PROCESS, CONSCIOUSNESS, AND INTEGRATED INFORMATION
Manuscrito February 6, 2024 Enrique Aramendia Muneta
Conscious experience meets all criteria for a processual analysis: it is complex, functionally or causally determined, and has a temporal basis. The paper revisits the concept of self-transformative processes—processes that change themselves, such as a stretched bow—and provides a well-formed description using non-classic mereology and self-modulating variables. It then applies this concept to consciousness, showing that traces of self-transformativeness appear in many theories of consciousness, especially when their internal mechanisms are stressed. Integrated Information Theory serves as a paradigmatic example; the paper demonstrates that quantitative self-transformativeness is a requirement at the very core of the integration of information.