Integrated Information Theory and Panpsychism – Are There Any Connections?

Résumé 0

The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why specific organisms have phenomenal experience or qualia. In other words, the hard problem is the problem of explaining how, physical processes in the brain lead to a subjective experience. In order to explain the rise of the specific phenomenal experience, there is a tendency in philosophy and science to start an explanation from elaborating how neural mechanisms and other processes in the brain work. This approach is encountered in many problems. One of them is presented by David Chalmers, who also introduced us to the hard problem. He argues that the explanation of phenomenal experience is not reducible to any empirical explanation because empirical explanations would always be insufficient. That is why a group of scientists and philosophers led by Giulio Tononi took the opposite approach. Instead of proceeding from scientific facts, they proceed from consciousness itself, in whose existence they are certain. The first step in this approach is the identification of the essential properties of consciousness – axioms and, from there, inferring the postulates that describe the properties physical mechanisms should have in order to explain the emergence of consciousness. This is the process of Integrated Information Theory (IIT). IIT is a qualitative and quantitative formal framework on the basis of which it can be determined whether a particular physical system is conscious and if it is, to what extent. The main parameter for determining the amount of consciousness in a system is the value of Φ, which is the measure of integrated information in a system. If the value of Φ is above 0, then the system is conscious. A computer scientist, Scott Aaronson, noted that IIT has weird predictions. For example, it implies that if a simple system, such as a 2D grid, has a value of Φ five times greater than someone’s brain, than 2D grid is five times more conscious then someone’s brain. That is why, according to Aaronson, having a large value of Φ is not a sufficient condition for consciousness, even though there might be a possibility that the value of Φ is a necessary condition. My main goal is to investigate what are the consequences of IIT and its criticisms, especially in terms of panpsychism. Panpsychism is a view that every physical thing is in one way or another associated with consciousness. This theory of mind juggles between physicalism and dualism, successfully managing to avoid the strongest criticisms pointed to each one of them. For the purposes of my main goal, I will present my research in the order similar to the one expressed above. First, I will explain the hard problem in a more detailed way, continuing with the discussion on panpsychism, which naturally follows. Second, I will present the axioms and postulates of IIT and then I will explain what integrated information really is. In this section, I will discuss explanatory and predictive powers of IIT but also its contra-intuitive predictions. I will finish by making a comparison between panpsychism and IIT.