AUTHOR=Edelman Shimon 
  
TITLE=On the evolutionary dynamics of complexity and consciousness
  
JOURNAL=Frontiers in Complex Systems
  
VOLUME=Volume 3 - 2025
  
YEAR=2026
  
URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/complex-systems/articles/10.3389/fcpxs.2025.1672525
  
DOI=10.3389/fcpxs.2025.1672525
  
ISSN=2813-6187
  
ABSTRACT=The perennial debate about the possible directionality of evolution, as indicated by the apparent increase in the complexity of living systems over time, has recently witnessed renewed arguments in favor of the growth of complexity being “entropic,” that is, consistent with the growth of entropy as it is construed in thermodynamics. Here, I offer a brief review of formal treatments of complexity and of evolutionary mechanisms that are capable of causing it to increase. I then propose that both the evolutionary emergence and the individual learning of basic phenomenal awareness, a type of consciousness, are characterized by the same time-asymmetrical dynamics. Like life itself, biological consciousness arguably evolves towards greater complexity, and for the same reasons.