Integrative psychological & behavioral science
December 19, 2024
Majid Beshkar
1 citation
The QBIT theory proposes that consciousness arises from macroscopic coherence emerging in the axon initial segment of neurons, a specialized compartment that integrates synaptic inputs and amplifies sensory signals. This coherence is necessary for conscious perception, as the axon initial segment's unique properties enable spontaneous emergence of this state. The theory links consciousness to a specific intracellular substrate that registers and processes sensory information within the brain.
Commun Integr Biol
October 21, 2025
Majid Beshkar
Microtubules, nanoscale structures within neurons, can act as spintronic oscillators with memristive properties. Under specific conditions in the axon initial segment, these properties allow quantum coherence to emerge spontaneously in a population of microtubules. According to QBIT theory, this spontaneous coherence is both necessary and sufficient for the brain to generate a micro-consciousness, or quale. The simultaneous generation of multiple qualia through synchronized activity across different parts of the cerebral cortex creates the appearance of a unified macro-consciousness, or a seemingly unified subjective experience.
Brain-X
April 1, 2025
Majid Beshkar
Consciousness may arise from the brain's process of reducing uncertainty about sensory input, a mechanism that can be understood as minimizing informational and thermodynamic entropy. Sensory processing is described as Bayesian inference, and conscious awareness emerges when uncertainty falls below a critical threshold. The framework links consciousness to negentropy and emphasizes coherence, including possible quantum coherence, in perception. It challenges existing models like Integrated Information Theory and proposes that consciousness acts as a cooling mechanism for neuronal circuits, measurable by temperature changes. Direct empirical evidence is lacking, but the perspective suggests new directions for understanding the physical and computational foundations of conscious experience.
Integrative psychological & behavioral science
December 1, 2024
Majid Beshkar
The QBIT theory proposes that consciousness arises when the brain becomes more than certain about the cause of a sensory representation. This occurs when the conditional entropy of a prior belief given the sensory representation drops below zero, a condition that requires the brain to use entangled quantum information. At its most fundamental level, consciousness is described as a special kind of entangled information.
Integrative psychological & behavioral science
December 1, 2024
Majid Beshkar
The QBIT theory aims to scientifically explain consciousness by proposing that qualia—the subjective experiences of perception—are real physical systems. Each quale is composed of qubits bound together by quantum entanglement, forming a unified whole that is more than the sum of its parts. These systems are highly organized and coherent, with organization and coherence being manifestations of information. The theory suggests that qualia are maximally entangled and coherent, containing high amounts of information and extremely low entropy or uncertainty.
Integrative psychological & behavioral science
September 1, 2023
Majid Beshkar
The QBIT theory proposes that the brain generates consciousness by reducing the entropy of its internal representations below a critical threshold. When an observer's information-theoretic certainty about a stimulus surpasses that threshold, the observer becomes conscious of the stimulus. This paper explains how the brain gradually minimizes entropy to produce minimum-entropy representations, also called conscious representations or qualia, and explores the implications of this entropy-minimization process within quantum information theory.
Integrative psychological & behavioral science
December 1, 2020
Majid Beshkar
The QBIT theory proposes that consciousness arises from quantum information processes. It defines a quale (a basic unit of conscious experience) as a superdense pack of quantum information encoded in maximally entangled pure states. Qualia are generated when such information is compressed beyond a threshold. They are subjective because information in maximally entangled pure states is private and unshareable. A quale obtains meaning through progressive interpretation by an internal model within a cognitive system. The theory draws on quantum mechanics, biology, information theory, and thermodynamics to address four core questions about the nature, generation, subjectivity, and meaning of qualia.
Medical Hypotheses
April 1, 2018
Majid Beshkar
Qualia—the subjective, felt qualities of experience—are proposed to be self-organized structures built by exported entropy. Their subjectivity arises because entropy-decreasing phenomena cannot be observed physically. This speculative account draws on thermodynamics to address two central questions in philosophy of mind: what qualia are and why they are private.