Reasoning about conscious experience with axiomatic and graphical mathematics.
Camilo Miguel Signorelli, Quanlong Wang, Bob Coecke
Consciousness and Cognition October 1, 2021 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2021.103168 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Compositionality Conscious agents Conscious experience Graphical calculi Mathematical consciousness science Monoidal categories Unity of consciousness |
| Citations | 4 |
| Key points | Proposes that an axiomatic mathematical framework using process theories can recover features of conscious experience such as phenomenal unity and subjective privacy. |
Abstract
We cast aspects of consciousness in axiomatic mathematical terms, using the graphical calculus of general process theories (a.k.a symmetric monoidal categories and Frobenius algebras therein). This calculus exploits the ontological neutrality of process theories. A toy example using the axiomatic calculus is given to show the power of this approach, recovering other aspects of conscious experience, such as external and internal subjective distinction, privacy or unreadability of personal subjective experience, and phenomenal unity, one of the main issues for scientific studies of consciousness. In fact, these features naturally arise from the compositional nature of axiomatic calculus.