This paper argues that the concepts of health and consciousness are deeply connected and best understood together through an evolutionary lens. Using state-based behavioral and life-history theory as a teleonomic tool, the author shows that Darwinizing the agent- and subject-side of organisms clarifies both health and consciousness as natural phenomena. The work is programmatic, aiming to reframe core problems in the philosophy of medicine and philosophy of mind by integrating evolutionary perspectives.
Corvids (crows, ravens, jays) are examined through a five-dimensional framework for animal consciousness, which asks what it might be like to be a corvid. The authors propose an empirically grounded but speculative answer, drawing on existing research into corvid cognition and sentience. They then suggest future research directions and discuss how understanding corvid consciousness could inform ethical treatment and animal welfare legislation.
Consciousness and complexity are often thought to be closely linked, a view that has boosted the popularity of integrated information theory (IIT) despite its significant formal, phenomenological, and neuroscientific flaws. The author proposes replacing IIT's biologically neutral concept of complexity with an evolutionary one called 'pathological complexity' to salvage the intuition that complexity relates to consciousness.