Related papers: Hard Problem and Free Will: an information-theoret…
Functional theories of consciousness, based on emergence of conscious experiences from the execution of a particular function by an insentient brain, face the hard problem of consciousness of explaining why the insentient brain should…
Chalmer's famously identified pinpointing an explanation for our subjective experience as the "hard problem of consciousness". He argued that subjective experience constitutes a "hard problem" in the sense that its explanation will…
The human mind is constituted by inner, subjective, private, first-person conscious experiences that cannot be measured with physical devices or observed from an external, objective, public, third-person perspective. The qualitative,…
The brain is composed of electrically excitable neuronal networks regulated by the activity of voltage-gated ion channels. Further portraying the molecular composition of the brain, however, will not reveal anything remotely reminiscent of…
The problem of explaining the relationship between subjective experience and physical reality remains difficult and unresolved. In most explanations, consciousness is epiphenomenal, without causal power. The most notable exception is…
We present an information-theoretic interpretation of quantum formalism based on a Bayesian framework and devoid of any extra axiom or principle. Quantum information is construed as a technique for analyzing a logical system subject to…
In previous papers, we demonstrated that an ontology of quantum mechanics, described in terms of states and events with internal phenomenal aspects (a form of panprotopsychism), is well suited to explain consciousness. We showed that the…
We tackle the problem of consciousness by taking the naturally selected, embodied organism as our starting point. We provide a formalism describing how biological systems such as human bodies self-organize to hierarchically interpret…
The issue of whether we make decisions freely has vexed philosophers for millennia, Resolving this is vital for solving a diverse range of problems, from the physiology of how the brain makes decisions (and how we assign moral…
We will argue that a phenomenological analysis of consciousness, similar to that of Husserl, shows that the effects of phenomenal qualities shape our perception of the world. It also shows the way the physical and mathematical sciences…
This note is intended to foster a discussion about the extent to which typical problems arising in quantum information theory are algorithmically decidable (in principle rather than in practice). Various problems in the context of…
The ability to extract relevant information is critical to learning. An ingenious approach as such is the information bottleneck, an optimisation problem whose solution corresponds to a faithful and memory-efficient representation of…
The hard problem of consciousness is the question how subjective experience arises from brain matter. I suggest exploring the possibility that quantum physics could be part of the answer. The simultaneous unity and complexity of subjective…
The mind-body problem is reviewed in the context of a non-technical account of quantum information theory. The importance of clearly defining: `what is physical?' is highlighted, since only then can we give meaning to the concept…
In order to have the most safe way of dealing with unanalysable quantum whole the Copenhagen interpretation takes as a "frame of reference" the preparation parameters and outcomes of the measurements. It represents {\it passive}…
We present an experimental illustration on the quantum sensitivity of decision making machinery. In the decision making process, we consider the role of available information, say hint, whether it influences the optimal choices. To the end,…
Quantum information theory is the study of the achievable limits of information processing within quantum mechanics. Many different types of information can be accommodated within quantum mechanics, including classical information, coherent…
Any theory amenable to scientific inquiry must have testable consequences. This minimal criterion is uniquely challenging for the study of consciousness, as we do not know if it is possible to confirm via observation from the outside…
Physics has long lived with a schizophrenia that desires determinism for measured systems while demanding that experimenters decide what to measure on a whim. Intriguingly, such a free will assumption for experimenters has thwarted many…
According to our current conception of physics, any valid physical theory is supposed to describe the objective evolution of a unique external world. However, this condition is challenged by quantum theory, which suggests that physical…