Consciousness arises in entangled quantum systems coupled to the brain's neural network. Within a panprotopsychist ontology—where states and events have internal phenomenal aspects—the combination problems of qualities, structures, and subjects in panpsychism are resolved by rejecting classical-physics assumptions about supervenience. Self-consciousness is the capacity to view oneself as a subject of experience. The causal openness of quantum systems gives self-conscious beings the ability to make independent choices and decisions, reflecting self-governance and autonomy. Personal identity thereby takes a new form free from problems of the simple view or reductive approaches.
The authors argue that a quantum ontology based on states and events with internal phenomenal aspects—a form of panprotopsychism—can resolve the subject-summing combination problem of panpsychism, originally posed by William James. They identify physical counterparts of subjects of experience by adapting Whitehead's notion of prehension to a quantum ontology of objects and events. Due to quantum indeterminacy and causal openness, the ontology also addresses how the structuration of consciousness could have evolved from primitive animals to humans. The analysis imposes conditions on possible implementations of quantum cognition mechanisms in the brain and suggests new problems regarding the structuring of experiences across animals with different degrees of evolutionary development.
A phenomenological analysis of consciousness, similar to Husserl's, reveals that phenomenal qualities shape perception and also influence how physical and mathematical sciences operate, enabling accurate descriptions of observed regularities through communicable mathematical laws. These laws describe behaviors, not intrinsic features of things. Classical mechanistic determinism leaves no room for novelty or intrinsic aspects, but quantum probabilistic determinism, with its ontology of objects, systems in states, and events, offers a different framework. An ontology of events with internal phenomenal aspects, known as panprotopsychism, better explains consciousness. Many objections to panpsychism, the combination problem, stem from classical physics assumptions about supervenience that are inappropriate at the quantum level, where exponential emergent properties arise. This analysis imposes conditions on possible quantum cognition mechanisms in the brain.