A novel dual-aspect theory of consciousness is proposed, grounded in the principle of holographic duality from modern physics. The theory aims to provide consciousness-independent explanations for anti-physicalist intuitions about representational content and spatial location, while setting aside the hard problem and phenomenal character. The author argues that abstract algorithms are insufficient and that a more radical form of computation, inspired by physics and realizable in strange metals, may be required. This approach could establish necessary connections between structural aspects of conscious mental states and their physical substrate, and explain why representational content is not spatially located. The paper ends by reconsidering the conceivability of zombies.
A middle-ground position is argued: physics can explain why the explanatory gap between physical facts and conscious experience seems especially hard to close, even if it cannot provide a complete physical explanation of consciousness. This approach seeks empirical discoveries that weaken anti-physicalist arguments such as the conceivability argument and the knowledge argument. Recent developments in the physics of spacetime and information suggest such prospects are not poor. The view is framed as a naturalist theory of mind, but its reliance on new conceptions of time and information undermines traditional notions of concreteness and causation, requiring a radically reconfigured naturalism, or neo-naturalism.