Integrated information theory

Again, not gonna shed a lot about what I have to say yet, but I will.

As we go further along into this then, well, then we have something called the... and when I was doing my research on this, there's something called the integrated information theory, and the basic idea of this is that what they say is that consciousness emerges when a system integrates information, [clears throat] excuse me, into a highly interconnected way, okay? So it penetrates through when we have...

And this, the way I understand this is I think of it like a computer system.

You have to have a motherboard with all the circuits running, and the electricity is like consciousness.

It has to be a global workspace or broadcast of information or layer five neurons or NMDA receptors or microtubuli like Stu Hameroff, you know, or whatever.

Well, again, why this and not that? Why microtubuli and not some other cell or organism? So there's one theory that's unique, really, that's called integrated information theory.

It's a different tag.

It's a consciousness first account.

And so any theory has to start with any theory of consciousness, which is different from a theory of the neural correlates, the physical substrate of consciousness.

Any theory of consciousness has to start with consciousness experience.

And then sort of go from there to say, well, which system is conscious and what are they conscious of? And this theory, integrated information theory, the main architect of that theory is an Italian-born American psychiatrist and neuroscientist, Giulio Tononi at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is a theory that does that.

Now, it's a scientific theory.

We are talking about load-bearing pillars of modern science.

Right, like quantum mechanics, cosmology, integrated information theory.

Exactly.

These findings are backed by the most brutal, unforgiving experimental standards we possess as a species.

You've just articulated the exact boundary line between cosmology and neuroscience.

If the universe leaves a physical record, does the universe possess its own internal awareness to process it? That sounds wild.

It plunges us into panpsychism, integrated information theory, and the deeply controversial question, is everything aware?

I know this sounds like we're drifting into mystical philosophy, but this is rooted in hard clinical science.

But I think some would say that it remains conscious in that state.

Um, and this is actually something that would be predicted by certain theories, including IIT, right? Because in IIT, consciousness is a state because it just...

if the causal structure stays the same, if the causal power stays the same, the conscious state stays the same.

So under some theories, integrated information theory, consciousness would, would-- is a state, it would just stay in that state.

Super interesting.

Yeah.

Next, next time-- I hadn't thought about that as a, as a rebuttal to IIT.

I'm curious to bring that up to people.