Mind your head: Entropic Brain, irruption theory and the intelligibility problem

Abstract

Abstract: The entropic brain hypothesis (EBH) and irruption theory (IT) are two recent frameworks to investigate consciousness by examining neural entropy. While they differ in their theoretical commitments, both aim to advance neuroscientific investigations of consciousness without succumbing to the intelligibility problem: the impossibility for scientific inquiries to provide intelligible access to subjective experience. This paper examines each framework in turn and argues that they face distinct but important limitations. I show that the EBH overreaches its descriptive scope when claiming that variations in neural entropy correspond not only to statistical uncertainty but also to the felt uncertainty of subjective experience. In doing so, the EBH attempts to establish an intelligible relation between neural dynamics and experiential properties by assuming the existence of a shared quality between neural processes and experience. This constitute an instance of the intelligibility problem. IT, by contrast, explicitly acknowledges the intelligibility problem and proposes a theoretical framework intended to circumvent it while preserving the possibility of identifying a neural signature of consciousness. However, I argue that, despite the merit of acknowledging the intelligibility problem, IT incurs in different yet equally significant issues linked to the assumption that mental activity can be indirectly quantified by measurements of neural entropy.