From foraging to autonoetic consciousness: The primal self as a consequence of embodied prospective foraging
April 1, 2015 Thomas T. Hills, S. Butterfill
The ability to adjust how often an animal explores new options versus sticking with known resources is widespread and likely a key driver of cognitive evolution. This review draws parallels between external foraging in physical space and internal foraging over mental representations, noting shared behaviors such as area-restricted search—focusing search where resources were previously found and moving away from poor areas—which can produce movement patterns resembling Lévy flights. These behaviors share a neural basis across animals, suggesting an evolutionary link between external and internal foraging. A specific form called embodied prospective foraging allows prediction by searching mental models of the environment, which requires a primitive sense of self to distinguish real from simulated actions, with implications for the evolution of self-awareness.