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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Extended Mind",
"summary": "This theory posits that cognitive processes are not strictly confined to the biological brain but extend into the external environment (active externalism). When a human organism links with an external entity in a two-way interaction, a coupled system is formed that acts as a cognitive system in its own right. Removing the external component degrades the system's behavioral competence, much like removing part of the brain.",
"associated_thinkers": ["Andy Clark", "David Chalmers"],
"category": "Materialism",
"subcategory": "Relational",
"core_identity_tagline": "‘Mind as Coupled Cognitive System’",
"classification_tags": [
"externalism",
"embodiment",
"cognition",
"functionalism"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness is identified as a function of the entire coupled cognitive system, encompassing both internal neural processes and external tools/environment, emphasizing its dependence on active externalism.",
"ontological_status": "Physicalism (Functionalist/Relational)",
"mind_body_relationship": "Correlation/Extension. The mind is an emergent property or functional process distributed across the brain, body, and relevant environment, challenging the traditional view that the mind is skull-bound.",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "The sources focus primarily on the functional role of cognition and behavioral competence, not explicitly how phenomenal subjectivity or intentionality arise. Subjectivity is implicitly treated as a feature of the functioning cognitive system, wherever it is located.",
"qualia_account": "The theory focuses on the extension of cognitive processes and achieving behavioral competence, but the sources do not explicitly detail how phenomenal qualia (the qualitative dimension of experience) are accounted for or extended within the coupled system.",
"ontological_commitments": "Brain, body, external objects/tools, and the physical environment, all participating in an active causal role within the coupled system.",
"epistemic_access": "Accessible via studying the two-way interaction and active causal role of all components in the coupled system, focusing on behavioral competence and cognitive circuits.",
"constituents_and_structure": "A 'coupled system' composed of the human organism (brain and body) linked with external entities (social and material world) in a two-way interaction, forming a seamless, integrated whole."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Cognition, Behavioral Competence (Phenomenal consciousness is implied to reside within the extended system, but the focus is functional).",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "Active Externalism, where external entities play an active causal role in cognitive processes, creating a functionally integrated 'coupled system.'",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Dynamic Process. Minds emerge from the 'colorful flux' of brain, body, and social/material world as 'surprisingly seamless wholes.'",
"location_and_distribution": "Distributed/Extended. Cognitive processes are spread beyond the skull-bound brain, encompassing the environment and external tools.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "The components in the coupled system play an active causal role and jointly govern behavior, allowing the mind to facilitate adaptive interaction with the world.",
"integration_or_binding": "Integration occurs through the active two-way interaction between the organism and the external entity, forming a seamless, integrated cognitive whole.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Information processing relies on representations that are extended to include the participatory role of the environment in driving cognitive processes.",
"evolutionary_account": "The theory is consistent with an evolutionary framework wherein the predictive capabilities of the brain are facilitated by awareness and conformity to external realities, suggesting an adaptive role for cognitive extension.",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"Cognitive processes extend beyond the brain boundary to include external entities.",
"The coupled system acts as a cognitive system in its own right, with all components playing an active causal role.",
"Removing the external component degrades the system’s behavioral competence."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Philosophical, Conceptual Argument (Functionalist)"
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Conceptually Testable/Conditional",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": "",
"criticisms_and_tensions": "The theory faces philosophical tension regarding the precise location and boundary of the mind, challenging the traditional prioritization of inner, biological, and neural processes.",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "The theory focuses heavily on cognitive processes, leaving open the question of how phenomenal consciousness itself is extended or experienced across the coupled system.",
"ontological_coherence": "Highly Coherent. The theory provides a consistent materialist/functionalist account by redefining the substrate required for cognition beyond the skull."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Likely",
"rationale": "The theory aligns with computational functionalism, suggesting that if cognitive processes and functional relations can be instantiated artificially, the mind can be spread to cognitive prostheses, making AI consciousness plausible."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "Conditional",
"rationale": "While rooted in Materialism (which generally denies survival), if the essential self is defined by a distributed, functional pattern that can persist regardless of its biological substrate, survival of that pattern might be possible."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic only",
"rationale": "As a Materialism theory, it suggests no cosmic meaning, purpose, or value; meaning is instead created by the human organism."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Possible",
"rationale": "Virtual immortality is plausible because the theory views the mind as a functional pattern that is inherently extendable via external 'cognitive prostheses' and replication in a non-biological medium is consistent with its functionalist basis."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Embodied and Enactive Theories",
"relationship": "Overlap"
},
{
"name": "Computational functionalism",
"relationship": "Influence"
},
{
"name": "Predictive Processing",
"relationship": "Compatible"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "The Extended Mind, Andy Clark and David Chalmers",
"year": 1998
},
{
"title_with_names": "Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension, Andy Clark",
"year": 2010
}
]
}
}

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{}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART)",
"summary": "Adaptive Resonance Theory is a cognitive and neural framework detailing how the brain autonomously learns to consciously attend, categorize, recognise, and predict events in a dynamic environment. Its central claim is that all conscious states are resonant states that emerge from the sustained interaction between bottom-up sensory patterns and learned top-down expectations.",
"associated_thinkers": ["Stephen Grossberg"],
"category": "Materialism Theories",
"subcategory": "Computational and Informational",
"core_identity_tagline": "Consciousness as Resonant States",
"classification_tags": [
"computation",
"resonance",
"learning",
"self-organization"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness is identified as a persistent, resonant state in the brain, defined as a dynamic activity or process rather than a static thing.",
"ontological_status": "Physicalism",
"mind_body_relationship": "The mind (conscious activity) arises from mechanistic links and physical processes in the brain, specifically the resonant states regulated by brain design principles (Identity/Reductive in nature due to classification under Materialism).",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Consciousness enables critical functions like learning, expectation, and attention. Intentionality is achieved through the brain’s autonomous ability to consciously attend, categorize, and predict objects and events.",
"qualia_account": "Qualia are represented by feature-selective cells that are incorporated into the persistent resonant state. The varieties of brain resonances and the conscious experiences they support are claimed to make progress towards solving the hard problem.",
"ontological_commitments": "Mechanistic links, cellular systems illustrating universal developmental codes, conserved laws of memory/activation, and feature-selective cells representing qualia.",
"epistemic_access": "Accessible through computational modelling and the observation of neural dynamics related to conscious attention, learning, recognition, and prediction.",
"constituents_and_structure": "Resonance formed by the interaction of bottom-up patterns (sensory input) and learned top-down expectations (memory/knowledge)."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal, Access, Attention, Learning, Memory, Prediction, Action/Control.",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "The creation of a resonant state through the continuous interaction and matching between bottom-up input patterns and top-down learned expectations (Adaptive Resonance Theory).",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Consciousness is a dynamic, self-organizing activity. Conscious states dynamically emerge as persistent resonant states (flow) necessary for stable representations and effective actions.",
"location_and_distribution": "Mechanistic links in advanced brains connecting processes regulating conscious attention, seeing, knowing, looking, and reaching (distributed network approach).",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Consciousness is causally active, enabling learning, expectation, attention, resonance, and synchrony. It marks perceptual and cognitive representations that are stable enough to control effective actions (survival advantage).",
"integration_or_binding": "Integration is achieved through the resonant state itself, which imposes correlations on diverse, interacting neural groups, unifying information from bottom-up sensory input and top-down knowledge.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Information flows bidirectionally, stabilized by complementary computing and hierarchical resolution of uncertainty. Conscious representations must be complete and context-sensitive to control actions.",
"evolutionary_account": "Consciousness evolved because it is required for generating stable, context-sensitive perceptual and cognitive representations necessary to control effective actions in a changing world. It is rooted in conserved self-organizing biological laws.",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"All conscious states are resonant states.",
"Only resonant states with feature-based representations can become conscious.",
"The theory explains brain and mind data regarding conscious perception and cognition."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Computational, Neural/Neuroscientific"
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Empirically testable",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": "Relies on analyzing brain activity to identify and measure correlated resonant neural activity patterns associated with conscious experiences and learning outcomes.",
"criticisms_and_tensions": "As a computational and materialist theory, it faces general criticisms regarding its ability to fully capture the subjective, qualitative nature of experience (qualia) solely in terms of functional or structural descriptions.",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "The precise non-reductive mechanism by which resonant states translate into the subjective qualitative feel remains a challenging explanatory gap to close.",
"ontological_coherence": "Highly coherent within a physicalist and functionalist ontology, relying on self-organization and conserved biological laws to ground the emergence of complex cognitive states."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Likely",
"rationale": "As consciousness is rooted in complex computational and informational processes (Materialism Theories), it is possible in principle for artificial systems, if they can implement the necessary resonant mechanisms, to achieve conscious states."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "The theory is classified under Materialism, positing consciousness as an activity entirely produced by the biological brain's physical mechanisms and processes, offering no possibility for non-physical survival."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "No ultimate meaning/purpose; Humanistic only",
"rationale": "Materialism Theories cannot provide ultimate meaning or purpose. Consciousness functions to enable flexible actions and optimize survival (adaptive role), limiting purpose to human-created value."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "If consciousness is wholly explained by underlying physical (neural/computational) processes, then the first-person mental self is theoretically duplicable and uploadable, allowing for virtual immortality upon achieving sufficient technological mastery."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Complex Adaptive Systems Models",
"relationship": "Overlap"
},
{
"name": "Computational Theories",
"relationship": "Extension"
},
{
"name": "Predictive Theories (Top-Down)",
"relationship": "Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Functionalism",
"relationship": "Influence"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "Adaptive Resonance Theory: how a brain learns to consciously attend, learn, and recognize a changing world, S. Grossberg",
"year": 2013
},
{
"title_with_names": "The resonant brain: how attentive conscious seeing regulates action sequences that interact with attentive cognitive learning, recognition, and prediction, S. Grossberg",
"year": 2019
},
{
"title_with_names": "Conscious Mind, Resonant Brain: How Each Brain Makes a Mind, S. Grossberg",
"year": 2021
}
]
}
}

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{}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Ambron’s local field potentials and electromagnetic waves",
"summary": "This hypothesis suggests that consciousness, particularly phenomenal experience like pain, arises when neurophysiological information (action potentials) is transformed into electromagnetic (EM) waves [1]. The integration of information across these EM waves is proposed as the mechanism that solves the binding problem, yielding a unified conscious experience [2].",
"associated_thinkers": ["Richard Ambron"],
"category": "Materialism",
"subcategory": "Electromagnetic Field",
"core_identity_tagline": "Consciousness as Integrated Electromagnetic Waves",
"classification_tags": [
"electromagnetic field",
"neurobiology",
"pain",
"binding",
"physicalist"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness is identified as integrated electromagnetic (EM) waves, generated by neural processes, which combine sensory inputs into a unified experience [1, 2].",
"ontological_status": "Physicalism/Materialism (The theory is classified under Materialism Theories [3, 4], asserting consciousness is entirely physical [5].)",
"mind_body_relationship": "Mind (conscious experience) is derived from or identical to the physical electromagnetic fields/waves generated by complex neural activity (local field potentials) [1].",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent (Consciousness arises from the complex organization and transformation of neural information into EM waves [2].)",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence (As a specific Materialist/Neurobiological theory [1, 5], consciousness is, in principle, explainable and predictable solely in terms of the underlying physical fields and dynamics [6].)",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Not explicitly detailed in the sources. Subjectivity and intentionality are inferred to arise from the organizational properties and content encoded within the maximally integrated EM wave structure [2].",
"qualia_account": "Qualia (e.g., the specific experience of pain) are accounted for by the integrated information contained within the resulting electromagnetic waves [1, 2].",
"ontological_commitments": "Action potentials, neurochemical transmitters, local field potentials, and the propagating electromagnetic waves generated by cumulative neural activity [1, 2].",
"epistemic_access": "Accessible via objective, third-person measures of neurophysiological activity (e.g., local field potentials, EM waves) correlated with introspective reports (e.g., intensity of pain) [1], along with testability of the hypothesis [2].",
"constituents_and_structure": "The basic building blocks are sensory inputs (encoded by action potentials), which are transformed into EM waves that interact to form a coherent, unified structure (the conscious moment) [1, 2]."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal consciousness (specifically demonstrated through the mechanism of pain perception [1]) and perceptual unity/binding [2].",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "The transformation of sensory information (like pain signals) encoded as action potentials into electromagnetic waves, followed by the integration of these waves [1, 2].",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Consciousness is a dynamic process arising from the rapid and constant summation and integration of EM waves across different sensory systems [2].",
"location_and_distribution": "Localized in the brain, tied to the electromagnetic field generated by neural currents (local field potentials) [1], as a brain-spanning phenomenon [7].",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Creates a 'unified, coherent version of the world' [2] and serves critical survival functions (e.g., prioritizing pain sensation) [1].",
"integration_or_binding": "The combination problem is solved by assuming that information from individual sensory inputs (transformed into EM waves) intrinsically integrates upon combining, explaining how they create a unified experience [2].",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Information, initially encoded in action potentials, flows and is represented via EM waves, allowing integration with information from other senses [2].",
"evolutionary_account": "Consciousness, particularly the sensation of pain, is hypothesized to have evolved due to its priority and criticality for survival [1].",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"Pain is ideal for studying consciousness due to its criticality for survival [1].",
"Information is transformed from action potentials into EM waves [2].",
"Integrated EM waves explain the unification of sensory inputs ('binding/combination problem') [2]."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Neurobiological, Hypothesis/Speculation, Correlational (Inferred from focusing on verifiable physical signals [1, 2])"
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Empirically testable (Ambron believes his hypothesis can be tested [2].)",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": "Testing the specific transformation of neural action potentials into consciousness-forming EM waves, and measuring how the integration of EM waves correlates with conscious experience, especially pain intensity [1], [2].",
"criticisms_and_tensions": "Specific critiques are not detailed in the sources. The theory is subject to the general controversy and skepticism surrounding Electromagnetic Field Theories of Consciousness (EMF-ToCs) in the neurobiology and philosophy communities [8].",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "Must empirically demonstrate the hypothesized transformation of neural information into coherent, integrating EM waves sufficient for phenomenal content, and prove that EM wave integration is the true source of conscious unity [2].",
"ontological_coherence": "Coherent with Materialist ontology by rooting consciousness in a physical field (energy/field) generated by neural activity [7], [1]."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "As a Materialist theory based on specific physical mechanisms (EM waves) arising from information processing, consciousness should, in principle, be replicable in non-biological hardware capable of generating and integrating analogous fields [9]."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "Consciousness is explicitly tied to the biological brain's function of generating EM waves from neural activity [1], and thus ceases when this physical substrate dies [10]."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic only",
"rationale": "The theory is framed within Materialism and explains consciousness in terms of biological imperative and survival criticality (e.g., pain [1]), which offers no grounds for ultimate, cosmic purpose [11]."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Possible",
"rationale": "If the specific physical mechanism (the integrated EM waves and the processes generating them) can be perfectly measured, duplicated, and simulated in a non-biological medium, virtual immortality is attainable in principle, consistent with Materialism [10]."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "McFadden's Conscious Electromagnetic Information Theory (CEMI)",
"relationship": "Overlap/Category Member (Both posit EM fields/waves as the substrate of consciousness [2, 12].)"
},
{
"name": "Jones’s Electromagnetic Fields",
"relationship": "Overlap/Category Member (Both categorize consciousness under the Electromagnetic Field subcategory [1, 13].)"
},
{
"name": "Lamme’s Recurrent Processing Theory",
"relationship": "Extension/Alternative (Recurrent processing often precedes consciousness; Ambron's theory suggests EM waves are the result of this activity forming consciousness [1].)"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "Toward the unknown: consciousness and pain",
"year": 2023,
"names": ["Richard Ambron"]
},
{
"title_with_names": "How we experience pain may unlock the mystery of consciousness",
"year": 2023,
"names": ["Richard Ambron"]
},
{
"title_with_names": "The Brain and Pain; Breakthroughs in Neuroscience",
"year": 2022,
"names": ["Richard Ambron", "Sinav"]
}
]
}
}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Andrews's Consciousness Without Complex Brains",
"summary": "This perspective critiques the neurocentric bias in consciousness studies, which assumes that only complex mammalian brains can support consciousness. It proposes that consciousness is multiply realizable across diverse physical systems and advocates for studying simpler animals (like bees or octopuses) to identify fundamental, rather than contingent, features of sentience.",
"associated_thinkers": ["Kristin Andrews"],
"category": "Materialism Theories",
"subcategory": "Phylogenetic Evolution",
"core_identity_tagline": "Consciousness realized via multiple simple systems",
"classification_tags": [
"evolution",
"animal minds",
"multiple realizability",
"comparative cognition"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness is identified as the underlying capacity that enables robust behavioral profiles (e.g., pain avoidance, nutrient seeking), which can be instantiated by very different physical systems (multiple realizability).",
"ontological_status": "Physicalism",
"mind_body_relationship": "Consciousness correlates with, and is instantiated by, physical processes, but this relationship is flexible, allowing for non-complex and phylogenetically distant neural substrates (multiple realizability) in contrast to strict identity theories focused only on complex brains.",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Subjectivity and intentionality are inferred from the robust behavioral profiles exhibited by animals (e.g., purposeful movement toward desired stimuli), suggesting these mental capacities are linked to diverse physical mechanisms.",
"qualia_account": "The approach assumes the existence of phenomenal experience (sentience) in simpler animals, aiming to identify the essential physical basis of consciousness, independent of complex brain features traditionally associated with qualia.",
"ontological_commitments": "Physical systems capable of supporting sentient behavior, particularly diverse neurological systems (cephalopods, arthropods, vertebrates).",
"epistemic_access": "Primarily accessed through observing and analyzing a robust profile of adaptive behaviors in diverse species, alongside general consciousness markers (e.g., self-recognition, reaction to stimulation).",
"constituents_and_structure": "The specific physical structure is variable (multiple realizability), focusing on the necessary organization within biological systems, potentially including simple neural circuits, rather than specific structures like the cerebral cortex."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal consciousness (sentience), Adaptive behavior, Learning, Self-awareness (as studied through markers).",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "The principle of multiple realizability, asserting that mental capacities are not confined to complex mammalian neural architecture, guiding research toward identifying universal behavioral markers of consciousness in phylogenetically distant species.",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Evolved through phylogenetic development, potentially arising only once in a common worm-like ancestor or independently in distinct lineages (e.g., arthropods, cephalopods, vertebrates).",
"location_and_distribution": "Distributed across various organisms on the tree of life (e.g., bees, octopuses, worms), challenging the neurocentric focus on localization in higher mammals.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Consciousness functions as an adaptive advantage, enabling organisms to solve survival problems such as avoiding pain and seeking nutrients, and supporting flexible behavior.",
"integration_or_binding": "",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Related research addresses key topics like mental representation, but the core theory emphasizes behavioral profiles associated with experience.",
"evolutionary_account": "Consciousness arose through evolution, selected for its role in enhancing survival; studying multiple instances of evolved consciousness helps disentangle essential features from contingent ones (the 'N = 1 problem').",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"Focusing exclusively on complex mammalian brains (like primates) results in an 'N = 1 problem' that prevents identifying truly essential features of consciousness.",
"Sentience likely evolved only a few times on Earth, or perhaps only once in a distant common ancestor.",
"Robust behavioral profiles (e.g., moving away from painful stimuli) warrant the hypothesis that simpler animals are conscious."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Comparative Biology, Philosophical, Empirical"
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Empirically testable through comparative behavioral studies, although challenging due to limitations in cross-species assessment.",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": [
"Analysis of consciousness markers identified in the Cambridge Declaration (e.g., homologous brain circuits, mirror self-recognition)",
"Behavioral observation of adaptive responses (e.g., pain avoidance, nutrient seeking)"
],
"criticisms_and_tensions": "Contradicts the prevailing conventional wisdom in consciousness studies that requires a complex brain for consciousness. If consciousness is found in distant ancestors, theories relying on specialized brain regions (like the cerebral cortex for information integration) are challenged.",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "The 'N = 1 problem' remains if sentience evolved only once in a very ancient ancestor, meaning that the essential underlying feature relating to sentience is still unknown.",
"ontological_coherence": "Coherent within a broadly physicalist framework, serving as a methodological critique of materialist theories that are overly specific about the necessary physical substrate."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Likely",
"rationale": "If consciousness is multiply realizable across diverse biological systems, it is highly probable it can be instantiated in non-biological (artificial) systems that achieve the necessary functional organization and behavioral complexity, though understanding animal minds is crucial for this goal."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "As a theory rooted in Materialism and phylogenetic evolution, consciousness is fundamentally dependent on physical/biological hardware and does not postulate a non-physical substance capable of post-mortem survival."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic/Adaptive",
"rationale": "The focus is on the evolved functional and adaptive role of consciousness in promoting survival and thriving, which supports humanistic meaning derived from biological existence rather than cosmic teleology."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Likely",
"rationale": "The central concept of 'multiple realizability' implies that the conscious mental self could be reproduced in non-biological hardware, provided the functional properties are accurately duplicated."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Functionalism",
"relationship": "Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Crick and Koch’s Neural Correlates of Consciousness",
"relationship": "Critique"
},
{
"name": "Dennett’s Evolution of Minds",
"relationship": "Overlap"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "What is it like to be a crab?, Kristin Andrews",
"year": ""
},
{
"title_with_names": "How to Study Animal Minds, Kristin Andrews",
"year": 2020
},
{
"title_with_names": "What has feelings?, Kristin Andrews and Jonathan Birch",
"year": 2023
}
]
}
}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Baars’s and Dehaene’s Global Workspace Theory",
"summary": "This theory posits that conscious awareness is constituted by specific multi-sensory, multi-cognitive information that achieves brain-wide presence and broad accessibility [1]. It conceptualizes consciousness as an inner 'theater' where this information is globally broadcast, reconciling the limited capacity of momentary conscious content with vast long-term memory access [1, 2].",
"associated_thinkers": ["Bernard Baars", "Stanislas Dehaene"],
"category": "Materialism",
"subcategory": "Neurobiological",
"core_identity_tagline": "Consciousness as Global Information Accessibility",
"classification_tags": [
"neurobiological",
"information",
"access",
"cognitive",
"broadcasting"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness is identified as the instantaneous global availability and broad accessibility of specific, integrated information across numerous specialized modular systems in the brain [1].",
"ontological_status": "Physicalism",
"mind_body_relationship": "Identity/Correlation. The mind (conscious awareness) is identified as, or strongly correlates with, the specific, biologically realized processes of global information broadcasting in the brain [2, 3].",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence. As a core Materialist/Neurobiological theory [4], it assumes consciousness arises from complex but ultimately explainable biological brain functions, meaning that consciousness is reducible in principle [5].",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Subjectivity arises from the uniquely integrated contents of the global workspace [1]; intentionality (directedness of thought) is inherent in the multi-cognitive and goal-related information that gains access to the workspace.",
"qualia_account": "Phenomenal experience (qualia) is accounted for by proposing a strictly biological mechanism for conscious awareness [2]. Qualia correspond to the content of the integrated, reportable multi-sensory information that is broadly accessible within the global workspace [1].",
"ontological_commitments": "Specific neural mechanisms, networks, and the physical substrate of consciousness (PSC), particularly the widespread and integrated patterns of information flow within the brain [1, 2].",
"epistemic_access": "Accessible via third-person methods including neuroimaging and computer modeling, which study the correlated brain activation patterns (e.g., global ignition events) corresponding to conscious experience [1, 6].",
"constituents_and_structure": "An inner 'theater' or workspace structure where information is selectively amplified and broadcast across a distributed network of specialized brain modules [1]."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal, Access, Memory",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "Global broadcasting and accessibility of information, allowing a single coherent content to be made available to many specialized, unconscious modules simultaneously [1].",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Conscious states are dynamic events that arise when information overcomes competition and is broadcast across the widespread cortical network (the global workspace) [1, 3].",
"location_and_distribution": "Brain-wide, encompassing widespread areas, particularly associated with frontal and parietal regions (often characterized as a 'front of the head' theory in contrast to 'back of the head' theories like IIT) [1, 7].",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Global broadcasting constitutes consciousness [3]. Functionally, it allows for flexible control and reconciliation between limited momentary conscious content and long-term memory resources [2].",
"integration_or_binding": "Integration is achieved by the broad, brain-wide broadcasting of a coherent 'total package' of information into the global workspace [1].",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Information flows from specialized modules, competes for global access, and, upon winning, is globally broadcast, making it available for cognitive processing by multiple systems [1].",
"evolutionary_account": "Compatible (though GWT itself is mechanistic rather than phylogenetic). As a Materialist/Neurobiological theory, it implies consciousness arose via evolutionary mechanisms that selected for its cognitive utility, such as improved information management and flexible behavior [8].",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"Conscious awareness consists of the brain-wide presence and broad accessibility of specific multi-sensory, multi-cognitive information [1].",
"Global broadcasting constitutes consciousness, rather than being merely caused by it [3].",
"Consciousness is a strictly biological phenomenon consistent with neurobiological data [2].",
"Novel machine architectures must use global workspace computations to achieve consciousness [9]."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Neurobiological, Computational, Empirical"
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Empirically testable",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": "Neuroimaging and computer modeling studies used to investigate its claims [1]. It is implicitly subject to the 'neurogeographic' debate contrasting 'front of the head' theories with posterior theories [7].",
"criticisms_and_tensions": "Criticized for focusing on 'access' rather than genuine phenomenal experience, exemplified by the critique that the theory is 'all about access but not about seeing' [10]. It faces tension regarding whether global broadcasting is necessary or merely a consequence of consciousness [3].",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "Does not fully address the 'hard problem'—why the mechanism of global accessibility should result in qualitative subjective experience [10, 11].",
"ontological_coherence": "Highly coherent within a physicalist framework, relying only on established brain functions and information mechanisms to account for consciousness [4, 12]."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "Since the theory defines consciousness in terms of information-processing computations and architectures, and proponents suggest novel machine architectures could be based on these computations, AI consciousness is possible in principle [9, 13]."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "Consciousness is understood as being entirely dependent on specific, complex biological brain processes, which cease upon biological death [1, 12]."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic only",
"rationale": "As a Materialist/Neurobiological theory, it does not mandate ultimate cosmic meaning or purpose, but consciousness provides essential functions (like memory reconciliation and integrated awareness) that underpin human agency and self-created value [14]."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "If consciousness is wholly explained by the computational organization and information flow of the brain, a perfect duplication or uploading of these mechanisms into a non-biological substrate should preserve the first-person mental self [15]."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Edelman’s Neural Darwinism and Reentrant Neural Circuitry",
"relationship": "Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Lamme’s Recurrent Processing Theory",
"relationship": "Contrast"
},
{
"name": "Higher-Order Theories",
"relationship": "Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Integrated Information Theory",
"relationship": "Rivalry"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness",
"year": 1988
},
{
"title_with_names": "In the Theater of Consciousness",
"year": 1997
},
{
"title_with_names": "Towards a cognitive neuroscience of consciousness: basic evidence and a workspace framework, Dehaene and Naccache",
"year": 2000
},
{
"title_with_names": "Biology of consciousness, Edelman, Garlly, Baars",
"year": 2011
}
]
}
}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Bach’s Cortical Conductor Theory",
"summary": "This theory offers a functional explanation of phenomenal consciousness, proposing that cortical structures, particularly a computational entity called the 'conductor,' are trained through reward-driven learning to regulate brain activity. Consciousness is identified as the reconstructed memory of having had an experience, integrated into a protocol for reflection and learning.",
"associated_thinkers": ["Joscha Bach"],
"category": "Materialism",
"subcategory": "Neurobiological",
"core_identity_tagline": "Consciousness as Most Recent Memory",
"classification_tags": [
"functionalism",
"memory",
"computation",
"reflection",
"attention"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Phenomenal consciousness is identified functionally as the most recent memory of what the prefrontal cortex attended to, stored and recreated via the conductor's protocol. The actuality of the experience itself is considered irrelevant.",
"ontological_status": "Physicalism/Materialism (as a functionalist model of consciousness rooted in computational structures of the brain).",
"mind_body_relationship": "Conscious states are realized by specific computational structures within the cortex (the conductor and its integrated protocol), reflecting a functional realization/identity relationship consistent with materialism.",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence (The conscious state is fully explained and derived from the functions and structures of the underlying cortical mechanisms and reward-driven learning.)",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "The 'conductor' directs attention, and integrates processes into a protocol used for reflection and generating a cohesive self model, which accounts for subjectivity and intentionality.",
"qualia_account": "Qualia (phenomenal consciousness) are functionally understood as the memory or reconstruction of having had an experience, reflected in the protocol of the conductor.",
"ontological_commitments": "Cortical structures, computational structures ('the conductor'), reward-driven learning signals, and integrated informational protocols.",
"epistemic_access": "Consciousness is accessed via reflection on the integrated protocol by the conductor.",
"constituents_and_structure": "The conductor, identified functionally as a computational structure likely associated with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and anterior insula, acts as the central coherence mechanism by generating a reflection protocol."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal consciousness (defined as memory of experience); Access consciousness; Reflection; Self-awareness (as cohesive self model).",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "The 'conductor' computational structure, trained via reward-driven learning, regulates other cortical functionality and integrates attended information into a protocol.",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Consciousness is a dynamic process arising from the training and continuous operation of the conductor, manifesting as the constantly updated, reconstructible memory protocol.",
"location_and_distribution": "Localized functionally in the brain's regulatory systems, likely involving the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and anterior insula.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "The conductor provides executive function, directs attention, and integrates experience. Consciousness itself enables central coherence and reflection/learning.",
"integration_or_binding": "The conductor is the sole location where experience is integrated into the protocol, providing central coherence.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Information flow is regulated by the conductor and integrated into a protocol. Phenomenal consciousness involves reactivating this protocol via stored links and parameters (memory).",
"evolutionary_account": "Cortical structures supporting the conductor functionality are a result of reward-driven learning, suggesting an adaptive evolutionary pathway.",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"Consciousness is a functional explanation based on a computational structure called the 'conductor'.",
"Phenomenal consciousness is the most recent memory of what the conductor attended to.",
"The conductor integrates experience into a protocol used for reflection and learning.",
"A brain without the conductor would function as a 'sleepwalker,' lacking central coherence and reflection."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Computational, Functionalist, Cognitive Science."
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Empirically testable/Modelable (Defined by necessary and sufficient conditions tied to computational and cortical structures).",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": "",
"criticisms_and_tensions": "The main tension lies in the definition of phenomenal consciousness as merely a memory of experience, side-stepping the hard problem by claiming the actuality of the experience itself is irrelevant.",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "The theory relies heavily on a functional definition that avoids explaining the intrinsic qualitative nature of 'what it is like' to have that experience, focusing instead on the accessible memory thereof.",
"ontological_coherence": "Highly coherent within the functionalist and materialist paradigms, providing a comprehensive, if deflationary, account rooted in computational neurobiology."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "Bach is bullish on AI consciousness, as defining consciousness functionally as a memory of experience simplifies its implementation in artificial systems capable of computation and reporting on that memory."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "As a materialist theory linking consciousness to specific cortical and computational structures (the conductor), consciousness ceases when the physical substrate fails."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic/Derived",
"rationale": "As a Materialism theory, it suggests no ultimate cosmic meaning. Meaning and purpose are derived internally via the conductor's ability to create a cohesive self-model and guide executive function based on reward-driven learning."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Likely",
"rationale": "Since consciousness is defined as an informational protocol/memory arising from a computational structure, the perfect duplication and uploading of this functional state to a non-biological medium should result in virtual immortality."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Dennett’s Multiple Drafts Model",
"relationship": "Similarity/Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Graziano’s Attention Schema Theory",
"relationship": "Similarity/Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Integrated Information Theory",
"relationship": "Contrast (CTC is functionalist, unlike IIT’s structural definition)"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "The cortical conductor theory: towards addressing consciousness in AI models, Joscha Bach",
"year": 2019
}
]
}
}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Bitbol's Radical Neurophenomenology",
"summary": "This theory proposes a radical dissolution of the hard problem of consciousness by prioritizing the effective primacy of lived experience over any objective account. It asserts that neuroscientific data and phenomenal descriptions are ontologically equivalent, arising from a 'tangled dialectic' between body and consciousness, rather than consciousness fundamentally depending on the brain.",
"associated_thinkers": ["Michel Bitbol", "Francisco Varela"],
"category": "Materialism Theories",
"subcategory": "Embodied and Enactive",
"core_identity_tagline": "Effective Primacy of Lived Experience",
"classification_tags": [
"phenomenology",
"embodiment",
"non-reductive",
"dissolution"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness is the effective primacy of lived experience, defining reality as that which is given and manifest, conditional upon which objectivity is constituted by extracting structural invariants.",
"ontological_status": "Phenomenological Ontology / Non-standard Monism. It suspends judgment on an objective external domain and strives toward an 'endo-ontology' (an engaged ontology of being) rather than objective reality.",
"mind_body_relationship": "A 'tangled dialectic of body and consciousness' or a 'dynamical and participatory conception.' The neuro-phenomenological correlation is viewed as an extension of the lived sense of embodiment, not a sign of one-directional dependence on the brain.",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Effectively primary/Fundamental. The approach shifts the focus from seeking the physical *origin* of subjectivity to recognizing its irreducible status as a precondition of knowledge.",
"emergence_type": "Dissolution. The theory aims to dissolve the hard problem entirely by changing the fundamental attitude toward it, thereby making traditional emergence concepts irrelevant.",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Subjectivity (first-person perspective/lived experience) is central and primary. Intentionality is conceived as the activity of consciousness in constituting or disclosing the world and its objects.",
"qualia_account": "Qualia, or pure experience, are fundamental, and the approach is designed to dispel the sense that their origin requires a theoretical, objective solution. Phenomenological descriptions of experience are given equivalent ontological status to neuroscientific data.",
"ontological_commitments": "Lived experience, embodiment, Merleau-Ponty’s ‘endo-ontology’ (self-manifesting being), and Varela's formalism of ‘cybernetic dialectic.’",
"epistemic_access": "First-person inquiry (via faithful exploration of lived experience, specifically through micro-phenomenological interviews) alongside third-person objective inquiry. The former is prioritized for ultimate understanding.",
"constituents_and_structure": "The approach focuses on clarifying how objectification is obtained out of the coordination of subjective experiences, utilizing a 'cybernetic dialectic' formalism for the relation between body and consciousness."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal consciousness (pure experience), Subjectivity, Self-awareness (as defined phenomenologically).",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "Radical dissolution of the Hard Problem, achieved by relocating the issue from an intellectual puzzle concerning objective origin onto the plane of existential attitudes and self-transformation.",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Dynamic process characterized by a suspension of objective judgment and a redirection of attention toward the activity of constituting objects. The relationship between body and consciousness is conceived as dynamical and participatory.",
"location_and_distribution": "The location is distributed in the 'lived sense of embodiment' and the tangled dialectic between body and consciousness, rejecting the idea of consciousness fundamentally depending solely on the bodily brain.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Consciousness functions as the condition of possibility for objectivity. By developing inquiry into subjective experience, the mechanism of objectification (extracting structural invariants from experience) is clarified.",
"integration_or_binding": "Integration is achieved by weaving together phenomenological and neurobiological accounts to bridge the subjective experience and biology gap, realizing the goal of neurophenomenology.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "The theory focuses on the first-person activity of constituting objects and does not grant superior status to neuroscientific data/representations. It aims to clarify how objectification (structural invariants) arises from given experience.",
"evolutionary_account": "The source material focuses on metaphysical dissolution and phenomenology rather than providing a detailed phylogenetic explanation.",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"The standard physicalist formulation of the hard problem generates a 'fake mystery'.",
"The effective primacy of lived experience conditions all other accounts of consciousness.",
"Neuroscientific data and phenomenological descriptions possess equal ontological status.",
"Evidence derives from methodology designed to faithfully explore lived experience (micro-phenomenological interviews)."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Philosophical, Phenomenological, Methodological."
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Conceptually and methodologically testable. It relies on developing rigorous first-person inquiry (microphenomenological interviews), which addresses objections against introspection.",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": [
"Micro-phenomenological interviews (methodology for exploring lived experience)"
],
"criticisms_and_tensions": "The approach runs the risk of 'being either ignored or considered as a dodge' because it requires researchers to abandon the stance of neutral observers and seek self-transformation. It rejects standard physicalist monism and property dualism.",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "The difficulty lies in persuading researchers to suspend the objective quest for the origin of subjectivity and shift to an existential mode of inquiry, which is highly demanding.",
"ontological_coherence": "Highly coherent internally, aligning with Merleau-Ponty's 'endo-ontology' and non-interpretational quantum approaches (QBism). It is explicitly inconsistent with reductive physicalism."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Uncertain/Conditional",
"rationale": "Consciousness requires a 'tangled dialectic of body and consciousness' and prioritizing lived, subjective experience, which are generally antithetical to purely objective/computational accounts required for standard AI consciousness models. Consciousness is not fundamentally computational."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "Possibly",
"rationale": "The approach rejects the one-directional, fundamental dependence of consciousness on the bodily brain, viewing neuro-phenomenological correlation as extension of embodiment. This conceptual space suggests non-physicalist persistence may be possible, especially given the framework's use in interpreting altered states of consciousness."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Existential/Philosophical",
"rationale": "The approach transforms the hard problem into an 'existential option' and focuses on Merleau-Ponty’s ‘intra-ontology’ (the process of what it is like to be), suggesting meaning is intrinsically tied to lived being and self-disclosure."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Unlikely",
"rationale": "Virtual immortality relies on functionalist duplication, but this theory asserts the 'effective primacy of lived experience' and embodiment. Uploading objective data would likely miss the irreducible, subjective mode of being (endo-ontology) required for identity preservation."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Varela’s Neurophenomenology",
"relationship": "Influence"
},
{
"name": "Enactivism",
"relationship": "Critique (more radical dissolution)"
},
{
"name": "Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology",
"relationship": "Influence"
},
{
"name": "Physicalist Monism",
"relationship": "Critique"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "The tangled dialectic of body and consciousness: a metaphysical counterpart of radical neurophenomenology",
"year": 2021
},
{
"title_with_names": "On the too often overlooked radicality of neurophenomenology",
"year": 2016
},
{
"title_with_names": "Neurophenomenology and the micro-phenomenological interview",
"year": 2017
},
{
"title_with_names": "Review of waking, dreaming, being: Self and Consciousness in neuroscience, meditation, and philosophy by evan Thompson",
"year": 2015
}
]
}
}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Block’s Biological Reductionism",
"summary": "Block advocates for a reductive physicalist account of phenomenal consciousness, distinguishing it sharply from cognitive access. He proposes that phenomenal consciousness is reducible to specific neurobiological properties, such as the electrochemical activities and complex integrated systems found in sensory and post-sensory brain regions.",
"associated_thinkers": ["Ned Block"],
"category": "Materialism",
"subcategory": "Philosophical",
"core_identity_tagline": "Phenomenal Consciousness as Neurobiological Electrochemical Activity",
"classification_tags": [
"physicalism",
"reductionism",
"neurobiology",
"phenomenology"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Phenomenal states are literally identical to specific types of neurobiological states, characterized by their electrochemical nature.",
"ontological_status": "Reductive Physicalism",
"mind_body_relationship": "Mind-Brain Identity Theory (as a strong candidate for reduction), where mental states are identical to physical brain states.",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence (Justification: Reductionism implies that consciousness is entirely explainable and reducible to lower-level physical properties, fitting the definition of weak emergence.)",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Subjectivity is tied to the specific biological machinery required for reduction. Supports First-Order Representationalism, linking phenomenal character directly to first-order intentional content.",
"qualia_account": "Qualia are identified with (or reducible to) the specific neurobiological and electrochemical properties of the brain's integrated system.",
"ontological_commitments": "Electrochemical activity of neurons, specific neural circuits, and connectivity with subcortical structures like the thalamus.",
"epistemic_access": "Accessible via scientific investigation focusing on finding the physical property that fills the functional role of consciousness, particularly examining the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness.",
"constituents_and_structure": "Propagating neurophysiological sparks and diffusing neurochemical transmitters composing a complex and integrated system."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal Consciousness, sensory consciousness (explicitly distinguishing it from cognitive access/access consciousness).",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "Neurobiological reduction based on the electrochemical nature of the brain. Conscious perception is associated with recurrent activations in perceptual areas (like visual area V5), distinct from global broadcasting required for cognitive access.",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Consciousness arises from the magnificently complex and integrated system of electrochemical activity. First-order phenomenology may causally promote global broadcasting, reversing the assumption of theories like Global Workspace Theory.",
"location_and_distribution": "Localized in sensory and perhaps post-sensory systems (e.g., visual cortex) requiring connectivity with the thalamus. Phenomenal consciousness is considered to 'overflow' cognitive accessibility.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Primary focus is on identity rather than function. Phenomenal consciousness may be a causal factor in promoting global broadcasting for cognitive access.",
"integration_or_binding": "Achieved through the integrated and complex organization of the neural system's electrochemical activity.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Favors First-Order Representationalism, positing that phenomenal character is represented by analog, fine-grained intentional content in short-term memory stores, available to higher-order thoughts.",
"evolutionary_account": "Assumes an evolutionary origin of the required biological machinery, consistent with physicalism, but specific evolutionary claims are not the theory's core focus.",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"Phenomenal consciousness is reducible to its physical basis in neurobiology.",
"The electrochemical nature of neural systems is the candidate for consciousness reduction.",
"Phenomenal consciousness overflows cognitive accessibility, meaning we have more experience than we can report.",
"Conscious perception is identified with active recurrent loops in perceptual areas plus background conditions."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Philosophical (defense of reductionism), Empirical (appeal to neurobiological examples and data)."
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Empirically testable (requires successfully identifying the physical property that literally realizes the phenomenal role).",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": "Investigating neural activity and correlations (e.g., electrochemical activity, recurrent loops) in sensory and post-sensory systems to find the neurobiological reduction candidate.",
"criticisms_and_tensions": "Criticized for failing to close the explanatory gap by not making the identity statement intelligible. Block himself argues that metaphysical functionalism and reductive physicalism are incompatible rivals. Thought experiments like 'fading qualia' challenge the necessity of specific biological hardware for phenomenology.",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "The primary challenge is finding the specific physical property that successfully completes the reduction (the 'second step'). Must fully explain why the specific biological machinery is necessary for qualia.",
"ontological_coherence": "Consistent with Materialist ontology; highly consistent with Mind-Brain Identity theory. Block views his position as incompatible with Functionalism as a metaphysical claim."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "If consciousness is reducible to the specific electrochemical/biological nature of neural tissue, then non-biological systems (like digital AI) lacking this specific physical composition cannot instantiate true phenomenal consciousness."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "Since consciousness is identified with and reducible to biological processes of the brain, the destruction of the brain entails the cessation of consciousness."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Uncertain",
"rationale": "As a purely physicalist reduction, the theory provides no cosmic meaning or purpose, though it implicitly permits humanistic meaning created by the conscious organism (common to most Materialism theories)."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "Block suggests that phenomenology depends on the nature of our biological machinery. Since virtual immortality relies on computational/functional replication in a non-biological medium, the phenomenal character (qualia) would likely be lost in the transfer."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Mind-Brain Identity Theory",
"relationship": "Overlap"
},
{
"name": "Functionalism",
"relationship": "Critique"
},
{
"name": "First-Order Representationalism",
"relationship": "Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Higher-Order Theories (HOT)",
"relationship": "Critique"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "What is functionalism",
"year": 1980
},
{
"title_with_names": "Consciousness, accessibility, and the mesh between psychology and neuroscience",
"year": 2007
},
{
"title_with_names": "The Border between Seeing and Thinking",
"year": 2023
},
{
"title_with_names": "Functional reduction",
"year": 2008
}
]
}
}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Brain Circuits and Cycles Theories",
"summary": "This set of older theories attributes consciousness to the functioning of large-scale neurophysiological structures and dynamic electrical activity, such as lateral pathways, the reticular activating system, vertical thalamocortical radiations (circuits), and synchronous neuronal firing (cycles, like EEG waves) across broad brain regions. These explanations are generally considered insufficient by themselves and have evolved into more sophisticated, contemporary neurobiological theories.",
"associated_thinkers": ["Field of Neuroscience/Neurobiology (General)"],
"category": "Materialism Theories",
"subcategory": "Neurobiological",
"core_identity_tagline": "Consciousness as Large-Scale Neural Structures and Oscillations",
"classification_tags": [
"neurobiology",
"materialism",
"neural circuits",
"oscillations",
"synchrony"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness is identified as the function or product of complex, large-scale brain structures (circuits) and the resultant massive synchronous electrical activity (cycles) within the biological brain.",
"ontological_status": "Physicalism (Reductive Materialism)",
"mind_body_relationship": "Identity/Correlation. Mental states are identical to or directly correlate with specific physical states of large-scale neural circuits and dynamic patterns.",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence (Implicit: arises from complex organization of known physical components, consistent with classic neurobiological reductionism).",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Focuses on providing the physical substrate necessary for conscious states; the specific mechanism for generating irreducible first-person subjectivity or intentionality is often undeveloped or deferred to successor theories.",
"qualia_account": "The specific qualitative feel of experience (qualia) is not directly explained by this theory, which focuses primarily on the organizational mechanisms (circuits and cycles) correlated with consciousness.",
"ontological_commitments": "Large-scale neural structures (e.g., pathways, reticular activating system, cortex), neuronal electrophysiology (synchronous firing), and measurable brain cycles (e.g., EEG waves).",
"epistemic_access": "Primarily through empirical methods, specifically measurement and analysis of electrical brain activity (EEG) and the study of large-scale neural pathways and functional neurophysiology.",
"constituents_and_structure": "Large-scale networks of neurons and their synchronous firing patterns organized in structures such as the thalamocortical and lateral cortical pathways."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal consciousness, arousal, and wakefulness (as necessary background conditions).",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "The functioning of large-scale brain structures and the synchrony of electrical activity, such as recurrent cortico-thalamic pathways and massive synchronous firing producing brain cycles (e.g., gamma waves).",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Consciousness is a dynamic process arising from the synchronous firing of massive numbers of neurons over broad cortical regions, resulting in measurable EEG waves.",
"location_and_distribution": "Distributed across large-scale circuits and pathways, including the cerebral cortex, thalamus, and reticular activating system.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Causal power is exerted bottom-up, where neural activity and synchronous cycles regulate and mediate conscious states. The function is to integrate and coordinate information across disparate regions.",
"integration_or_binding": "Integration is achieved through synchronous neural activity (e.g., gamma waves) across widely distributed brain areas linked by large-scale pathways.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Information is processed and transferred bidirectionally (e.g., cortico-thalamic loops) through electrophysiological sparks and synchronous firing of neuronal groups.",
"evolutionary_account": "Not explicitly detailed, but presumed to be a product of biological evolution that resulted in complex brain organization necessary for generating consciousness.",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"Consciousness involves large-scale brain circuits (lateral pathways, reticular activating system, thalamocortical pathways) and cycles (EEG waves).",
"Bidirectional information transfer in recurrent cortico-thalamic pathways regulates conscious states, diminished during loss of consciousness.",
"Dendritic Integration Theory (DIT) links cellular level mechanisms (layer 5 pyramidal cells) in these circuits to conscious experience."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Empirical, Neurophysiological"
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Empirically testable through neurophysiological measurements (e.g., EEG, functional imaging) that track large-scale brain synchronization and activity in the identified circuits.",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": [
"EEG measurement of frequency bands (e.g., 40 Hz gamma waves) associated with conscious states.",
"Studies of bidirectional information transfer in cortico-thalamic pathways during conscious versus unconscious states."
],
"criticisms_and_tensions": "The main criticism is that these theories are insufficient on their own to explain consciousness, requiring evolution into more sophisticated models. They address correlation and process, but often fail to fully explain the nature of phenomenal experience (the 'what it is').",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "Does not fully define what consciousness 'is' beyond the physical processes involved; primarily describes alternative critical processes in generating consciousness but is considered insufficient alone.",
"ontological_coherence": "High. Highly consistent with fundamental reductive physicalism and mainstream neurobiology, as it relies on known, measurable biological structures and mechanisms."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "If consciousness is wholly the product of specific physical neural circuits and dynamic activity patterns, then these mechanisms can, in principle, be perfectly duplicated in non-biological substrates, enabling AI consciousness."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "As a Materialism Theory, consciousness is entirely tied to the biological brain; the cessation of these specific neural circuits and cycles means the end of consciousness."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic only",
"rationale": "Consistent with Materialism, the theory offers no ultimate cosmic meaning or purpose; any meaning is created by conscious entities themselves."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "Since the first-person self is identified with the complex physical organization of neural patterns and pathways, perfect duplication of these circuits into a non-biological medium should preserve phenomenal consciousness."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Global Workspace Theory",
"relationship": "Extension"
},
{
"name": "Recurrent Processing Theory",
"relationship": "Extension/Overlap"
},
{
"name": "Dendritic Integration Theory",
"relationship": "Refinement"
},
{
"name": "Electromagnetic Field Theories",
"relationship": "Overlap (Brain cycles relate to electromagnetic fields)"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "Brain circuits and cycles theories (General Discussion)",
"year": ""
},
{
"title_with_names": "Cellular mechanisms of conscious processing, J. Aru et al.",
"year": 2020
},
{
"title_with_names": "Criticality supports cross-frequency cortical-thalamic information transfer during conscious states, D. Toker et al.",
"year": 2024
}
]
}
}

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{}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Bunge’s Emergent Materialism",
"summary": "Mario Bunge proposes emergent materialism, a form of psychoneural monism, asserting that the mind is a collection of functions/activities of the complex central nervous system (CNS). Mental states are an emergent subset of brain states characterized by neural plasticity, which possess properties not reducible to fundamental physical laws. He calls for a psychobiological approach grounded in science.",
"associated_thinkers": ["Mario Bunge"],
"category": "Materialism",
"subcategory": "Neurobiological",
"core_identity_tagline": "Mental States as Emergent CNS Functions",
"classification_tags": [
"materialism",
"emergentism",
"psychoneural monism",
"systems theory",
"neurobiological"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness (Mind) is identified as a collection of functions (activities, events) of the extremely complex central nervous system, specifically those mental states that exhibit neural plasticity and learning.",
"ontological_status": "Emergent Materialism / Psychoneural Monism (defined as materialist but explicitly non-physicalist, meaning the world is entirely material but physics cannot explain all phenomena).",
"mind_body_relationship": "Mind states are identical to a distinguished subset of brain states/processes (psychoneural monism). This relationship involves ontological reduction without full epistemological reduction.",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Strong Emergence is implied, as the mental properties are unique to the CNS system and are not reducible to their constituent physical and chemical properties.",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Accounted for as highly complex, emergent functions of the CNS. The theory rejects the need for a separate mental entity, treating subjective experience as a product of these complex systemic functions, though detailed mechanisms remain programmatic.",
"qualia_account": "Qualia must be identical to specific emergent CNS functions/states exhibiting neural plasticity. The theory rejects dualism and reductive materialism for ignoring these peculiar emergent properties of the CNS.",
"ontological_commitments": "The material world; central nervous system (CNS); emergent properties; state spaces (used for mathematically precise language).",
"epistemic_access": "Accessed through rigorous scientific investigation via a psychobiological approach, favoring objective brain facts and mathematically precise state space language.",
"constituents_and_structure": "The complex Central Nervous System, organized as a multilevel system, where mental states are functions exhibiting neural plasticity.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Mind (functions of the CNS) is causally effective, explaining behavior. The theory utilizes a multilevel approach within general systems theory.",
"integration_or_binding": "Achieved implicitly via the inherent function of the complex, unified Central Nervous System and its system-level emergent properties defined mathematically by state space language."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal; Learning/Neural Plasticity; Behavior/Neural Processes.",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "The emergent principle operating within the complex, organized structure of the Central Nervous System, resulting in properties (mental states/functions) that are non-reducible to lower-level physical laws.",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Consciousness is a dynamic process or collection of activities/events. Emergence is defined as a property held by the system (CNS) but not its components.",
"location_and_distribution": "Localized within the Central Nervous System (CNS) as a subset of brain states.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Mental states are causally effective functions of the CNS used to explain behavior. The explanation requires a synthesis of neuroscience and social science.",
"integration_or_binding": "Integration is an inherent function of the complex, unified CNS system, likely describable by the mathematically precise state space language.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Mental states are distinguished by processes exhibiting neural plasticity, particularly learning. Mathematical models using state space language are critical for representation.",
"evolutionary_account": "The mental states are processes that evolved in biosystems, distinguished from phylogenetically fixed brain states by their capacity for neural plasticity and learning.",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"Mind is a collection of emergent functions/activities of the central nervous system.",
"Mental states form a subset of brain states distinguished by neural plasticity and learning.",
"The explanation requires a psychobiological approach, synthesizing neuroscience and social science."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Philosophical (Monist/Materialist commitment); Scientific/Empirical (based on available data and existing psychological models); Systems Theory/Mathematical."
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Programmatic and potentially testable, as Bunge proposed it as a hypothesis requiring detailed mechanisms, especially mathematical ones, based on psychobiological data.",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": "",
"criticisms_and_tensions": "The theory is programmatic and requires detailed mathematical and mechanistic development. Bunge criticizes rival materialist theories (like Eliminative and Reductive Materialism) for ignoring the peculiar emergent properties of the CNS.",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "The theory needs detailed mathematical mechanisms to fully articulate how emergence occurs and how mental states map to specific brain states.",
"ontological_coherence": "Highly coherent, establishing a specific materialist stance (emergent materialism) that addresses the shortcomings of classical physicalism while rejecting non-material substances or dualism.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "The theory implies causal efficacy of mental states as emergent properties of the CNS, consistent with its rejection of epiphenomenalism."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Likely",
"rationale": "As a materialist monism where consciousness is a specific function of a complex physical system (the CNS), there is no in-principle prohibition against realizing the necessary complex emergent functions in an artificial substrate."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "Consciousness is defined as activities/functions of the biological Central Nervous System, explicitly rejecting any 'separate mental entity' or soul necessary for post-mortem survival."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic only",
"rationale": "Consistent with Materialism Theories, the theory provides a purely physicalist account of consciousness, suggesting that ultimate cosmic meaning or purpose is unlikely, although human meaning and value are created by conscious agents."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "Since the first-person mental self is identified with a collection of functions/processes of the CNS, a perfect duplication and simulation (uploading) of these functions into a non-biological medium should, in principle, ensure continuity of consciousness."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Searle’s Biological Naturalism",
"relationship": "Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Eliminative Materialism / Illusionism",
"relationship": "Critique"
},
{
"name": "Reductive Materialism",
"relationship": "Critique"
},
{
"name": "Non-Reductive Physicalism",
"relationship": "Overlap"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "The Mind-Body Problem: A Psychobiological Approach, Mario Bunge",
"year": 2014
},
{
"title_with_names": "Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry, Mario Bunge",
"year": 2011
},
{
"title_with_names": "Emergence and the mind, Mario Bunge",
"year": 1977
}
]
}
}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Buzsáki’s Neural Syntax and Self-Caused Rhythms",
"summary": "This theory presents the brain as a self-organized system and a ‘foretelling device’ that continuously generates intrinsic patterns and rhythms (neural syntax). Cognition is understood as internalized action that emerges when the brain disengages from its sensors to examine 'what happens if' scenarios. Meaning is later acquired when these internal patterns are grounded by action-based interactions with the environment.",
"associated_thinkers": ["György Buzsáki"],
"category": "Materialism Theories",
"subcategory": "Neurobiological",
"core_identity_tagline": "‘Consciousness as Self-Caused Neural Rhythms Grounded in Action’",
"classification_tags": [
"neurobiological",
"rhythms",
"action-based cognition",
"emergentism",
"predictive processing"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness, if developed from this theory of cognition, is identified with self-emerged oscillatory timing and the corresponding dynamic, self-organized neural patterns (neural syntax). The brain fundamentally creates, not processes, information.",
"ontological_status": "Physicalism / Materialism",
"mind_body_relationship": "The mind (cognition/consciousness) is related to the body as self-caused functions arising from the extremely complex central nervous system. This functions as an identity or emergent correlation within a materialist framework.",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence (Justified by classification under Materialism, which posits consciousness can be fully explained by physical states, even if arising from complex processes).",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Subjectivity is inferred to arise from the 'inside-out' perspective, where the brain actively projects and tests hypotheses against the world. Intentionality is tied to the brain's purpose as a foretelling device focused on generating and predicting the consequences of action.",
"qualia_account": "Not explicitly provided. The theory primarily focuses on the mechanisms of cognition. It implies that phenomenal qualities would arise from the organization of complex neural syntax, consistent with its classification as a Neurobiological Materialist theory.",
"ontological_commitments": "Neuronal assemblies, dynamic brain rhythms, preexisting connectivity/dynamics in cortical systems, and neural syntax.",
"epistemic_access": "Observation and modeling of neuronal activity, specifically third-person measurement of electrical activity (oscillatory timing and rhythms) and resulting cognitive functions.",
"constituents_and_structure": "Hierarchical organization of nested brain rhythms (oscillatory timing) and cross-frequency coupling, supporting self-organized cell assembly sequences. The structure is dynamic and metastable."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Cognition, Memory, Planning, Self-awareness (as internalized action). The theory focuses on mechanisms that can potentially explain phenomenal consciousness.",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "Self-emerged oscillatory timing ('rhythms of the brain') serving as the fundamental organizer of neuronal information (neural syntax). Cognition is explicitly internalized action.",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Dynamic process. Cognition arises when the brain uses its intrinsic self-organized dynamics to simulate consequences (internalized action), and it is sustained by perpetual interactions among multiple network oscillators.",
"location_and_distribution": "Cortical and hippocampal networks, particularly focusing on how large-scale brain structures and electroencephalogram (EEG) waves organize information.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Brain activity is fundamentally self-caused, driven by an imperative to test hypotheses and predict consequences of actions. The function is to restructure internal rhythms to generate cognitive maps for memory and planning, exapted from basic bodily regulation circuits.",
"integration_or_binding": "Neural syntax organizes and segments neural information via diverse brain rhythms, including hierarchical and cross-frequency coupling. Semantics bind to these spontaneous neural patterns via matching with external inputs/action consequences.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "The brain creates information rather than absorbing it. Information flow is 'inside-out': the brain fills the world with action, and external inputs select and modify spontaneous neural patterns, giving them meaning (semantics).",
"evolutionary_account": "Cognition (including planning and memory) is explained by the exaptation and expansion of circuits and algorithms initially serving necessary bodily functions, such as regulating metabolic and energetic processes.",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"The brain is a foretelling device interacting with the environment through action and restructuring internal rhythms.",
"Spontaneous neuron activity and self-emerged oscillatory timing are the source and organizer of cognitive abilities.",
"Semantics are selected externally by the world, modifying pre-existing neural patterns (gibberish) via matching during action-based interaction.",
"Cognition (memory, planning) arises through the exaptation of circuits regulating metabolic bodily functions."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Empirical, Neurobiological/Physiological modeling, relying on concepts like brain rhythms, neural syntax, and cellular activity."
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Empirically testable (Tests focus on neural rhythm generation, cross-frequency coupling, and neuronal assembly sequences as correlates of cognitive functions).",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": [
"Measurement and analysis of hierarchical brain rhythms and cross-frequency coupling.",
"Studies demonstrating memory trace consolidation during sharp wave-ripple patterns of sleep."
],
"criticisms_and_tensions": "The main conceptual tension is that explaining high-level cognition (like neural syntax, memory, and planning) is not equivalent to explaining phenomenal consciousness ('what consciousness actually is').",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "Does the successful explanation of complex cognition and its underlying neural mechanisms sufficiently address the 'hard problem' of phenomenal consciousness?. The theory itself must be developed into a theory of consciousness to answer this.",
"ontological_coherence": "Highly coherent. The theory fits well within Neurobiological and Computational Materialism, aligning consistently with related concepts like Brain Circuits and Cycles and Top-Down Predictive Theories."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "As a Materialist/Neurobiological theory, it implies that consciousness is entirely physical. If the mechanisms (neural syntax, self-caused rhythms, action-based grounding) can be implemented in non-biological systems, AI consciousness is achievable in principle."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "Consciousness/cognition is explained as originating solely from the specific, highly complex dynamics of biological brain matter. Survival beyond the cessation of these material processes is precluded."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic only",
"rationale": "The focus is on the brain as a survival and hypothesis-testing mechanism evolved for adaptive advantage. Consistent with Materialism, it provides no ultimate cosmic meaning, purpose, or value, only those created by human agency."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "Assuming consciousness is strictly realized by the neural patterns, rhythms, and cognitive maps described, a perfect duplication of this highly integrated system into a non-biological medium should preserve the original first-person mental self, making virtual immortality attainable in principle."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Brain Circuits and Cycles (9.2.11)",
"relationship": "Overlap"
},
{
"name": "Top-Down Predictive Theories (9.5.1)",
"relationship": "Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Electromagnetic Field Theories (9.3)",
"relationship": "Possible Alignment"
},
{
"name": "Integrated Information Theory (12)",
"relationship": "Contrast (Mechanistic vs. Phenomenal/Axiomatic focus)"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "The Brain from inside Out, György Buzsáki",
"year": 2019
},
{
"title_with_names": "Rhythms of the Brain, György Buzsáki",
"year": 2011
},
{
"title_with_names": "Cognition from the body-brain partnership: exaptation of memory, György Buzsáki and David Tingley",
"year": 2023
},
{
"title_with_names": "If the brain is the answer, what was the question? Review of Buzsáki, György. The Brain from Inside Out, Alex Gomez-Marin",
"year": 2021
}
]
}
}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Entropic Brain Hypothesis",
"summary": "This hypothesis proposes that the entropy of spontaneous brain activity indexes the informational richness of conscious states, within specific upper and lower bounds. It argues that primary or psychedelic conscious states are associated with elevated entropy and high brain 'criticality,' while normal waking consciousness involves suppressed entropy and operates just below criticality.",
"associated_thinkers": ["Robin Carhart-Harris"],
"category": "Materialism Theories",
"subcategory": "Homeostatic and Affective",
"core_identity_tagline": "Consciousness as Informational Entropy/Criticality",
"classification_tags": [
"entropy",
"neurodynamics",
"psychedelics",
"criticality",
"DMN"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness is identified by the informational richness of spontaneous brain activity, indexed by a dimensionless quantity called entropy.",
"ontological_status": "Physicalism / Materialism",
"mind_body_relationship": "Consciousness is understood as a measurable dynamic state of physical brain activity, specifically its neurodynamics, located within the material brain.",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "The theory focuses on the system dynamics (entropy) corresponding to different conscious states; subjectivity and intentionality are indirectly addressed via metacognitive functions (like self-awareness and reality-testing) which are enabled by suppressed entropy in normal waking consciousness.",
"qualia_account": "The theory does not explicitly detail how qualitative feel arises. It posits that entropy indexes the 'informational richness' of conscious states, which implies a link to experience, but does not explain the nature of that subjective quality itself.",
"ontological_commitments": "Spontaneous brain activity, entropy, criticality, and organized neural networks, particularly the Default-Mode Network (DMN), are committed entities.",
"epistemic_access": "Consciousness is accessed and characterized via objective calculation of brain entropy from neuroimaging data (e.g., neurodynamics observed during psychedelic states).",
"constituents_and_structure": "The structure of consciousness is based on the repertoire of functional connectivity motifs that form and fragment across time, and the level of organization within the Default-Mode Network (DMN)."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal (indexed via informational richness), Primary/Primitive States, Normal Waking Consciousness, Self-awareness (as constrained by suppressed entropy).",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "The principle that the informational richness of conscious states is governed by the entropy of spontaneous brain activity, and the resultant proximity of the brain to a 'critical' point between order and disorder.",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Consciousness is a dynamic process where fluctuations in entropy dictate the state's character. Suppressed entropy maintains the constrained, stable quality of normal waking consciousness, while elevated entropy leads to critical/primary states.",
"location_and_distribution": "Localized primarily in dynamic functional connectivity patterns across the brain, with a specific focus on the highly organized activity within the Default-Mode Network (DMN).",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Entropy suppression functions to furnish normal waking consciousness with a constrained quality, enabling metacognitive functions like reality-testing and self-awareness.",
"integration_or_binding": "Integration is inferred through the complexity and richness indexed by entropy; high entropy states exhibit a greater repertoire of connectivity motifs, suggesting a dynamic form of functional integration.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Entropy serves as an index of informational richness. Integration with the Free-Energy Principle suggests that psychedelics' entropic effect relaxes high-level priors/beliefs, liberating bottom-up information flow.",
"evolutionary_account": "The model suggests that primary states of consciousness (high entropy) are primitive or preceded the development of modern, adult, human, normal waking consciousness (suppressed entropy).",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"The entropy of spontaneous brain activity indexes the informational richness of conscious states.",
"The psychedelic state, an exemplar of a primary state, shows elevated entropy and brain criticality in neuroimaging data.",
"Normal waking consciousness maintains suppressed entropy, operating just below criticality, dependent on the organization of the Default-Mode Network (DMN)."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Empirical, Computational, Theoretical"
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Empirically testable",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": [
"Neuroimaging studies (e.g., with psilocybin) to measure brain entropy",
"Measures of brain criticality and functional connectivity motifs"
],
"criticisms_and_tensions": "The theory is criticized by some for using concepts like 'complexity' or 'diversity' interchangeably with consciousness/experience, interpreting them as merely 'brain noise' that fails to explain subjective richness, particularly when reduced brain activity correlates with rich psychedelic experiences.",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "The theory, rooted in materialism, shares the limitation of explaining *why* a quantitative measure like entropy translates into qualitative subjective experience, although it uses entropy to index the richness of that experience.",
"ontological_coherence": "Highly consistent with a physicalist ontology, utilizing quantifiable neurobiological metrics (entropy, criticality) to map different states of consciousness."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Likely (Conditional)",
"rationale": "Since the theory is a Materialist model based on measurable computational properties (entropy, informational richness, criticality) of physical systems, artificial intelligence could likely achieve consciousness if these necessary dynamic properties are instantiated in non-biological substrates."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "Consciousness is defined by the specific, dynamic organization and activity of the physical brain, such as spontaneous brain activity and the DMN, implying cessation upon bodily death."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic only",
"rationale": "As a Materialist, neurobiological explanation for states of consciousness and their metacognitive functions, the theory does not introduce or require a non-physical source of ultimate, cosmic meaning or purpose."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "If consciousness is wholly explained by the specific patterns and dynamic parameters of brain activity (like entropy and criticality), then a perfect reproduction of these patterns in a non-biological medium should preserve first-person phenomenal self, supporting virtual immortality."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Friston’s Free-Energy Principle and Active Inference",
"relationship": "Extension"
},
{
"name": "Critical Brain Hypothesis",
"relationship": "Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Analytic Idealism (Kastrup)",
"relationship": "Critique"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "The entropic brain: a theory of conscious states informed by neuroimaging research with psychedelic drugs, R.L. Carhart-Harris et al.",
"year": 2014
},
{
"title_with_names": "The entropic brain—revisited, R.L. Carhart-Harris",
"year": 2018
},
{
"title_with_names": "REBUS and the anarchic brain: toward a unified model of the brain action of psychedelics, R.L. Carhart-Harris, K.J. Friston",
"year": 2019
}
]
}
}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Chomsky’s Language and Consciousness",
"summary": "This perspective analyzes consciousness through the lens of linguistic capacity, arguing that language (specifically universal grammar/deep structure) is innate and subconscious, thereby illuminating internal mental processes. Rather than proposing a specific mechanism for consciousness, Chomsky critiques the philosophical coherence of the 'hard problem,' arguing that it is a pseudo-problem because science lacks a definite, fixed conception of what 'body' or 'matter' truly is.",
"associated_thinkers": ["Noam Chomsky"],
"category": "Materialism Theories",
"subcategory": "Language Relationships",
"core_identity_tagline": "Consciousness is a Mystery of Expanded Physics",
"classification_tags": [
"language",
"physicalism",
"mysterianism",
"universal grammar",
"pseudo-problem"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness is identified as a feature generated solely in the brain, adhering to a physicalist ontology. However, its specific identity cannot be formulated until science discovers the true, expanded nature of matter, suggesting consciousness will be assimilated into these newly discovered 'material' properties.",
"ontological_status": "Unorthodox Materialism/Physicalism",
"mind_body_relationship": "Mind is generated only in the brain (physicalist commitment). The traditional mind-body problem cannot be formulated coherently because the ontological status of the 'body' (matter) is unknown and undefined by current science, implying that the problem only resolves through an expanded, future physicalist identity.",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Undefined/Implicit Weak Emergence. This categorization is inferred because Chomsky maintains a physicalist/materialist commitment and expects consciousness to be assimilated to the 'core notions of physics' following an expansion of the concept of matter, avoiding the necessity of postulating strongly emergent, non-physical laws.",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Not explicitly addressed in depth, as the focus is on dismantling the foundational philosophical problem rather than detailing specific phenomenal mechanics. Intentionality is implicitly relevant as his linguistic theory (deep structure) concerns internal processes that oppose behaviorism.",
"qualia_account": "The hard problem (which concerns qualia) is dismissed as a 'pseudo-problem' that cannot be coherently stated or logically answered, similar to asking 'Why do things happen?' in general, thus obviating the need for a reductive explanation of phenomenal qualities.",
"ontological_commitments": "Physical brain processes; innate linguistic structures (deep structure); and an expanded, yet-to-be-discovered definition of the material world that will subsume the mental.",
"epistemic_access": "Accessible via examining internal processes, contrasting with behaviorist reliance on external manifestations. Ultimate access depends on future scientific advancement defining the true nature of matter.",
"constituents_and_structure": "Innate linguistic capacity (universal grammar/deep structure) is a core organizational structure that is relevant to the essence of consciousness. Consciousness itself is structurally dependent on the physical brain."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Language-powered capacities, such as complex expressions of consciousness and potentially self-awareness. Pure phenomenal consciousness is generally avoided or dismissed as a philosophical trap.",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "The underlying innate linguistic deep structure, unique to humans, is the primary mental phenomenon discussed in his work, providing insight into internal processes critical for consciousness, even if the consciousness itself remains a scientific mystery for now.",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Likely a dynamic process tied to physical brain function, although potentially not purely gradual, as Chomsky is cited as a dissenting voice against strictly incremental theories of mental development.",
"location_and_distribution": "Generated solely in the brain.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Language capacity is foundational and requires examination of internal processes. The causal influence of consciousness is deferred, as the ultimate nature of matter required for a causal description is currently unknown.",
"integration_or_binding": "Not specified. The theory focuses on the philosophical incoherence of the foundational premises rather than providing internal structural mechanisms.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Language acquisition utilizes subconscious, inborn deep structures. Information flow is analyzed in terms of internal processes, rejecting behavioral analogies.",
"evolutionary_account": "Consciousness is a physical product of evolution, but the timeline or manner of its phylogenetic development might be non-incremental, contrasting with gradualistic views.",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"Mind is generated only in the brain (materialist ontology).",
"The mind-body problem cannot be formulated until the concept of 'body' is clarified by science.",
"Linguistic capacity, based on innate 'deep structure,' revolutionized the study of internal mental phenomena."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Philosophical and conceptual analysis of scientific limitations, particularly in defining 'the physical'; evidence drawn from theoretical linguistics (Universal Grammar)."
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Conceptually Testable. The central tenet involves a philosophical challenge to current scientific/ontological definitions. Empirical testing of the assimilation of consciousness into future physics is currently impossible.",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": "",
"criticisms_and_tensions": "Critics categorize Chomsky as a 'mysterian,' arguing that dismissing the problem as inherently unsolvable (or poorly formulated) is unproductive. Furthermore, if the problem lacks clear content, the resulting philosophical positions (including his own) also lack clear content.",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "The ultimate nature of 'matter' remains undiscovered and undefined. Chomsky is unsure whether human intelligence is fundamentally capable of solving the genuine mysteries about the nature of reality, including consciousness.",
"ontological_coherence": "Coherent. The theory achieves consistency by using philosophical skepticism regarding the definition of 'the physical' to justify deferring a solution to consciousness, thus preserving the materialist stance while acknowledging the current explanatory gap."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Yes (Conditional)",
"rationale": "Given the underlying physicalist commitment, AI consciousness must be possible in principle. If innate linguistic structures or deep computational capacity are key to consciousness, then advances in large language models would increase the likelihood of artificial realization."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "The ontology is strictly materialist: the mind is generated solely in the brain. Substance dualism and the concept of a nonphysical soul are rejected, making post-mortem survival impossible."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic only",
"rationale": "As an aggressive critique formulated within a materialist framework, the theory aligns with the physicalist conclusion that ultimate cosmic meaning or purpose is irrationalized, leaving only human-created meaning."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Possible",
"rationale": "If consciousness is wholly physical and reducible to brain processes (once 'physical' is redefined), the first-person mental self must eventually be uploadable, assuming technology can replicate the necessary physical relationships at the right level."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Mysterianism (McGinn)",
"relationship": "Overlap"
},
{
"name": "Eliminative Materialism/Illusionism",
"relationship": "Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Searle’s Language and Consciousness",
"relationship": "Contrasting"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "Language and Problems of Knowledge: the Managua Lectures",
"year": 1987
},
{
"title_with_names": "New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind",
"year": 2020
},
{
"title_with_names": "Why Only Us: Language and Evolution, Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky",
"year": 2016
},
{
"title_with_names": "Chomsky on consciousness, Edward Feser",
"year": 2022
}
]
}
}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Cleeremans and Tallon-Baudry’s Functional Value",
"summary": "This theory suggests that phenomenal consciousness evolved because it confers functional value by adding a critical degree of freedom to reward-based behavior. It proposes that subjective experience acts as a \"mental currency\" that assigns intrinsic value to conscious states, enabling the comparison and unification of diverse experiences.",
"associated_thinkers": ["Axel Cleeremans", "Catherine Tallon-Baudry"],
"category": "Materialism Theories",
"subcategory": "Phylogenetic Evolution",
"core_identity_tagline": "Consciousness as Functional Value and Mental Currency",
"classification_tags": [
"functionalism",
"evolution",
"phenomenal worthiness",
"intrinsic value"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Phenomenal consciousness is identified as having intrinsic functional value, acting as a mental currency that endows conscious states with worth for behavioral optimization.",
"ontological_status": "Materialism",
"mind_body_relationship": "Consciousness is an evolved biological feature tied to the neural machinery governing reward-based behavior. The relationship seeks to reduce the hard problem to a problem of function.",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Subjectivity arises from the requirement for a common, subject-centered space necessary to compare and value diverse experiences ('mental currency'). Intentionality is implicitly tied to goal-directed, reward-based behavior.",
"qualia_account": "Qualia (phenomenal experience) are accounted for functionally by possessing intrinsic value, which allows the reduction of the hard problem to a problem about function.",
"ontological_commitments": "Biological mechanisms supporting reward-based behavior; systems capable of comparing and valuing internal states.",
"epistemic_access": "Accessible via the study of how phenomenal experience provides functional value in decision-making, emotion research, and consciousness research.",
"constituents_and_structure": "A common, subject-centered space arising from the evolutionarily selected machinery of reward-based behavior."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal, Functional Value, Unified experience",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "The phenomenal worthiness hypothesis posits that consciousness evolved by granting intrinsic value ('mental currency') to experiences, enabling cross-comparison of vastly different needs and optimizing decision-making in reward-based contexts.",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Consciousness arose through phylogenetic evolution and selection, adding an important degree of freedom to the existing machinery of reward-based behavior.",
"location_and_distribution": "Localized in organisms possessing the necessary biological machinery for reward-based learning and comparison of intrinsic values.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Consciousness plays an active, causal role. Its functional role is to provide a common currency (intrinsic value) for comparing diverse, potentially competing, subjective states to optimize behavior.",
"integration_or_binding": "Unification is achieved because the phenomenal experience is housed in a common subject-centered space that facilitates the comparison of all intrinsic values simultaneously.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Information streams representing diverse experiences are processed and assigned intrinsic value (phenomenal worthiness) for comparison and regulation of behavior.",
"evolutionary_account": "Consciousness evolved and was selected because it provides functional advantage by adding a degree of freedom to reward-based behavior, optimizing survival and exploration.",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"Phenomenal consciousness has functional value, rejecting the classical epiphenomenal view.",
"Consciousness evolved because it grants an important degree of freedom to reward-based behavior.",
"Phenomenal experience acts as a 'mental currency' allowing unified comparison of diverse internal states."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Evolutionary, Functional/Neuroscientific, Philosophical (reduction to function)"
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Empirically testable",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": "Measures studying the relationship between subjective reports of intrinsic value, unification of experience, and decision-making in reward-based contexts.",
"criticisms_and_tensions": "Nonmaterialists criticize this theory for attempting to reduce the hard problem to a problem about function, finding this inadequate to explain the qualitative aspect of experience itself.",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "The primary limitation is providing a mechanistic account of *why* functional value feels like something, rather than merely stating that this feeling has functional utility.",
"ontological_coherence": "Highly coherent within a materialist ontology, as it aims to reduce phenomenal experience to an empirically evolved and functionally beneficial biological property."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "As a materialist theory focused on function and evolved mechanisms, if the machinery enabling intrinsic valuation and comparison (the mental currency) can be realized in artificial substrates, AI consciousness is possible."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "Consciousness is an evolved property of biological machinery tied to the functional necessities of the organism, consistent with the materialist rejection of post-mortem survival."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic only",
"rationale": "Consciousness serves an adaptive and biological purpose (optimizing reward-based behavior), implying no ultimate cosmic meaning, aligning with Materialism."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "Given its strong functionalist roots under Materialism, virtual immortality would be attainable in principle if the relevant functional dynamics and mechanisms responsible for assigning intrinsic value could be duplicated non-biologically."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Functionalism",
"relationship": "Extension"
},
{
"name": "Epiphenomenalism",
"relationship": "Critique"
},
{
"name": "Global Workspace Theory",
"relationship": "Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Top-Down Predictive Theories",
"relationship": "Compatible"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "Consciousness matters: phenomenal experience has functional value, Axel Cleeremans, Catherine Tallon-Baudry",
"year": 2022
}
]
}
}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Computational Theory",
"summary": "Computational theories of mind propose that the mind operates like a computer, viewing mental states as functional roles defined by systematic, step-by-step instructions or algorithms, independent of the underlying physical substrate. These theories drove the rise of cognitive science by emulating mind-like capabilities such as reasoning and perception.",
"associated_thinkers": ["Nick Bostrom", "James Reggia"],
"category": "Materialism",
"subcategory": "Computational and Informational",
"core_identity_tagline": "Consciousness as Algorithm and Computation",
"classification_tags": [
"computation",
"functionalism",
"AI",
"reductionism",
"cognitive science"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness (or mental states generally) is identified with the performance of computations of a particular, discoverable kind. Mental states are defined by their functional role or output, not their internal constitution or material substrate.",
"ontological_status": "Physicalism",
"mind_body_relationship": "Identity/Functionalist. Mental states are functional states that can be instantiated (or realized) in any form of matter capable of processing information, such as neural tissue or computer chips.",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence. Consistent with the materialist framework, it is assumed that mental properties, though high-level, can in principle be fully explained or reduced to the fundamental underlying computational and physical processes, even if the practical explanation is complex.",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Intentionality (directedness of thought) is explained through cognitive symbols that can be manipulated to describe concepts. Subjectivity (phenomenal consciousness) remains a challenge, as the focus is primarily on external functionality and information processing, rather than inner experience.",
"qualia_account": "Uncertain/Deflationary. The theory struggles to provide a compelling demonstration of phenomenal consciousness, focusing instead on capturing cognitive and behavioral correlates. Some approaches aligned with this view might treat qualia as illusory or incoherent, while others assert they correspond to integrated, reportable computational states.",
"ontological_commitments": "Algorithms, systematic step-by-step instructions, Turing machines (abstract models of computation), and any physical substrate capable of instantiating information.",
"epistemic_access": "Primarily through computational modeling, simulation, and objective measurement of information processing capabilities and behavioral correlates.",
"constituents_and_structure": "Routines of systematic, step-by-step instructions (algorithms), typically modeled using abstract computational structures like Turing machines."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Access (e.g., global access to information), Memory, Knowledge Structure, Perception, Reasoning, Problem Solving, and Linguistic Comprehension. Phenomenal consciousness (qualia) is often excluded or treated as an unsolved problem.",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "The principle that performing computations of a specific kind (algorithmic processing) is both necessary and sufficient for consciousness.",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Algorithmic/Systematic. Consciousness arises through the systematic processing of information via algorithms, enabling the emulation of mind-like capabilities.",
"location_and_distribution": "The location is functional rather than material; consciousness resides wherever the necessary computational functions are instantiated, whether in biological neural tissue or non-biological computer chips.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Mental states are causally effective because they are functional states realized in the physical world. The functional role is to organize information processing, enabling capabilities like planning, decision-making, and problem-solving.",
"integration_or_binding": "Implicitly achieved through the complex processing of information and the integration of specialized computational functions necessary for cognitive capabilities like knowledge structure and reasoning.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Mental states are abstract information or cognitive symbols that are manipulated algorithmically by the underlying physical substrate to generate thought and comprehension.",
"evolutionary_account": "Not explicitly addressed by the core theory in the sources, but compatible with the general materialist view that consciousness is an evolved product of neurobiological complexity, specifically for adaptive processing and computation.",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"Performing computations of a particular, discoverable kind is both necessary and sufficient for consciousness.",
"Mental states are determined solely by their outputs or functional roles, regardless of the physical medium.",
"Computational modeling is an accepted methodology for scientifically studying consciousness."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Computational, Philosophical (Functionalism), and Logical."
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Empirically testable. The methodology involves using computational modeling to assess whether systems successfully simulate known neurobiological, cognitive, and behavioral correlates of conscious processing.",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": [
"Development and testing of computational models and machine simulations of cognitive correlates."
],
"criticisms_and_tensions": "Criticized as a historical analogy that likens the mind to the 'science of the day.' The main tension is the lack of a compelling demonstration of phenomenal machine consciousness, leading to the critique that it only addresses 'easy problems' (function) while ignoring the 'hard problem' (experience).",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "The key unresolved issue is whether performing computations, regardless of complexity, is genuinely sufficient to produce phenomenal consciousness ('what it is like').",
"ontological_coherence": "Coherent within the reductive physicalist and functionalist frameworks, relying on the premise that all mental reality can be reduced to information processing or algorithmic structure."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "Since computational functionalism posits that consciousness is a result of performing the right kind of computation, AI consciousness is not only possible but inevitable, given the exponential growth of computational sophistication in non-biological intelligences."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "Consciousness is tied to physical or functional realization in a substrate. Traditional survival beyond death is denied, but continuation is possible only through digital mind uploading (virtual immortality)."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic only",
"rationale": "As a Materialism Theory, it does not support any ultimate cosmic meaning or purpose; meaning and value are considered emergent, self-created phenomena arising from the complex functions of conscious beings."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "If consciousness is purely computational/functional (meaning its essence is algorithmic), then a perfect duplication of the brain’s functional patterns in a non-biological medium would preserve the first-person mental self, making virtual immortality attainable in principle."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Functionalism",
"relationship": "Core principle"
},
{
"name": "Computational Functionalism",
"relationship": "Extension"
},
{
"name": "Eliminative Materialism/Illusionism",
"relationship": "Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Integrated Information Theory",
"relationship": "Critique"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "The computational theory of mind, Michael Rescorla",
"year": 2020
},
{
"title_with_names": "The rise of machine consciousness: studying consciousness with computational models, James Reggia",
"year": 2013
},
{
"title_with_names": "The Emperor’s New Mind - Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Law of Physics, Roger Penrose",
"year": 1999
}
]
}
}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Crick and Koch’s Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC)",
"summary": "This theory proposes a scientific agenda to identify the Neural Correlate of Consciousness (NCC), defined as the minimum activities in the brain that are jointly sufficient and necessary for any specific conscious perception or subjective experience. It asserts that consciousness is entirely physical and can be fully reduced to these specific brain activities.",
"associated_thinkers": ["Francis Crick", "Christof Koch"],
"category": "Materialism",
"subcategory": "Neurobiological",
"core_identity_tagline": "Consciousness as Minimum Brain Activity",
"classification_tags": [
"neurobiological",
"reductionism",
"qualia",
"neurophysiology",
"macroscopic materialism"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness (phenomenal consciousness/qualia) is identified as the Neural Correlate of Consciousness (NCC), the precise minimum pattern of neural activity in the brain necessary and sufficient for subjective experience.",
"ontological_status": "Reductive Physicalism/Materialism. The NCC approach is considered macroscopic materialism.",
"mind_body_relationship": "Identity Theory. Mental states are wholly identical to and fully explained by the physical NCC states.",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence. Consistent with a reductive materialist position where consciousness, as a product of the biological brain, is in principle explainable by lower-level physical laws, even if the explicit link is currently elusive.",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Subjectivity (inner awareness) and phenomenal experience are directly correlated with, or identical to, the identified NCC. Intentionality would similarly be explained by the physical processes constituting the NCC.",
"qualia_account": "Qualia (the qualitative feel of experience) are identified with the minimum neural activities (NCC) that are jointly sufficient for specific conscious perception, although the mechanism for this identity remains the central 'hard problem' challenge.",
"ontological_commitments": "Biological brains, neurons, electrophysiological activity (spikes), neurochemical transmitter flows, and specific recurrent brain circuits.",
"epistemic_access": "Accessed through third-person scientific observation (neurophysiology, brain scans) correlated with first-person reports of conscious experience.",
"constituents_and_structure": "The structure consists of specific neuronal assemblies and dynamic electrical/chemical activity patterns (e.g., action potentials, transmitter flows, recurrent circuits) localized in key brain regions like the cortex."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal (subjective experience, qualia) and the associated awareness/arousal necessary for consciousness.",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "The search for and definition of the Neural Correlate of Consciousness (NCC): the specific minimum neural activities necessary and sufficient for subjective experience.",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Dynamic process. Consciousness arises from the integrated system of propagating neurophysiological sparks and diffusing neurochemical transmitters.",
"location_and_distribution": "Localized in specific brain areas. Early candidates included the claustrum (as a 'conductor' coordinating percepts); later candidates focused on the posterior cerebral cortex (temporo-parietal-occipital hot zone).",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Consciousness is directly caused by, and is identical to, the NCC activity. NCC mechanisms (spikes, flows, circuits) are seen as constitutive of phenomenal consciousness.",
"integration_or_binding": "Hypothesized to be achieved by a neural mechanism acting as a 'conductor' (e.g., the claustrum) that coordinates input from various cortical regions to generate integrated conscious percepts.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Focuses on the physical representation and flow of information via electrophysiological and neurochemical signaling within the neural circuitry.",
"evolutionary_account": "The theory, rooted in Materialism, implicitly assumes consciousness evolved via phylogenetic processes responsible for nervous system development, though this is not the focus of the NCC definition itself.",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"Consciousness is fully explained by minimum brain activity (NCC) jointly sufficient and necessary for specific conscious perception.",
"NCC mechanisms involve neuronal electrophysiological action potentials, neurochemical transmitter flows, and recurrent brain circuits.",
"The NCC is empirically observable (e.g., the search for the hot zone in the posterior cerebral cortex).",
"No clear NCC has been conclusively discovered (evidenced by the loss of the Chalmers-Koch bet in 2023)."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Empirical, Scientific, Neurobiological"
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Empirically testable. The search for the NCC is defined as a scientific program seeking testable biological bases for consciousness.",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": [
"Identifying specific clusters of neurons or brain regions (like the claustrum or posterior cortex) that are active during conscious experience.",
"Measuring electrophysiological activity (e.g., action potentials and neural circuits)."
],
"criticisms_and_tensions": "The primary tension is the 'explanatory gap': identifying a correlation (NCC) does not explain the identity statement of how physical activity (spikes/chemicals) literally generates phenomenal feel (qualia). The failure to identify a 'clear' NCC after decades of research is a practical limitation.",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "The theory fails to explain the fundamental link between physical mechanisms (neural activity) and subjective experience (phenomenal consciousness). The distinction between correlation and causation remains a criticism.",
"ontological_coherence": "Highly coherent within the Materialist/Physicalist ontology, serving as an ambitious example of how consciousness could be reduced to matter."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "If consciousness is entirely reducible to physical organizational patterns (NCC), then non-biological systems capable of replicating those precise patterns should also become conscious, barring technological constraints."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "As a Materialist theory, consciousness is wholly dependent on the physical brain; cessation of brain function entails the end of consciousness."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic only",
"rationale": "Consistent with Materialism, consciousness is a biological product of evolution and physics, conferring no ultimate cosmic meaning or teleology beyond that which humans create for themselves."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "If the NCC states can be perfectly measured and replicated in a digital or artificial medium (mind uploading), the resulting system would be functionally and phenomenally identical, achieving virtual immortality in principle."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Recurrent Processing Theory (Lamme)",
"relationship": "Overlap"
},
{
"name": "Global Workspace Theory",
"relationship": "Overlap/Contrast"
},
{
"name": "Integrated Information Theory",
"relationship": "Contrast"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "Towards a neurobiological theory of consciousness, F. Crick and C. Koch",
"year": 1990
},
{
"title_with_names": "What is the function of the claustrum?, F. Crick and C. Koch",
"year": 2005
},
{
"title_with_names": "The Quest for Consciousness: a Neurobiological Approach, C. Koch",
"year": 2004
}
]
}
}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Critical Brain Hypothesis",
"summary": "The Critical Brain Hypothesis suggests that neural networks perform optimally when operating near a critical point of phase transition, balancing between ordered and random activity. This critical state maximizes the brain's capacity for complex, information-rich patterns, optimizing computation, transmission, and storage.",
"associated_thinkers": ["John Beggs", "Per Bak"],
"category": "Materialism Theories",
"subcategory": "Computational and Informational",
"core_identity_tagline": "Consciousness as Optimal Neural Network Criticality",
"classification_tags": [
"neural networks",
"criticality",
"information processing",
"phase transition",
"computational"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness is identified with or fundamentally dependent on the optimal organizational state (criticality) of neural networks, maximizing their capacity for complex information processing.",
"ontological_status": "Physicalism",
"mind_body_relationship": "Identity/Correlation (between consciousness and the critical dynamical state of the brain).",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Subjectivity and intentionality are enabled by the maximized complexity and information capacity available when the brain operates at criticality. The theory focuses on functional prerequisites for higher cognition.",
"qualia_account": "Not explicitly addressed. Qualia are likely treated as an outcome or aspect of the maximally complex, information-rich patterns generated at the critical point, consistent with its foundational Materialist and Computational principles.",
"ontological_commitments": "Neural networks, connection strengths, information patterns, and physical laws governing phase transitions (statistical mechanics).",
"epistemic_access": "Accessible via empirical investigation, specifically through mathematical modeling, physics (statistical mechanics), and experiments measuring neuronal firing patterns and network dynamics in the brain.",
"constituents_and_structure": "Neural networks characterized by specific connection strengths, dynamically forming 'avalanches' or many moderately sized, stable neuronal assemblies."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal (implied), Computation, Information Storage/Transmission, Network Organization.",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "Optimal operation at the critical point of phase transitions, which maximizes complexity and balances connectivity (not too weak, not too strong), achieved through self-organized criticality.",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Consciousness is a dynamic process characterized by the brain continuously teetering or oscillating around the critical point, managing phase transitions between inactive/random and overactive/seizure states.",
"location_and_distribution": "Located in neural networks, particularly observed in the cortex.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Optimizes multiple information processing tasks simultaneously, including maximizing information storage by enabling the formation of the largest number of stable neural assemblies.",
"integration_or_binding": "Achieved through the balanced complexity of the network at criticality, allowing many moderately sized neuron groups to couple without coalescing into one giant assembly.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "The critical state enhances the transmission capacity of information and produces maximally complex and information-rich activity patterns.",
"evolutionary_account": "Implied: consciousness/optimal network organization evolved due to the substantial adaptive advantage conferred by maximizing information processing capacity and complexity, crucial for survival.",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"Neural networks maximize information processing and complexity when operating near a critical point.",
"The critical state balances ordered and random activity, avoiding excessive damping or amplification.",
"Experimental observations of neuronal 'avalanches' following a power law support the idea of self-organized criticality in brain tissue.",
"Disruptions (like sleep deprivation) shift the brain away from the critical point (becoming supercritical)."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Empirical, Computational, Mathematical"
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Empirically testable. Experiments on isolated networks and intact brains have been conducted and are claimed to uphold many of the theory’s predictions.",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": [
"Measuring neuronal 'avalanches' and power laws in neural networks.",
"Observing dynamical shifts (e.g., supercriticality) caused by environmental or physiological changes (e.g., sleep deprivation)."
],
"criticisms_and_tensions": "Critics challenge how criticality is maintained or 'fine-tuned' in a dynamic biological environment, and question how to rigorously distinguish true collective criticality among neurons from random noise.",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "Unresolved issues include the mechanism by which the brain fine-tunes itself to maintain criticality and the rigorous distinction between true criticality derived from collective interactions and apparent criticality arising from noise.",
"ontological_coherence": "Highly consistent with Materialist and Computational ontologies, providing a mathematically rigorous framework for linking physical dynamics to cognitive optimization."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "If consciousness arises from achieving this optimal computational state (criticality) in a network, and the process is defined mathematically by computational rules and organization, it should be replicable in artificial systems capable of implementing analogous dynamics."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "As a theory categorized under Materialism, consciousness is intrinsically dependent on the specific physical organization and dynamics of biological neural networks; persistence requires the maintenance of this physical structure."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic only",
"rationale": "Consciousness is understood as a functionally optimal, emergent biological phenomenon (maximizing information processing capacity), suggesting its purpose is purely adaptive, without cosmic or ultimate teleology."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "Since consciousness is defined by the critical information processing dynamics and structure of the network, duplicating these patterns (uploading the functional structure) into a suitable non-biological medium capable of sustaining criticality should enable virtual immortality."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Entropic Brain Hypothesis",
"relationship": "Compatible/Overlap"
},
{
"name": "Computational Theories",
"relationship": "Category/Extension"
},
{
"name": "Complex Adaptive Systems Models",
"relationship": "Overlap/Category"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "When does the brain operate at peak performance?, John Beggs",
"year": 2023
},
{
"title_with_names": "Brains may teeter near their tipping point, Jennifer Ouellette",
"year": 2018
}
]
}
}

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{
"id_and_class": {
"theory_title": "Attention Schema Theory",
"summary": "Attention Schema Theory (AST) proposes that consciousness arises when the brain constructs a simplified model of its own attention process (the 'attention schema') in order to monitor and regulate attention. The introspective experience of this model is reported as a 'ghostly, non-physical essence' or self-caricature.",
"summary": "This theory posits that consciousness arises when the brain constructs a quick, simplified, internal model—an attention schema—of its own process of attention. The brain mistakenly interprets and reports this internal representation as a subjective, non-physical essence or a 'self-caricature,' even though it is fundamentally a computational product.",
"associated_thinkers": ["Michael Graziano"],
"category": "Materialism",
"subcategory": "Neurobiological",
"core_identity_tagline": "Consciousness as a Self-Caricature",
"core_identity_tagline": "Consciousness as an Evolved Self-Caricature of Attention",
"classification_tags": [
"neurobiological",
"representational",
"computational",
"evolutionary"
"neuroscience",
"representation",
"functionalism",
"evolution"
]
},
"conceptual_ground": {
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness is identified as the brain's internal representation, or schema, of its own attention process.",
"explanatory_identity_claim": "Consciousness is identified as the brain’s internal representation or simplified model of its own mechanism of attention (the attention schema), which is a specific example of higher-order thought.",
"ontological_status": "Physicalism",
"mind_body_relationship": "Consciousness is a product of biological and computational processes within the brain, akin to a machine assessing its own internal data.",
"mind_body_relationship": "Consciousness is the report generated by a biological, information processing machine (the brain) through the assessment of its internal data, meaning mental states are computational and wholly physical.",
"primitive_or_emergent_status": "Emergent",
"emergence_type": "Weak Emergence",
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Subjectivity arises because the brain interprets and reports its attention schema as an internal, non-physical essence, giving rise to a first-person perspective.",
"qualia_account": "The qualitative feel corresponds to the introspection and report of the attention schema, which leads to the false metaphysical attribution of properties like a non-physical essence.",
"ontological_commitments": "Neural machinery, computational/information processing systems, and internal representations (schemas).",
"epistemic_access": "Accessible via introspection (assessing internal data) and through third-person neuroscientific modeling of the attention mechanism.",
"constituents_and_structure": "A simplified, quick and dirty model or schema of the brain’s current state of attention."
"subjectivity_and_intentionality": "Subjectivity (the sense of a 'ghostly, non-physical essence') is the misleading report generated by the brain's internal attention schema. Intentionality is implicitly accounted for, as the primary function of the resulting model is attention monitoring to control actions in the world.",
"qualia_account": "Consciousness is described as a 'self-caricature' or an illusory report of a non-physical essence, suggesting a deflationary or illusionist account of qualia, akin to Daniel Dennett’s view.",
"ontological_commitments": "Biological brains, information processing mechanisms, and internal representations (the attention schema).",
"epistemic_access": "Consciousness is accessed by the system itself via introspection (assessing its internal data), leading the system to claim consciousness, but its true computational nature can only be determined by third-person scientific analysis (science).",
"constituents_and_structure": "A computational model or representation (the attention schema) developed to monitor and regulate the brain's own attention mechanism."
},
"mechanism_and_dynamics": {
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal, Access, Self-awareness",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "The monitoring and regulation of attention via an internally generated schematic model, driven by principles of control engineering.",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Consciousness evolved as a trait providing adaptive benefits for monitoring and regulating attention to control actions in the world.",
"location_and_distribution": "Localized to the specific information processing machinery within the brain that creates the attention schema.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "Functions to enable monitoring and regulation of attention for effective action control and problem solving, providing an adaptive advantage.",
"integration_or_binding": "",
"information_flow_or_representation": "The schema is a high-level representation of how the brain represents things, functioning as a representation of a representation.",
"evolutionary_account": "Consciousness evolved to monitor and regulate attention in order to control actions, providing an evolutionary advantage.",
"scope_of_consciousness": "Phenomenal (as a generated internal report/claim), Attention, Action Control.",
"distinctive_mechanism_or_principle": "The construction and maintenance of a simplified internal model (the attention schema) of the process of attention, rooted in principles from control engineering.",
"dynamics_of_emergence": "Consciousness is a dynamic, evolved trait, originating from a computational strategy that generates the internal attention schema.",
"location_and_distribution": "Located within the biological, information-processing system of the brain.",
"causation_and_functional_role": "The functional role of the attention schema is to monitor and regulate the brain's attention in order to control actions in the world. The resulting capacity allows the system to claim consciousness.",
"integration_or_binding": "The precise mechanism for integrating sensory data into the attention schema is not detailed in the sources, but the theory implies integration necessary for monitoring and regulating overall attention.",
"information_flow_or_representation": "Information processing is central; the brain must handle a profusion of information by developing a simplified representation of its own state (the attention schema).",
"evolutionary_account": "The trait of consciousness evolved to provide an adaptive benefit: monitoring and regulating attention to efficiently control actions in the environment.",
"core_claims_and_evidence": [
"The brain develops a simplified model (attention schema) of its own attention process.",
"This mechanism explains how a biological, information processing machine can claim to have consciousness.",
"The perceived subjective experience is a 'self-caricature' that facilitates control."
"The brain develops a 'quick and dirty model' of its own attention process (the attention schema).",
"The brain reports this internal model as a 'ghostly, non-physical essence' or a 'self-caricature'.",
"The capacity to claim consciousness is based on computations derived from control engineering."
],
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Computational, Neuroscientific, Evolutionary"
"basis_of_belief_or_evidence_type": "Neurobiological, Computational, Evolutionary, Philosophical."
},
"empirics_and_critiques": {
"testability_status": "Empirically testable",
"known_empirical_interventions_or_tests": "",
"criticisms_and_tensions": "Criticized for relating closely to illusionism/eliminative materialism, potentially denying the fundamental reality of metaphysical properties we attribute to ourselves.",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "The theory must convince critics that the brain’s computational model is sufficient to account for the first-person claim of having a non-physical essence.",
"ontological_coherence": "Highly consistent within a physicalist paradigm; aims to solve the hard problem by reframing it through evolutionary function and representation."
"criticisms_and_tensions": "The theory explains how a system can *claim* consciousness but faces the general limitation, shared by similar functionalist models, of conclusively proving or explaining the actual subjective feel (the 'anybody home' problem) which remains eternally uncertain, even by the proponent's admission.",
"open_questions_and_limitations": "The system, by relying on introspection, cannot internally determine that its claim of consciousness is purely based on computations. The external observer can never truly know if there is inner experience in the system.",
"ontological_coherence": "Highly coherent within the Materialist framework, aligning with other functionalist and computational approaches to explain the claim of consciousness without invoking non-physical substances."
},
"implications": {
"AI_consciousness": {
"stance": "Likely",
"rationale": "If consciousness is a mechanism of information processing and representation, then an artificially engineered system capable of instantiating that mechanism should possess consciousness (or generate the same claim/appearance of it)."
"rationale": "Since consciousness is defined as a computational process (the creation of an attention schema), in principle, artificial systems that implement the necessary computational architecture could become conscious. Furthermore, observers will inevitably make the social attribution of consciousness to sufficiently complex AI systems that act like they are conscious."
},
"survival_beyond_death": {
"stance": "No",
"rationale": "Consciousness is entirely dependent on the physical machinery and processes of the biological brain."
"rationale": "As a Materialist/Neurobiological theory, consciousness is tied to the physical substrate (the biological, information-processing machine), precluding survival beyond the decay of the body."
},
"meaning_and_purpose": {
"stance": "Humanistic only",
"rationale": "Consciousness is an evolved trait serving control engineering and adaptive functions, not requiring cosmic meaning or purpose."
"rationale": "Consciousness provides an adaptive, evolutionary purpose (monitoring and regulating attention for action control), but does not imply any ultimate or cosmic meaning, consistent with Materialism."
},
"virtual_immortality": {
"stance": "Yes",
"rationale": "Since consciousness is based on computational organization (the schema/model), the self could potentially be uploaded if the relevant information dynamics and representations are perfectly reproduced in non-biological media."
"stance": "Possible",
"rationale": "If the consciousness is realized as a computational structure (the attention schema), and if this structure and the relevant information processing systems can be accurately uploaded to a non-biological medium, virtual immortality is theoretically possible."
}
},
"relations_and_sources": {
"related_theories": [
{
"name": "Eliminative Materialism/Illusionism",
"relationship": "Overlap"
"name": "Dennett’s Multiple Drafts Model",
"relationship": "Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Bach’s Cortical Conductor Theory",
"relationship": "Compatible"
},
{
"name": "Higher-Order Theories",
"relationship": "Overlap"
},
{
"name": "Eliminative Materialism/Illusionism",
"relationship": "Compatible"
}
],
"sources_and_references": [
{
"title_with_names": "Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience, Michael Graziano",
"title_with_names": "True nature of consciousness: solving the biggest mystery of your mind, M. Graziano",
"year": 2019
},
{
"title_with_names": "We are machines that claim to Be conscious, Michael Graziano",
"title_with_names": "Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience, M. Graziano",
"year": 2019
},
{
"title_with_names": "Can consciousness be non-biological?, M. Graziano",
"year": 2014
}
]
}

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