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Tim Donahue
Academic Librarian & Cartoonist
Tim Donahue, the creator of CROW, is a former academic librarian. His research focuses on HCI (human-computer interaction) and Information Design. Tim has an M.A. in Great Books from St. John’s College and an M.S. in Information Science from SUNY Albany. Tim is currently a volunteer archivist for the John Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research.
Key Takeaways
Core Claim
Uses a trickster character to explore and satirize competing theories of consciousness.
How It Works
CROW wrestles with monism, idealism, electromagnetic and quantum ideas, mirroring humanity’s confusion over the hard problem.
Distinctive Flavor
Blends humor, myth, and philosophy to capture the bewilderment of navigating the “Landscape of Consciousness.”
CROW’s Funhouse of Consciousness
See CROW’s full Funhouse of Consciousness here - https://crowsfunhouse.org/
“You might say that CROW is the Maker’s Left-hand man, or you might just describe him as a rambunctious trickster in trouble with God for tampering with the time/space continuum. The Creator employs CROW’s hyper-travelling wanderlust to traverse certain dimensions stretched thin between the membranous tissues of his deepest substrata. Poor confused CROW wants to be a hero to his favorite Maker’s toy, Humankind, but born to disturb creation, tamper with the way of things, and burn eternal for his indiscretions, he tends to make a muck of it. I guess you could say CROW is the single most cosmologically perturbing metaforce of humanity’s collective unconscious or maybe just a flapping black spot crossing your sky.”
That’s how Timothy S. Donahue, CROW‘s creator, describes CROW. Donahue is a former academic librarian with dual master’s degrees in Great Books and Information Science, and here’s how Tim got CROW hooked on consciousness.
“Weeks grappling with R.L. Kuhn’s Landscape of Consciousness proved to be one of the most unique and autodidactic intellectual journeys of my life. Also, though, it was disturbing in some ways, like a rock thrown into a pond whose surface has never been broken. Then, in the depths of winter in upstate New York, my creative side chose oddly to join my reeling intellect. The result, alas, has been somewhat cataclysmic: Poor CROW lost his mind researching consciousness.”
Probing R.L. Kuhn’s Landscape of Consciousness, CROW meditates:
“I'd like to be a monist, but how can I rationalize this with such incongruity between body and mind explanations? Electromagnetic theories are exciting! Spindles, spirals, waves, pulses, bursts, spikes, surges, and synchronized oscillations feel like what's going on in my brain anyway. But the hard problem seems to need quantum explanations somehow. I'd like to jump off the Idealist cliff, but it seems a little like rational suicide. What's a mind to do when it’s lost in the Landscape of Consciousness?”
See CROW’s full Funhouse of Consciousness here - https://crowsfunhouse.org/
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