The six postulates of Integrated Information Theory 4.0 (IIT) (Albantakis et al., 2023) are jointly unsatisfiable, and not because the theory ranks them: the exclusion postulate contradicts itself in successive clauses, integration forbids what composition requires, and the one conflict the theory does adjudicate it adjudicates against itself, excluding from the Φ-structure the determinations...
Higher-order theories of consciousness (HOT) propose that a mental state M is conscious if and only if a higher-order state H represents M. This paper argues HOT is a labeling scheme rather than a theory of consciousness. HOT specifies a one-way relation between two mental states, applies the label "conscious" to whatever fits the relation, and supplies the actual states, the physical material,...
Consciousness has not been medically defined. It has been defined legally and socially, and those definitions have varied across jurisdictions and across centuries. The DSM does not define consciousness. The ICD does not define consciousness. There is no diagnostic biomarker for phenomenal experience. The AI consciousness debate has been proceeding as if a constitutive specification of...
Integrated Information Theory (IIT) proposes that consciousness is integrated information, quantified by a measure called Phi, with the proposal developed across four major versions (Tononi, 2004; Tononi, 2008; Oizumi, Albantakis, & Tononi, 2014; Albantakis et al., 2023). The variants share the central commitment that consciousness is identical with integrated information measured by Phi. This...
Global Workspace Theory (GWT) proposes that a mental state is conscious if and only if its content is broadcast in a global workspace. Baars (1988) developed the cognitive workspace account. Dehaene and colleagues (Dehaene & Naccache, 2001; Dehaene, 2014) developed the Global Neuronal Workspace (GNW) variant, identifying the workspace with a fronto-parietal network and proposing ignition...
Six prominent theories of consciousness (HOT, GWT, IIT, RPT, PP, AST) disagree about the mechanism that produces consciousness. They agree on what they import to operate as theories of consciousness at all. The paper reads the six theories in three registers. The explicit register reports what each theory publicly claims. The deployed register reports what each has to put to work for the claims...
Consciousness depends on a specific set of neural circuits whose joint operation constitutes its substrate. We propose a four-loop architecture as that substrate: (1) Layer 5 pyramidal recurrent loops gating signal entry to conscious access via apical-basal coincidence detection, where somatic burst firing requires the ascending thalamocortical signal at the basal dendrites and the previous...