The human mind can handle self-referential statements without logical breakdown, unlike ordinary computers. A new model called the Strange Loop Model explains this by proposing causal feedback between two brain modules that resolves paradoxes of self-reference by unfolding them over time. The brain's metastable dynamics stop unending inferences, preventing logical inconsistencies from persisting. When logical inconsistencies are represented in this model, Integrated Information Theory reveals causal incongruence between brain subsystems, suggesting a link between self-reference and consciousness.
A complexity-based morphospace with three axes—autonomous, cognitive, and social complexity—can represent both biological and synthetic conscious systems. Awareness corresponds to computational complexity and wakefulness to autonomous complexity. Consciousness is argued to function as an evolutionary game-theoretic strategy, motivating social complexity as a third dimension. The framework yields a taxonomy of four types of consciousness based on embodiment: biological, synthetic, group, and simulated. This classification aids in identifying design principles for engineering conscious machines and in comparing signatures of consciousness across domains relevant to cognitive neuroscience, AI, and biomimetics.
Consciousness is thought to emerge from brain activity, but the mapping between neural hardware and conscious experience is not one-to-one; multiple conscious patterns can arise from the same hardware. A thought experiment shows that any temporary shutdown of brain activity irreversibly ends the original conscious experience. Without a guaranteed continuous stream of consciousness, the previous self vanishes and a new self replaces it.