Consciousness as the collective excitation of a brainwide web – understanding consciousness from below quantum fields to above neuronal networks
Suzy Lidström, Roland E Allen
Journal of Physics, Conference Series September 1, 2019 DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/1275/1/012021 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Proposes that consciousness can be described as a collective excitation of a brainwide web of neurons, analogous to collective excitations in physics and to the worldwide web. Argues that experimental probes of living brains are limited, so petascale large-scale simulations should complement experiments to reveal details of this picture. |
Abstract
Abstract: In the spirit of previous ideas in the neuroscience community, but with a more physics-oriented perspective, we propose that consciousness can be described as the collective excitation of a brainwide web of neurones. This picture is inspired by the fact that, in all major areas of physics, a collective excitation has just as much physical reality as a particle or other localized object. The brainwide web extends into those regions (neuronal networks) where processed information is received from the senses, memories, etc. (emerging out of unconscious processes in prior networks). It unifies those regions (plus motor control regions) via the vast complexity of the neuronal interactions that it spans. A crude analogy is the worldwide web, which extends into servers which have been prepared by external agents. Other crude analogies are the many collective excitations in physics. True understanding of consciousness must rely mostly on experiment, but since probes of living brains have limited precision, there is an important role for large-scale simulations in revealing details and complementing experiment. Petascale computational facilities should make it possible to perform simulations with realistic complexity.