First published: January 7, 2023
Last revised: November 16, 2024

Let's consider the option that consciousness isn't identical to its description, and therefore it cannot be instantiated by merely reproducing the semantics of that process on a different substrate. In this case there needs to be a physical process that instantiates consciousness by virtue of its ontological properties, like an electric field is instantiated by electrons. This possibility implies consciousness is a fundamental physical property of some systems. In a brain (just like in other stuff) there are atoms and fields.

Then are rocks and tables conscious? Is a planet a lot more conscious than a human being? How come the chair I'm sitting on isn't part of my consciousness? I think there is a way to make sense of these questions and to justify this hypothesis a bit more solidly. Suppose that the fields produced as the electrical signals travel along neurons are the ones responsible for instantiating consciousness. We could say that taken individually they might instantiate an "atom" of consciuosness such as the feeling of greenness for a few microseconds. So one needs many of them to instantiate sufficiently long and lasting qualia. Even more, one needs a variety of them in the right order to instantiate the complex feelings and thoughts that exist in our mind. Even if other matter might be producing electrical signals, it would need to be highly coherent and organized to produce something similar to our consciousness.

So the brain's role would to orchestrate the dance of sparks and fields that results in our consciousness. Is this a testable hypothesis?