Survey of Consciousness Theory from Computational Perspective

Scientific studies of consciousness rely on objects whose existence is assumed to be independent of any consciousness. On the contrary, we assume consciousness to be fundamental, and that one of the main features of consciousness is characterized as being other-dependent. We set up a framework which naturally subsumes this feature by defining a compact closed category where morphisms represent conscious processes. These morphisms are a composition of a set of generators, each being specified by their relations with other generators, and therefore co-dependent. The framework is general enough and fits well into a compositional model of consciousness. Interestingly, we also show how our proposal may become a step towards avoiding the hard problem of consciousness, and thereby address the combination problem of conscious experiences.

Any theory amenable to scientific inquiry must have testable consequences. This minimal criterion is uniquely challenging for the study of consciousness, as we do not know if it is possible to confirm via observation from the outside whether or not a physical system knows what it feels like to have an inside—a challenge referred to as the “hard problem” of consciousness. To arrive at a theory of consciousness, the hard problem has motivated development of phenomenological approaches that adopt assumptions of what properties consciousness has based on first-hand experience and, from these, derive the physical processes that give rise to these properties. A leading theory adopting this approach is Integrated Information Theory (IIT), which assumes our subjective experience is a “unified whole”, subsequently yielding a requirement for physical feedback as a necessary condition for consciousness. Here, we develop a mathematical framework to assess the validity of this assumption by testing …

The hard problem of consciousness is the question how subjective experience arises from brain matter. I suggest exploring the possibility that quantum physics could be part of the answer. The simultaneous unity and complexity of subjective experience is difficult to understand from a classical physics perspective. In contrast, quantum entanglement is naturally both complex and unified. Moreover the concept of matter is much more subtle in quantum physics compared to classical physics, and quantum computing shows that quantum effects can be useful for information processing. Building on recent progress in quantum technology and neuroscience, I propose a concrete hypothesis as a basis for further investigation, namely that subjective experience is related to the dynamics of a complex entangled state of spins, which is continuously generated and updated through the exchange of photons. Spins in condensed matter systems at room or body temperature can have coherence times in the relevant r …

Chalmer's famously identified pinpointing an explanation for our subjective experience as the "hard problem of consciousness". He argued that subjective experience constitutes a "hard problem" in the sense that its explanation will ultimately require new physical laws or principles. Here, we propose a corresponding "hard problem of life" as the problem of how `information' can affect the world. In this essay we motivate both why the problem of information as a causal agent is central to explaining life, and why it is hard - that is, why we suspect that a full resolution of the hard problem of life will, similar to as has been proposed for the hard problem of consciousness, ultimately not be reducible to known physical principles.

This is standardly done to explain “why are we more likely to find ourselves” in a branch with a higher multiplier. But this question already implies “us” and our subjective experience, and such a step in neither necessary nor easy to motivate in the philosophical zombie scenario. In such a scenario, there is actually no need to bother with the derivation of Born’s rule since all objective and impersonal experimental data can be explained without it. Therefore, we arrived at an important recognition that problems in MWI related to probability and the Born rule are again the same problems of subjective experience and of the unwarranted assumption that functioning of automata by itself produces consciousness (i.e. of the negation of the hard problem).