Topic: IIT

Neuroscientific methods successfully account for a system’s functional properties, but leave out the subjective properties of the accompanying experience. According to IIT, phenomenology can be studied scientifically by unfolding the cause-effect structure specified by a system. To illustrate how, in this talk I compare two systems (a grid and a map) to show that they can be functionally equivalent in performing fixation, but only one can specify a cause-effect structure that accounts for the extendedness of phenomenal space.

Integrated information theory (IIT) takes as its starting point phenomenology, rather than behavioral, functional, or neural correlates of consciousness. The theory characterizes the essential properties of phenomenal existence—which is immediate and indubitable. These are translated into physical properties, expressed operationally as cause-effect power, which must be satisfied by the neural substrate of consciousness. On this basis, the theory can account for clinical and experimental data about the presence and absence of consciousness. Current work aims at accounting for specific qualities