, conscious creatures were fitter than ones which behaved the same way but without consciousness; and Darwin did the rest.

If so, says Daedalus, then consciousness must be represented somewhere on the genome. Creatures which are conscious should have a set of genes absent in those which are not conscious. And consciousness is remarkably unitary. It can be abolished by many simple molecules (anaesthetics), leaving other bodily systems untouched. So it is probably coded for by one, or just a few, genes. How to identify them?

Daedalus recalls the strange syndrome of alcoholic ‘palimpsest’. The alcoholic has absolutely no memory of some past episode, even though at the time he did not appear drunk. Actors have given brilliant performances, surgeons have conducted delicate operations that they would never later recall, in alcoholic palimpsest. Daedalus reckons that palimpsest is not a failure of memory, but of consciousness. Alcohol, itself a considerable anaesthetic, erases the consciousness of its victim. It leaves him as a perfectly functional human robot, seemingly normal and responsive, but in fact with no internal awareness.

So DREADCO biochemists are conducting delicate tests on advanced alcoholics, looking for hormones and neurotransmitters whose concentration correlates with the state of palimpsest. They hope to work out where these compounds come from, on what brain sites they bind or inhibit binding, and what proteins underlie their synthesis. Standard genetic detective work should then reveal the crucial genes of consciousness.

A major biological conundrum will thus be resolved. By seeking these genes in other creatures, the DREADCO team will discover which of them is conscious. Caring experimental biologists will rush to learn the results. Are experiments on mice, or frogs, or fish, or beetles, cruel? Or are these creatures merely unconscious chemical mechanisms? Genetics will give the answer. Daedalus even hopes to grant awareness to lower species by implanting the crucial genes in them, or deprive higher ones of it by deleting them. But how to tell if the operation has worked? Daedalus will induce alcoholism in the test creatures, and look for episodes of palimpsest.