Hi Corlett, thanks for the succinct introduction, I suggest you also refer to the OrchOR theory of Penrose & Hameroff regarding “proto-consciousness”, since it covers the bottom-up side to complement Phi-IIT top-down.
Both are expressions of #AsynsisConstructal geometries and thermodynamics. Please find a summary here:
https://medium.com/@ASYNSIS/cosmogaia-2ffa281c73d#.1wljdccai