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There are a lot of different philosophical positions with regard to the mind-body problem, but very few attempts at a testable scientific theory about how consciousness works. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) is such an attempt.

Nature Opinion article: https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2016.44

Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory



Note that IIT has been criticized [0] for being extremely gameable: it is trivial to build simple circuits that do absolutely nothing, but have more "consciousness" than all humans who have ever lived.

0: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799


Scott's article devastated IIT. Lot's of people stopped looking at IIT after it appeared. Here is a related question: has IIT ever lead to an interesting neurobiological insight? Has IIT suggested an interesting research hypothesis that has been proven or disproven? In other words: is IIT an interesting scientific methodology? Short answer: no.




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