Is information the other face of causation in biological systems?

Yurchenko, Sergey B.

doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2023.104925

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 93 publications

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“…What follows is that IIT's account of free will is implicitly based on the two assumptions (Yurchenko, 2023a):…”

Section: Its Underlying Reason Is Bewilderingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated Information Theory 4.0 is both weakly panpsychist and strongly dualist, but many theories of consciousness are also prone to it

Yurchenko

2024

Preprint

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The Integrated Information Theory (IIT) is one of the dominant scientiﬁc theories of consciousness. However, its foundations, mathematical formalism, and predictions on the neural correlates of consciousness are widely criticized in the last few years. A letter, signed by 124 neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers, argues that the theory is speculative and untestable to the degree that makes it pseudoscience. Their main concern is its panpsychist flavor. I argue that IIT 4.0’s account of free will is dualist rather than panpsychist. These features are not, however, specific for IIT exclusively. While being metaphysically hostile, panpsychism and dualism are inherent to many theories of consciousness (ToCs) because the former seems to be the most elegant answer to how to seamlessly integrate consciousness into the fabric of physical reality, whereas the latter proposes a straightforward solution to the free will problem. I also argue that a complete theory of consciousness must be inspired by the evolutionary theory of life, yet not being prone to conflate biological free will with the psychological sense of agency.

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“…What follows is that IIT's account of free will is implicitly based on the two assumptions (Yurchenko, 2023a):…”

Section: Its Underlying Reason Is Bewilderingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated Information Theory 4.0 is both weakly panpsychist and strongly dualist, but many theories of consciousness are also prone to it

Yurchenko

2024

Preprint

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“…Different quantum phenomena are suggested as a viable option to account for human (and animal) freedom to decide (for review see Jedlicka, 2017;Hunt and Schooler, 2019). Depending on whether the quantum phenomena proposed are macroscopic or microscopic, the freedom to decide might be either consciously initiated and driven downward to executive modules (Hameroff and Penrose, 2014;Fisher, 2017) or unconsciously initiated, processed over scales, and exposed up to passive conscious experience post factum (Beck and Eccles, 1998;Yurchenko, 2022;2023a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can there be a synergistic core emerging in the brain hierarchy to control neural activity by downward causation?

Yurchenko

2023

Preprint

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The mind-brain relation underlies causal analysis in neuroscience, linked to physical reductionism, information theory, and network science. While the mystery of consciousness is still unresolved, the neurophysiological processes responsible of its emergence from brain dynamics are intensively discussed in contemporary neuroscience. Causation is involved dually there. The first issue is about how neural activity in the brain causally generates conscious experience. The second issue speculates about how consciousness itself could have causal power (free will) to control the brain. Given the emergent and informational nature of consciousness, mental causation could be admissible on the two conditions: downward causation is possible, and information has causal power beyond that provided by matter. Recently, the theory of causal emergence, based on coarse-graining and partial information decomposition, suggested that synergistic information might satisfy the above conditions, thereby reviving the old idea of homunculus capable of controlling the brain. Based on the Causal Equivalence Principle and the definition of multiscale hierarchy, this review shows that assuming these conditions leads inevitably to the double causation fallacy and Cartesian dualism.

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Panpsychism and dualism in the science of consciousness

Yurchenko

2024

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

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Is information the other face of causation in biological systems?

Cited by 3 publications

References 93 publications

Integrated Information Theory 4.0 is both weakly panpsychist and strongly dualist, but many theories of consciousness are also prone to it

Integrated Information Theory 4.0 is both weakly panpsychist and strongly dualist, but many theories of consciousness are also prone to it

Can there be a synergistic core emerging in the brain hierarchy to control neural activity by downward causation?

Panpsychism and dualism in the science of consciousness

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