Ignacio Cea, Niccolò Negro, Pedro A. M. Mediano et al.
preprint
The Integrated Information Theory (IIT) 4.0 is an influential framework aiming to explain consciousness mathematically in terms of intrinsic existence, namely what exists for itself in a specific, maximally irreducible, structured form. IIT thus posits that the minimal substrates of consciousness are also the ultimate building blocks of what exists. These are called ‘monads’, and are defined as...
Parsa Yousefi, Kenneth Shinozuka, Patrick Vizeli et al.
Psychoactive drugs profoundly alter consciousness, but the neural mechanisms by which they do so remain poorly understood. Global workspace theory may provide a framework for investigating these mechanisms. The global workspace, a candidate neural substrate of consciousness, is a set of brain regions that integrate and disseminate information to the rest of the brain. According to a recent...
George Blackburne, Alberto Liardi, Pablo Mallaroni et al.
How do psychedelic drugs alter human brain function? Answering this question relies on our ability to understand how information is stored, transferred, and transformed across the cortex. Here, we leverage a precise mathematical framework for multivariate information decomposition to construct the first comprehensive picture of these processes across five compounds: LSD, psilocybin, ketamine,...
George Blackburne, Alberto Liardi, Jeremy I Skipper et al.
preprint
The relationship between subjectivity and its substrate can be understood via the notion of compatibilist emergence, accounting for the plurality of ways nature can host new dynamical laws at higher scales. We discuss how the autopoietic character of life may require and promote the kind of emergence necessary, albeit not sufficient, for consciousness.