Consciousness can be understood as a collective achievement of the brain's complex neural dynamics, amenable to study through phase space dynamics and criticality. The author reviews current theoretical conceptualizations in neuroscience, identifying flawed notions that may impede viewing consciousness as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on physics concepts like phase space transitions and the Renormalization Group, which explain how new collective behaviors emerge across scales in complex systems, the proposal argues that the subjectivity of consciousness is the epistemic interpretation of a level of reality originating in phase transitions of the brain-body-environment system.
The paper argues that consciousness should be understood as a collective phenomenon emerging from the brain's complex neural dynamics, amenable to study through phase space dynamics and criticality. It critiques flawed notions in theoretical neuroscience that impede viewing consciousness as a physical phenomenon and highlights neglected facts in current discourse. Drawing on concepts from physics—phase transitions and the renormalization group—the author proposes that these tools account for emergent collective behaviors with distinct ontologies across scales. The central claim is that the subjectivity of consciousness arises as an epistemic interpretation of a new level of reality originating from phase transitions in the brain-body-environment system.