Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2021
Francesco Ellia, Jeremiah Hendren, Matteo Grasso et al.
61 citations
Subjective experience can be objectively explained in physical terms by moving beyond cognitive functions and understanding how experience is structured. Integrated information theory provides a framework to account for both the essential properties of every experience and the specific properties that make particular experiences feel the way they do, avoiding the fallacy that only objective properties should be explained by science.
Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2021
Matteo Grasso, Andrew M Haun, Giulio Tononi
20 citations
A grid-like neural network representing posterior cortical areas can perform the same fixation function as a map-like pretectal circuit, but only the grid-like network's cause-effect structure, as analyzed by Integrated Information Theory, accounts for the subjective experience of space as extended. Standard functional analysis explains what the model does—encoding, decoding, and triggering eye movements—but cannot explain why a human fixating a stimulus would also see it at a location. The map-like network, lacking lateral connections, is functionally equivalent yet cannot account for the phenomenal properties of space.
Entropy
February 11, 2023
William Marshall, Matteo Grasso, William G. P. Mayner et al.
19 citations
Integrated information theory (IIT) proposes that consciousness is identical to the cause-effect structure generated by a maximally irreducible substrate (a Φ-structure). This work introduces a definition for system-integrated information (φs) grounded in IIT's postulates of existence, intrinsicality, information, and integration. It examines how determinism, degeneracy, and connectivity fault lines affect system-integrated information. The proposed measure identifies complexes as systems whose φs exceeds that of any overlapping candidate systems.