ISSN 1511-5550
7 papers in the library · 23 citations · publishing 2022-2026
Biological Theory July 21, 2026 M. Chirimuuta
Proponents of the idea of basal cognition clash with those seeking to restrict the term “cognitive” to systems showing human-like capacities. The impasse over the definition of cognition is unlikely to end soon, but it will surely be helpful to get clearer on what it is about certain things that makes them indisputably noncognitive. Do the arguments for basal cognition inevitably devolve into...
Biological Theory March 30, 2026 Peter Jedlicka, Jaroslav Varchola, Jakub Betinsky
Abstract Our intuition suggests a trend in biological evolution toward greater complexity. However, defining complexity is challenging. Here, we explore measures of biological complexity that assign low complexity to both highly ordered and highly random systems and high complexity to those in between. Most biological systems are highly complex, falling within this intermediate range,...
Biological Theory March 12, 2026 Fredric Schiffer 2 citations
Abstract Standard physicalism often renders subjective experience epiphenomenal, while interactionist accounts struggle to reconcile mental causation with energy conservation. We propose the force of experience : a real, physically efficacious force exerted by experience on neural architecture. To address the objection that a fundamental force should act universally, we introduce biological...
Biological Theory September 14, 2022 W. Veit
This article introduces and defends the “pathological complexity thesis” as a hypothesis about the evolutionary origins of minimal consciousness, or sentience, that connects the study of animal consciousness closely with work in behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology. I argue that consciousness is an adaptive solution to a design problem that led to the extinction of complex multicellular...
Biological Theory August 30, 2022 W. Veit
In order to develop a true biological science of consciousness, we have to remove humans from the center of reference and develop a bottom-up comparative study of animal minds, as Donald Griffin intended with his call for a “cognitive ethology.” In this article, I make use of the pathological complexity thesis (Veit 2022a, b, c) to show that we can firmly ground a comparative study of animal...
Biological Theory August 25, 2022 Walter Friedrich Veit 21 citations
The goal of this article is to break down the dimensions of consciousness, attempt to reverse engineer their evolutionary function, and make sense of the origins of consciousness by breaking off those dimensions that are more likely to have arisen later. A Darwinian approach will allow us to revise the philosopher’s concept of consciousness away from a single “thing,” an all-or-nothing quality,...
Biological Theory 2022 Stephen T Asma
After a long hiatus, psychology and philosophy are returning to formal study of imagination. While excellent work is being done in the current environment, this article argues for a stronger thesis than usually adopted. Imagination is not just a peripheral feature of cognition or a domain for aesthetic research. It is instead the core operating system or cognitive capacity for humans and has...