Electromagnetic-field theories of qualia: can they improve upon standard neuroscience?

Abstract

How do brains create all our different colors, pains, and other conscious qualities? These various qualia are the most essential aspects of consciousness. Yet standard neuroscience (primarily based on synaptic information processing) has not found the synaptic-firing codes, sometimes described as the “spike code,” to account for how these qualia arise and how they unite to form complex perceptions, emotions, et cetera. Nor is it clear how to get from these abstract codes to the qualia we experience. But electromagnetic field (versus synaptic) approaches to how qualia arise have been offered in recent years by Pockett, McFadden, Jones, Bond, Ward and Guevera, Keppler and Shani, Hunt and Schooler, et cetera. These EM-field approaches show promise in offering more viable accounts of qualia. Yet, until now, they have not been evaluated together. We review various EM field theories of qualia, highlight their strengths and weaknesses, and contrast these theories with standard neuroscience approaches.

The hidden structure of consciousness

“…Various spatiotemporal scales of electromagnetic fields are generated by, but not identical with the anatomy of the brain. Jones and Hunt (2023) “suggest that these fields, in both their local and global forms, may be the primary seat of consciousness, working as a gestalt with synaptic firing and other aspects of neuroanatomy to produce the marvelous complexity of minds.”…”

“…According to Loorits (2014) , if we want consciousness to be explained in terms of natural sciences, we should be able to analyze its seemingly non-structural aspects, like qualia, in structural terms. During the last three decades, numerous authors have sought to identify the structure of Phenomenal Consciousness (PC) in classic neuronal organization ( Crick and Koch, 1998 ; Dehaene et al, 1998 ; Tononi and Koch, 2008 ; Jerath and Crawford, 2014 ; Calabrò et al, 2015 ; Koch et al, 2016 ; Boly et al, 2017 ; Gallotto et al, 2017 ; Polák and Marvan, 2018 ; Noel et al, 2019 ; Maillé and Lynn, 2020 ; Seth and Bayne, 2022 ), in the activity of electromagnetic fields ( McFadden, 2020 , 2023 ; Ward and Guevara, 2022 ; Jones and Hunt, 2023 ), or in quantum physics ( Hameroff and Penrose, 2014 ; Tuszynski, 2020 ). However, all these studies do not seem to be able to bridge the explanatory gap ( Levine, 1983 ) between physical phenomena and phenomenal experience ( Marius, 2014 ; Skokowski, 2022 ; Jones and Hunt, 2023 ; Sanfey, 2023 ).…”

Mental causation: an evolutionary perspective

“…One might think here of the sensations arising from a sensory noise field generated locally by the neural substrate, analogous to the noise of a radio signal, from which a signal, meaning a subcomponent of the field, could be extracted by having evolution arrange for some waveforms to be selectively amplified at the expense of others. At the core of this argument is an identity [e.g., see Lindahl (1997) and Jones and Hunt (2023) ], that the waveforms associated with a particular solution to the field equations can be identified with a corresponding conscious sensation. This yields what I would call a “strong” form of EM field theory, equivalent to the reductionist category of theories discussed by Jones and Hunt (2023) in relation to ideas developed, most notably, by Pockett (2000 , 2012) .…”

“…At the core of this argument is an identity [e.g., see Lindahl (1997) and Jones and Hunt (2023) ], that the waveforms associated with a particular solution to the field equations can be identified with a corresponding conscious sensation. This yields what I would call a “strong” form of EM field theory, equivalent to the reductionist category of theories discussed by Jones and Hunt (2023) in relation to ideas developed, most notably, by Pockett (2000 , 2012) .…”

“…This would include computational, representational, and functionalist theories, which one would like to be able assess in a systematic way for how they deal or fail to deal with foundational issues like epiphenomenalism. The task is complicated by different theories having different explanatory targets ( Doerig et al, 2021 ; Kitchener and Hales, 2022 ; Jones and Hunt, 2023 ), so foundational issues are not always addressed, nor is it clear that they necessarily should be in all cases. This makes it hard to generalize about non-neurophysical theories, which are in consequence given less attention here than perhaps they deserve.…”