Category: Biology

The Noosphere

Back in February, I briefly discussed the Global Conscious Project and the dot, and while I would like to explore these topics in greater depth, it would be good to provide a summary of the phenomenon it aims to measure, the noosphere.

Just as water on Earth is contained by the hydrosphere and life comprises the biosphere, the mind exists within an analogous domain called the noosphere. Translated from the Greek words nous or mind,¹ and sphaîra or sphere,² it refers to a “sphere of mind”³ or a “thinking layer” that evolved from living beings.⁴ As humans and their activities evolved over time, so too did the biosphere, creating a relationship of co-evolution between the two as they continued to interact over time.⁵ It has also been described as “a global topology of human awareness emerging through recent technological and cultural interconnection.”⁶

The term was first developed in Paris in the early 1920’s by Vladimir Vernadsky, a Russian mineralogist, geochemist, and natural philosopher, who was delivering lectures on the biosphere, geology, and chemistry.⁷ These lectures inspired paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and mathematician Édouard Le Roy, along with Vernadsky, to consider an additional, thinking layer to the planet that developed from the biosphere.⁸ Vernadsky was interested in the growing significance of human activity on the planet and suggested that humanity’s “collective reason” was influencing the evolutionary and geochemical processes on Earth.⁹ Specifically, it was “scientific thought” combined with humanity’s activities on Earth which developed a new stage in the planet’s evolutionary history.¹⁰

While they were in agreement that human culture and technology were the causal factors behind the development of the noosphere, each had their own specific sense of what the noosphere was.¹¹ While Tielhard considered the noosphere to have certain mystical or spiritual qualities to it, Vernadsky considered it in a more materialistic sense.¹² Le Roy’s views were said to be more similar to Tielhard’s, as both men were Catholic and shared an interest in topics which could bridge their religious beliefs with scientific research.¹³

Today, the noosphere is not a very popular idea in Western countries,¹⁴ but remains as a topic of interest in Russia¹⁵ and Ukraine.¹⁶ Contemporary discussions often involve sustainable development and environmental conservation¹⁷ and can be framed it in terms of living systems theory.¹⁸ As a superorganism, the noosphere can be characterized as being similar to other living systems like cells given the existence of functions or “subsystems” which process matter and energy, or information.¹⁹ When we consider the impact that the internet has had on both human societies and the biosphere,²⁰ it seems intuitive to consider the noosphere as something very real and influential with respect to the planet and the organisms which inhabit it. Moreover, when we consider how social media on smartphones has increased connectivity and the ways we are able to reach others, through means like short videos, direct messages on social media, and tweets, this “thinking layer” of Earth seemingly continues to develop.

That being said, is there anything beyond our current technologies that contribute to or influence the noosphere? Maybe. The Global Consciousness Project claims that it is able to measure “collective consciousness” through the use of random number generators (RGNs).²¹ The idea is that “shared consciousness can cause the network to stop behaving in a random fashion” when “large numbers of people share a focused attention toward the same thing” or “smaller numbers of people are in a more coherent state and hold a collective intention.”²² Interesting.

While the Project is on its second generation of the RGN network,²³ the first version and its corresponding website contained a visual representation of the data to indicate “conscious coherence.”²⁴ The “dot” ranges in colour depending on the variance of randomly generated numbers detected within the network.²⁵ A blue dot signifies a “significantly small network variance. Suggestive of deeply shared, internally motivated group focus” while on the opposite side of the spectrum, a red dot indicates a “significantly large network variance. Suggests broadly shared coherence of thought and emotion.”²⁶ I used to check the dot once in a while, sometimes after events like January 6^th 2021, but would go months or even a year without checking back. I never took it too seriously, but it was always fun to see what it was picking up. Today, as I write this, something is broken because it’s been stuck on grey for hours.

The term noosphere was brought to my attention by an old URL used for the first generation of the GCP. At one point, the website was hosted on noosphere.princeton.edu and while the Princeton address is no longer in use, it can be seen on the Wayback Machine. After learning about the Project and the dot, I became interested in the noosphere and whether what they claim to be measuring is actually real. I will write more on the GCP and how minds can supposedly influence RNGs in an upcoming blog post. It has something to do with quantum effects, presumably generated by minds, but I need to do more research.

Works Cited

1 David Pitt and Paul R. Samson, The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader: Global Environment, Society and Change (1998; Taylor & Francis Group, 1998), 4.

2 Boris Shoshitaishvili, “From Anthropocene to Noosphere: The Great Acceleration,” Earth’s Future 9, no. 2 (2021): 5, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001917.

3 Valentina Voronkova, “The Formation of the Concept of Noosphere Development of Modern Society in the Conditions of Information Society,” Philosophy and Cosmology 16, no. 16 (2016): 179.

4 Clément Vidal, “What Is the Noosphere? Planetary Superorganism, Major Evolutionary Transition and Emergence,” Systems Research and Behavioral Science 41, no. 4 (2024): 614, https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2997.

5 David Pitt and Paul R. Samson, The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader: Global Environment, Society and Change (1998; Taylor & Francis Group, 1998), 18.

6 Shoshitaishvili, “From Anthropocene to Noosphere,” 4.

7 Pitt and Samson, The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader, 26; Shoshitaishvili, “From Anthropocene to Noosphere,” 6.

8 Shoshitaishvili, “From Anthropocene to Noosphere,” 6; Vidal, “What Is the Noosphere?,” 614.

9 Jonathan D. Oldfield and Denis JB Shaw, “VI Vernadsky and the Noosphere Concept: Russian Understandings of Society–Nature Interaction,” Geoforum 37, no. 1 (2006): 148.

10 Oldfield and Shaw, “VI Vernadsky and the Noosphere Concept,” 149.

11 Vidal, “What Is the Noosphere?,” 6.

12 Voronkova, “The Formation of the Concept of Noosphere Development of Modern Society in the Conditions of Information Society,” 180; Pitt and Samson, The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader, 53.

13 Pitt and Samson, The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader, 51.

14 Vidal, “What Is the Noosphere?,” 614.

15 Oldfield and Shaw, “VI Vernadsky and the Noosphere Concept,” 146.

16 Voronkova, “The Formation of the Concept of Noosphere Development of Modern Society in the Conditions of Information Society,” 187; Sergiy Sonko, “Man in Noosphere: Evolution and Further Development,” Philosophy and Cosmology 22, no. 22 (2019): 51.

17 Sonko, “Man in Noosphere,” 68; Oldfield and Shaw, “VI Vernadsky and the Noosphere Concept,” 145.

18 Vidal, “What Is the Noosphere?,” 615.

19 Vidal, “What Is the Noosphere?,” 615.

20 Vidal, “What Is the Noosphere?,” 617.

21 “Global Consciousness Project 2.0,” accessed September 4, 2026, https://gcp2.net/about.

22 “Global Consciousness Project 2.0.” This information can be found by expanding the section posing the question ‘How can we observe the effects of consciousness?’

23 “Global Consciousness Project 2.0.” Found under ‘How does the GCP 2.0 network differ from its predecessor in GCP 1?’

24 “The Global Consciousness Project,” accessed September 4, 2026, https://global-mind.org/.

25 “Global Consciousness Project Dot,” accessed September 4, 2026, https://global-mind.org/gcpdot/.

26 “Global Consciousness Project Dot.”

September 4, 2026

Souls, Consciousness, and Dualism

I came across a Noema article a little while ago that makes an interesting claim about consciousness and the soul. It argues that the soul does not belong to a separate physical realm or is composed of something separate from the rest of nature, and can, theoretically at least, be explained by physics. Specifically, it begins by stating that “consciousness is not separate from the physical world – our “soul” is of the same nature as our body and any other phenomenon of the world.”¹ While this brought to mind the relationship of energy and matter, let’s see what the article says about how this might work.

The article begins with a subtle critique of our scientific understanding of the physical world and aims to motivate the reader towards remaining sympathetic towards old ideas about the soul. The author, Carlo Rovelli, states that although some believe that science can be used to produce explanations of “everything,” there are still many phenomena which we do not fully understand. “We can’t cure the flu or accurately predict the weather two weeks ahead.” Moreover, when we do understand certain physical laws, “we still cannot account for what they imply.” He appeals to a bicycle breaking down and how we go about restoring it, stating that we must ask a mechanic for help rather than a particle physicist. Though true, this comparison conflates science and engineering. We don’t ask scientists how to build bridges and engines, we ask them to provide us with regularities of the physical world expressed in mathematical terms which are then used by engineers to build and maintain devices and infrastructure.

From here, the article moves to a discussion of “our own brain and body” as an example that “we understand the least about” which I disagree with. We understand a lot about both, and while there are gaps in our understanding and more to learn about specific mechanisms, this framing has been exaggerated. Although consciousness in particular “is a very complicated natural phenomenon,” the fact that is poorly understood is not due to the complexity of consciousness but a failure within philosophy to properly identify and organize the explanatory components required to improve our understanding.

After a bit of background on the “hard problem of consciousness” and the “explanatory gap,” Rovelli briefly appeals to Spinoza’s ideas surrounding God and nature to motivate his position about souls and consciousness. “Our soul could be a phenomenon of the same basic nature as any other phenomenon in nature.” Though this is a reasonable position to propose, he doesn’t expand on this line of thinking, he just mentions Spinoza and moves on.

Rovelli’s next move is a good one despite failing to credit Kant with the idea. He reminds the reader that though Chalmers claims that science cannot explain the phenomenal aspects of experience, science is “entirely about experience.” Rather than representing the world objectively from an external perspective, it in fact examines the world as experienced by human observers. For example, we see a marble or a ball roll down an inclined plane and investigate why this is the case. Any so-called objectivity associated with the science is deduced through repeated experiments which indicate a regularity and predictability associated with our attempts to measure and represent observed phenomena. Objectivity is arrived at through descriptions of the natural world as they appear to us.

Further down, the author explicitly states this relationship. “We do not derive a first-person perspective from an objective third-person view. It is the opposite: Any account is perspectival because knowledge is always embodied.” This is a great way of articulating it and is more or less where Kant was coming from. The default “view” or understanding is subjective, and therefore, we must take this into consideration when thinking about and discussing natural phenomena. Kant didn’t stress the significance of embodiment in his writing, as this idea is a relatively recent addition to our understanding, but is very significant to include and I’m glad Rovelli includes it.

Ultimately, the author’s argument provided for why there is no “hard problem” or “explanatory gap” is not the strongest but it is present.

P1: “The world I access is the information I have about it, and I am a part of the world.”
P2: “Any account [of reality] is approximate, has blind spots and is realized within reality, so it is embodied in a part of that same reality. There are hinges between a representation and where is is embodied, and this may be a singular point in a representation, but it is not a metaphysical gap. It is not an explanatory gap.”
C: “There is no ‘hard problem’” and “our mental life can very well be of the same nature as any other phenomenon in the universe.”

So in a nutshell, because we appeal to subjectivity for objectivity/science, there is no gap and no “hard problem.” The origins of our understanding of reality is through a subjective point of view, and as such, is coupled to the universe. This eliminates the duality that underpins the metaphysical gap, explanatory gap, and the hard problem. I believe this is what Rovelli is trying to say. The argument would benefit from more explanation in P2 because it’s a bit vague, so I’m not exactly sure if I have this right.

Interestingly enough, he does mention Kant shortly after this argument by appealing to the idea of humans as “transcendental subjects.” Our experiences are “not obtained by addition to a physical state, but by subtraction from a complete physical account.” He states that mental processes articulate only the “salient characteristics” of their underlying physical processes, and its this fact which allows us to appeal to Kantian transcendence. It’s an interesting move that I would like him to expand upon. What does it mean to be a “transcendental subject?” Why does this matter? It sounds cool and spiritually-aligned but is there anything more we can learn from this line of thinking?

The article finishes with several claims that Rovelli believes are substantiated by the arguments made throughout. By ignoring or rejecting a dualistic perspective of the universe, which I’m fine with, we can then consider souls and minds as just another part of reality. Again, there are no apparent problems with this line of thinking. That said, he goes on to claim that the reason why this is compelling is because “hundreds of years of astonishing and unexpected success of the sciences … have convincingly shown that apparent metaphysical gaps are never such.” That “Earth is not metaphysically different from the heavens, living beings are not metaphysically different from inanimate matter, humans are not metaphysically different from the body.” Well yes, the last two examples are true, but what do you mean by “heavens?” Sure, we have discovered a deep continuity throughout the physical world, from the laws of physics to chemistry to biochemistry to evolutionary biology, physiology, and cognitive science, but his conclusions are still a bit hasty given the arguments presented. In general, I am sympathetic to Rovelli’s perspective but I think the reasons he uses to justify his position could benefit from a deeper analysis.

My hypothesis is that the answer we are looking for is energy. Clearly, consciousness is the result of physiological activity generated by the body, but an explanation for a soul requires more investigation. It makes sense that energy has something to do with it because of what we commonly think of ghosts, spirits, or some other supernatural phenomenon. Experiential testimonies will often refer to a kind of energy, movement, or electricity that can be felt, and apparitions must be caused by some kind of physical phenomenon. Furthermore, if certain devices or technologies can truly detect the presence of something other-worldly, it usually does this through some kind of physical, usually electronic, interface. We don’t necessarily need to discard this idea of “duality” wholesale, it can be explained by the relationship between energy and matter.

It seems as though there is a relationship or connection between souls and consciousness, but the question is what does this entail? Does consciousness persist after death, or does it dissolve or disperse once the body can no longer support it? While we can theorize and conjecture about answers to these questions, it ultimately comes down to empirical evidence to provide an explanation of souls and consciousness beyond the living being. Science may not explain everything at the moment, but it is a powerful tool for generating truthful explanations to our questions and ideas.

Works Cited

1 Carlo Rovelli, “There Is No ‘Hard Problem Of Consciousness,’” Noema, May 7, 2026, https://www.noemamag.com/there-is-no-hard-problem-of-consciousness.

July 8, 2026

The Papal Perspective

I joined X/Twitter recently in an effort to be noticed by the senpais within the field of consciousness studies. In general, I’m not big on social media but I also recognize that it can be useful for reaching a larger audience. It’s interesting to see what people are talking about, especially with respect to AI.

One tweet that has recently generated a lot of discussion is one published by Pope Leo XIV on artificial intelligence:

He is correct, but of course, his claims are informed by a Catholic point of view. Personally, I am agnostic so though this tweet resonates with me, it does so for different reasons than it might with others.

AIs do not undergo experiences because they are not built in a way which is analogous to living beings. Even if they were to possess a body, that doesn’t mean that they have experiences. The reason is because experiences rely on semantic information which computers do not have access to. Robots like iCub may look like they experience elements of the environment, but they do not because their bodies are not built in an analogous manner to biological creatures. They do not possess affect and motivation, and lack the perception/action loops identifiable in organisms. It isn’t enough to have a body to produce experience, it’s the functional organization inherent to that body which matters.

The Pope is correct that they “do not feel joy or pain” because they aren’t built to have these signals impact their behaviour in the relevant ways. The if-then contingencies that constitute behaviour are insufficient to be classified as affect because these operations are descriptions of the real deal. There is no integrated system of affect, perception, and action; the code AIs and robots run on are abstractions of the physiology of biological systems.

AIs do not know what anything means because they don’t work with meaning, they work with rules. If a threshold has been met or crossed, subsequent functions are executed as a result. They cannot judge good or evil because this requires an evaluation of qualitative information. Though qualities can be represented by quantitative information to a degree, there will be aspects that cannot be fully captured. The colour red is not reducible to frequencies and wavelengths, it depends on which cones and colour columns are being activated in the retina and brain of the viewer.

“They may imitate or even simulate, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational, and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom.” The first part of this sentence is correct, but a bit more explanation is required when we get to “relational and spiritual perspective.” I’m not exactly sure what he means by ‘relational’ though I think I can guess, and the Pope’s appeal to spirituality may not resonate with everyone. The appeal to wisdom is more poetic than a necessity, because understanding can be achieved regardless of whether wisdom is developed as a result. It might be, but I would leave wisdom out of it. We know that the Pope is interested in exalting humans given that we are supposedly made in the image of God, so this claim is understandable regardless of its truth value. For the most part, humans do grow in their ability to make wise decisions and offer sound advice to others as they move through life, but this isn’t a necessity. Humans are magnificent, but I find most living beings magnificent in their own way, regardless of the metaphysics behind their existence. AIs and robots are interesting and potentially useful, but my concern is equating their behaviours and capacities to those of biological organisms. They are artifacts created by humans, and we must keep this in mind as their abilities progress and expand over time.

Neural Blender has stopped working for me, even after creating an account. It just hangs and says my image is being generated ad infinitum. As such, Neural Blender and I are no longer friends. I have a new friend: https://aifreeforever.com

May 30, 2026

Comment Section Contributions

In the YouTube video “Why AI Will Never Be Conscious,” Alex O’Connor interviews Anil Seth and asks a number of questions surrounding consciousness and artificial intelligence. I didn’t find the conversation to be all that interesting, but maybe it’s because I’m not the target audience. Regardless, what I did find rather interesting was a comment left by @kevinharrison2074:

“…a system which forms a temporally extended, self-modelling, world-inhabiting process whose internal organization gives rise to an actual point of view”

This is actually good because it provides a rough definition of what subjectivity involves and where it comes from. Sure, “internal organization” is vague but it’s a start. As such, it gets added to The List.

What I will give Seth credit for is his brief mention of autopoiesis at 0:25:06 and his half-hearted attempt at moving away from a computational perspective of consciousness.¹ Characterizing consciousness, even loosely, as a controlled hallucination² is not a helpful why of explaining consciousness though, given the semantic baggage attached to ‘hallucination’. This phrasing puts the cart before the horse, because hallucinations are erroneous perceptions. Perceptions themselves aren’t necessarily erroneous, they are interpretations generated from sensory data.

Maslow’s Law of the Instrument can be applied to research and theory: if the only thing you study is the brain, everything looks like a neuron.

Works Cited

1 Alex O’Connor, Why AI Will Never Be Conscious – Anil Seth, 2026, 1:42:27, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsi8T_WtLnE.

2 Alex O’Connor, Why AI Will Never Be Conscious – Anil Seth, at 1:25:13.

May 27, 2026

Simulation Theory

Based on my interests and profile on Academia.edu, I was invited to comment on a preprint paper by Edervaldo José de Souza Melo, an independent researcher in Brazil. The title immediately piqued my interest because it suggests a link between biological evolution and phenomenology, a feature which is seldom offered in consciousness studies. In “Simulation, Self, and the Phenomenal Field: An Evolutionary Hypothesis on Consciousness,” Melo offers an explanatory framework which accounts for the organization of subjective experience.¹ He states that consciousness is “the phenomenological manifestation of an evolutionary simulation system” and “emerges from the interaction of three fundamental dimensions,” namely:

“the neural integration of sensory information originating in the external environment”
“the continuous influence of internal bodily states, including interoceptive and affective signals”
“the capacity of the nervous system to simulate and anticipate possible scenarios prior to action”²

Melo goes on to explain that this model is not “merely computational” and states that it is “structured as a phenomenal field organized around a bodily located point of view.” This is the important part because he stresses that organisms do not “merely process information about the world” but instead “experiences the world from its own perspective as an embodied agent.”

Here, Melo is acknowledging that something similar to computation is going on, but reframes consciousness in terms of phenomenological and biological principles. While we can interpret biological functionality in terms of computation, it’s important that we start moving away from these metaphors. For one, this framing moves descriptions of physiological processes away from the realm of natural systems to formal systems, which misrepresents the phenomena in question. We have such a robust understanding of various biological and physiological processes that to frame them in terms of formal systems and computation is unnecessarily reductive. Back in the 1950’s and 60’s, it made sense why some might be tempted to classify biological functions in terms of computers, but today, this is generally a bad move to make. The other reason this is not an ideal way of describing organisms and natural phenomenon is due to the rise and anthropomorphization of artificial intelligence. Framing cognition, physiology, and biological processes in terms of computers only contributes to the questions and misunderstandings surrounding what AIs are and how they work. We need to be working on clarifying the differences between computers, AIs, and biological organisms, not contributing to the further conflation of the two.

Melo’s paper goes on to explain his position and the significance of memory, affect, and bodily states for generating conscious awareness and a sense of self. He also describes how internal modelling and predictive processing are adaptive capacities that organisms developed through natural selection, which is where this idea of ‘simulation’ enters the story. Melo discusses how the ability to anticipate future events from past experiences is a significant feature of conscious experience, which of course, immediately reminded me of Rosen and his ideas from Anticipatory Systems.

Although Melo claims that his framework is “largely neutral”³ regarding the metaphysical questions surrounding consciousness, this paper provides hints at his beliefs regarding the existence of subjectivity in general. In section 7.4 he states “rather than being a mere byproduct of neural complexity, consciousness may therefore represent an adaptive mode of information organization that allows organisms to anticipate and navigate future possibilities.”⁴ Later in section 9, he articulates how biological organisms gradually evolved more sophisticated neural integration and representational capacities to “adapt their behaviour in response to changing environmental conditions”⁵ Sensing that we seem to be on the same wavelength, I asked him why he remained neutral regarding the metaphysical problems. To me, it was an easy move to claim that organisms have subjective experiences because they provide motivation to respond to sensations and predictions in specific ways. His hypothesis seems to be headed in that direction anyway, so why not make the connection here? Melo responded by stating that a discussion of the hard problem with respect to his hypothesis was better addressed in a separate publication, and that introducing it here would leave the argument too open-ended or too superficial. He did, however, concede that motivation, feelings, and value are important for explaining subjectivity, specifically in how an organism “transforms information into significance.” I really like this phrasing because it suggests a connection to attentional processes and how certain stimuli might be deemed more salient than others.

This article and brief exchange with Melo has reenergized me and renewed my drive to research and write on consciousness. The last few months have been a challenge and recently, it was brought to my attention that I was experiencing burnout. I was burnt out from grad school and working on my thesis, and my job has only contributed to this since I defended and graduated last summer. I wasn’t sure what kind of career I wanted to pursue or how to get out of the rut I found myself in, but today, things are turning around. I am going to continue where I left off and make it work.

Back in 2025, Axel Cleeremans, and Liad Mudrik, and Anil Seth published “Consciousness science: where are we, where are we going, and what if we get there?” which presents an overview of our current understanding and directions for the future of a theory of consciousness. While it does mention “predictive processing” as a theory of brain function, it analyzes it from a neuroscience perspective, rather than a philosophical one. The authors state that the value of this theory is that it provides “resources for developing and testing systematic or explanatory correlations between brain processes and properties of conscious experience”⁶ which may be true, but when it comes to the phenomenon of consciousness, we are still too narrowly focused on the brain. A shift in perspectives is needed because it’s the body and organism as a whole we should be looking at with respect to developing a theory of consciousness. The authors are remain interested in empirical predictions resulting from existing theories of consciousness, which investigate the issue from the wrong point of view. Rather than determining whether Global Workspace Theory, Higher-Order Theory, Integrated Information Theory, or Predictive Processing Theory provides the best explanation, we need to forget about the brain for a minute and consider how bodies and organisms function as operationally closed systems. While the authors understand an interdisciplinary approach is needed, they believe that philosophers of science are of particular benefit. Because there is a lot of conceptual work to be done in this area, for example, articulating definitions, analyzing conceptual foundations, and discussing constraints research, philosophy of science can help iron out these fundamental details. Melo took a similar stance in his paper, claiming that any theory must provide an explanatory model for consciousness, one which identifies the biological function of subjectivity.⁷ His hypothesis serves as a “case study in how scientific models are constructed to explain multi-level phenomena within the life sciences,” where the examination of models “remains a central task for the philosophy of science.”⁸ Clearly, philosophers of science provide key insight for developing a theory of consciousness, but we also need philosophy of biology.

The article by Cleeremans, Mudrik, and Seth concludes with an overview of the scientific, clinical, ethical, and societal implications that a theory of consciousness would introduce. Topics like animal welfare, prenatal policy, medicine, neurotechnology, and human enhancement are all interesting and important, but the domain that I feel is the most significant is artificial intelligence. As agents, robots, and chatbots continue to improve, we will need to understand how these technologies are distinct from biological organisms. Otherwise, we will draw conclusions based on their behaviours and functional similarities to brains or organisms, potentially leading to negative outcomes in the future.

My raison d’être is therefore to forward the theories of consciousness that move us toward better explanations and ultimately, an understanding of why subjective experience evolved in living beings. Melo’s hypothesis moves us one step closer to this outcome, and I am very grateful to have been invited to comment on it.

From ‘Consciousness Science’ by Cleeremans, Mudrik, and Seth

Works Cited

1 Edervaldo José de Souza Melo, “Simulation, Self, and the Phenomenal Field: An Evolutionary Hypothesis on Consciousness,” no. 2026031661, preprint, Preprints, March 23, 2026, 2, https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202603.1661.v1.

2 Melo, “Simulation, Self, and the Phenomenal Field,” 3.

3 Melo, “Simulation, Self, and the Phenomenal Field,” 25.

4 Melo, “Simulation, Self, and the Phenomenal Field,” 16.

5 Melo, “Simulation, Self, and the Phenomenal Field,” 18.

6 Axel Cleeremans et al., “Consciousness Science: Where Are We, Where Are We Going, and What If We Get There?,” Frontiers in Science 3 (October 2025): 7, https://doi.org/10.3389/fsci.2025.1546279.

7 Melo, “Simulation, Self, and the Phenomenal Field,” 6.

8 Melo, “Simulation, Self, and the Phenomenal Field,” 28.

May 18, 2026

Organisms are NOT Algorithms

As mentioned recently, I am working on a response to Yuval Harari’s book Homo Deus. The reason is because it argues for a dystopian future constructed from a series of fallacious premises. These premises have issues due to the arguments he constructs for them, often through the use of strawmen and ignoring evidence to the contrary or other perspectives. Throughout, it seems that he’s furthering some kind of agenda, and for those who are not familiar with the author, it remains unclear what this involves until about the final third of the book. Having been aware of Harari’s affiliation with the World Economic Forum,¹ I began this book suspicious of his motivations for writing it. Within pages, I was inspired to write a response essay because there are far better solutions to the issues he outlines throughout than the ones he proposes.

One of the central premises of Homo Deus is this idea that organisms are algorithms. In chapter 2, on page 96, he introduces the reader to the claim by heading a new section with this very idea. He begins the topic by asking whether we can be sure that animals actually have “a subjective world of needs, sensations, and emotions,”² fearing that we may be anthropomorphizing their behaviours. On the next page, he clarifies that they do because “all mammals evolved emotional abilities and needs.”³ Moreover, emotions are useful because they are “biochemical algorithms that are vital for the survival and reproduction of all mammals.”⁴ He then explains what an algorithm is without catching the blatant category error he commits.

An algorithm is just a series of steps for achieving some outcome. The example he appeals to is the same kind that I myself have been using for years now: a culinary recipe. While his example discusses vegetable soup, mine has always revolved around bread because it’s a far more finicky food to make. Ingredients must be introduced in the correct order in specific proportions, and temperature matters a great deal. Anyway, a recipe, in any form it exists, whether on a cue card or on a blog, always consists of the steps required to achieve the desired outcome. But you know what a recipe also requires? A set of hands to take physical ingredients and work with them to make a physical product. The recipe itself is not the same as the loaf of bread when it comes out of the oven. It’s a description of the steps one must take to make bread in the physical world. I can’t eat a recipe. If there was an attempt to eat a recipe, I would be eating the cue card it’s written on. On the next page, Harari actually mentions this in passing, and it’s amazing he doesn’t catch his mistake. Arguably, he will not because he’s [allegedly] not interested in telling the truth, but in furthering a narrative. Anyway, he states “A recipe by itself cannot make soup. You need a person to read the recipe and follow the prescribed set of steps.”⁵ He does try to save the argument later by stating “humans are algorithms that produce … copies of themselves.”⁶ That “the algorithms controlling humans work through sensations, emotions, and thoughts.”⁷ An organism’s body is a calculator, and that what we think of as emotions and sensations are actually algorithms. These calculations are felt as sensations.

There are no calculations occurring in living beings, at least not in the literal sense. Physiological processes can be described as algorithms or calculations, but they are inherently very different. The sensation of hunger is not inherently a series of steps, it’s the presence of the hormone ghrelin in the bloodstream. The brain detects the presence of this hormone and organizes an individual’s behaviour in response. Though we can articulate the release of hormones and neurotransmitters in algorithmic terms, there is no algorithm until a human creates it through observation and representation. Just as you need a person to read a recipe, you need one to write an algorithm. In a universe without intelligent beings, all that’s occurring is just a system governed by the laws of physics and biochemistry. There’s only cause-effect relationships, and while these causal relationships can be described in algorithmic terms, they themselves are not algorithms.

In Anticipatory Systems, Robert Rosen differentiates between natural systems and formal systems. A natural system is any physical system that exists within the universe, either created by nature or humans. Just as a forest is a natural system, so is a car or a computer. A formal system, on the other hand, is created by an observer measuring and articulating a natural system. These can be expressed by using forms of notation like mathematics, logic, and music. Formal systems aim to represent natural systems, and how well it does so is determined by the accuracy of the predictions it generates. If a prediction is discovered to be true when some experiment is performed on the natural system, then we can surmise that our formal system accurately represents that natural system. If not, then we must determine which aspect of our representation is incorrect so that it can be rectified.

An algorithm belongs to the world of formal systems, not natural systems. It relies upon observation and representation to achieve the desired outcome. If we don’t get the outcome we are interested in, we tweak the algorithm. We fix the bugs in the computer code, we reduce the amount of salt we add, or we make the water warmer. Our experience interacting with the outcome, whether software or bread, is what informs us about whether the algorithm is appropriate or not.

Organisms are not algorithms, they are physical systems undergoing various physiological changes. Though we can articulate physiological processes as algorithms, they nonetheless will always belong to the domain of physical reality, not formal systems. Hunger is an experience, blood pressure is the relationship between the heart and arteries, and wolf populations are fluctuating quantities of individuals with hearts and sensations of hunger. Hormones are chemicals, atoms which bind together based on the laws of physics. There are no steps, procedures, or descriptions without an observer who is able to translate their experiences of interacting with the physical world into representations of it.

To believe that organisms are algorithms places ourselves and other animals on the same plane as computers, which is subversive and dangerous. It reduces what it means to be a living being with subjective experiences, motivations, and a rich biological heritage. We may be imperfect animals with biases and compulsions, but we are not calculators or a series of logic-gates. Unlike computers and other artifacts, we have motivations which have been selected for throughout evolution for the sake of survival and reproduction. A computer does not care about anything, it merely performs the operations it has been programmed to execute. Though we may be able to articulate biological functions in terms of operations and procedures, these representations will remain just that, descriptions of real-world phenomena.

Women Baking Bread by Carl Moon (American, 1878 – 1948)

Works Cited

1 “Yuval Noah Harari,” World Economic Forum, accessed January 18, 2026, https://www.weforum.org/people/yuval-noah-harari/; Yuval Noah Harari, “Read Yuval Harari’s Blistering Warning to Davos in Full,” World Economic Forum, January 24, 2020, https://www.weforum.org/stories/2020/01/yuval-hararis-warning-davos-speech-future-predications/.

2 Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (Signal Books, 2017), 96.
3 Harari, Homo Deus, 97.
4 Harari, Homo Deus, 97.
5 Harari, Homo Deus, 98.
6 Harari, Homo Deus, 98.
7 Harari, Homo Deus, 99.

January 18, 2026

Esoteric Theories of Consciousness: Another Quantum Theory

Back in July of 2025, I wrote a post about Sir Roger Penrose’s quantum theory of consciousness as outlined in his book Shadows of the Mind. To summarize, he believes that something beyond our current understanding of science is necessary to explain consciousness, and ultimately explores whether the microtubules of cellular cytoskeletons might play a role in producing consciousness. He appeals to the research of Stuart Hameroff, an anesthesiologist at the University of Arizona,¹ which suggests that certain chemicals may interfere with microtubule behaviours. If this occurs, these changes may lead to changes in consciousness. It’s an interesting idea, and from an anesthesiologist’s perspective, might be able to explain some aspect of how conscious awareness may be altered temporarily. From a philosophical perspective, however, it seems to only explain one aspect of consciousness, rather than accounting for what consciousness is and how it developed in living beings.

The quantum aspect of this theory is located within the microtubules, which themselves act as dielectric waveguides. The interior of microtubules can be rendered temporarily unentangled with the environment, and as such, are able to pass signals to other microtubules. Now, I know very little about quantum mechanics, so I’m treading on a very flimsy limb here. The only reason why I’m even attempting to explain all of this is because of a crazy book I read a few years ago. If you think this theory is a bit far-fetched, hold on to your hat.

Itzhak Bentov’s book Stalking the Wild Pendulum is a very interesting read but only for those with an open mind. In addition to the extravagant claims he makes throughout, the reason it caught my attention is because it indicates some loose connections to a few theories of consciousness. Previously, I wrote about similarities between certain claims and panpsychism, and now, I will be doing something similar with respect to the quantum theory of consciousness popularized by Penrose and Hameroff. Because my understanding of quantum mechanics is shaky, I’m not as certain about these connections, but I feel like their worth putting out there anyway. There’s just something about Bentov’s claims that seems to shed new light on the Penrose-Hameroff theory.²

Pendulum begins with an introduction on sounds, vibrations, and waves. He introduces the reader to standing waves or the natural vibrations of matter in the universe. They are “waves that occupy a ‘fixed’ position in any structure, whether it is a string [of a musical instrument], a plate, or a container filled with liquid, or a blood vessel.”³ Put another way, “when a structure is in resonance (which means that it vibrates at a frequency that is natural to it and is most easily sustained by it), it implies the presence of a standing wave.”⁴ The next couple of chapters builds on this idea of vibrations and motion, and in the third chapter, Bentov introduces the pendulum as an example of oscillation. When we think of a pendulum, it becomes apparent that the only point of rest is at each extreme, when the pendulum reaches is maximum point before swinging back in the opposite direction. Right before it turns around, for a brief period of time, it pauses and “rests.”⁵ Bentov goes on to say that objective reality is made up of a void or vacuum which is filled with oscillating electromagnetic fields which move between two points of rest.⁶ Returning to the pendulum analogy, he explains that as it approaches the point in which the pendulum turns around, the point of rest, it covers “a smaller and smaller distance per unit for time as it approaches its turning point.”⁷ When distances go below Planck’s distance, or 10^-33 centimeters, we end up in “a new world.” Here, causal relationships “break down” and spacetime becomes “chunky” or “jerky” rather than “smooth.” As such, “a material point can traverse space without necessarily requiring any chunk of time for the process,” moving through space at infinite velocity.⁸ With respect to the pendulum example, this means that at this moment of rest, “the pendulum can be just about any place” for a very brief period of time, before swinging back in the opposite direction.⁹ “Infinite speed and total rest seem somehow complementary.”¹⁰ Since atoms also oscillate in the form of vibrations, “it is very likely that our matter is blinking off and on at a specific rate,” namely 10¹⁵ Hz at room temperature.¹¹

Moving to a discussion of subjective reality, Bentov states that the “common denominator” between objective and subjective realities is a “change or motion occurring between two states of rest.”¹² Though he explains this in other terms, we can think of the nervous system as responding to environmental changes. We know that the longer a stimulus is present, the less (or more) a neuron fires, and it’s only when the stimulus changes in some manner does the neuron change it’s behaviour. As long as there is movement or environmental changes, “tangible reality exists.”¹³ We can think of a sensory-deprivation chamber, and how in these situations, subjective reality becomes rather strange. Chapter 3 closes with two interesting questions: “where does matter go when it periodically disappears?” and “what happens to us as we blink on and off?”¹⁴

In chapter 4, we are reminded that the perception of time does not follow regularities, unlike the ticking of a watch or clock. Some moments may fly by, while others may drag on for what seems like forever. To demonstrate this effect, Bentov develops and experiment in which the reader is encouraged to visualize themselves in being in a different place in order to become more relaxed. This is to be done in front of a clock where the passing of seconds can be observed. In a sufficient state of relaxation, the seconds seem to slow down and even stop. This subjective experience acts as an analogy for an objective situation, as articulated by the theory of relativity. He goes on to propose that “the observing mind, the entity that correlates and makes sense of the information submitted to it by the brain, was absent. It went off to the beach and left the ‘hardware’ at home, unattended. The ‘hardware’, by which I mean the sensory organs and the brain, are processing and producing the information, but the entity that correlates and makes sense of the information, has left the body for a while.”¹⁵ The observer was “partially on the beach and partially in the body, handling information at a reduced rate.”¹⁶ In slowing down the body, the mind is able to decouple itself from its physical residence and thus able to travel at high velocities to other places.¹⁷

Bentov goes on to explain that the matter which constitutes our bodies oscillates at about seven times per second, and in doing so, rests about fourteen times a second.¹⁸ At each point of rest, the observer or mind is able to leave to other dimensions or realities for a brief period of time. In an “expanded state of consciousness,” perhaps through meditation or the influence of drugs, more time can be spent in other realities.¹⁹

How does this relate to the Penrose-Hameroff theory? Well, aside the introduction of any exogenous chemicals through some form of consumption, perhaps the relaxation of the body results in changes in endogenous chemical production. These chemical changes in the body might impact the behaviours of microtubules, which in turn results in changes in consciousness. Perhaps chemical changes within the body enables the mind to perceive the world differently, or access other versions of reality or even other dimensions. In fact, this idea of accessing other realities or dimensions is what inspired my investigation into this whole topic in the first place.

Before I venture into this backstory, I’d like to briefly return to solid ground. If you’re finding this all of this to be rather nonsensical, I don’t blame you. I used to as well. I was convinced that empiricism was the only philosophical view that should be taken seriously, and that claims about various aspects of the universe had to be verified by systematic experimentation before they could be taken seriously. As such, I was quite dismissive of many theories of consciousness, especially the ones that did not conform to our scientific understanding of the natural world. It wasn’t until I experienced a number of strange, inexplicable phenomena that I started to come around to letting go of my preconceptions. After several months, maybe even a year, of wandering down the rabbit hole of ancient and occult wisdom, I decided to let go completely. The insanity of the pandemic helped too, as we watched in real-time how a good deal of “science” is just bunch of grifters lying to themselves, each other, and policy makers. What was right seemed wrong, and what was wrong seemed right. This is just my long-winded way of stating that I’m not trying to convince you of anything, I am simply explaining to you exactly how I got here.

I decided to reconsider the quantum theory of consciousness after receiving a number of emails from my Google Alerts subscription on the subject, beginning in September of 2024. For several weeks, similar articles kept appearing under the ‘consciousness’ tag I had signed up to receive alerts for. One in particular caught my attention, titled “Your Consciousness Can Connect With the Whole Universe.”²⁰ Well shit, that sounds like Bentov! Could microtubules be the bridge between our brains and bodies to higher dimensions? Microtubules in the pineal gland maybe? Hmmm…

Anyway, the articles Google found for me were by Manasee Wagh writing for Popular Mechanics,²¹ Eric Ralls at Earth.com,²² Becca Monaghan at Indy100.com,²³ and Rupendra Brahambhatt at Interesting Engineering.²⁴ In the article by Wagh, the one with the title claiming that consciousness can connect with the whole universe, she begins by discussing an interesting study on rats by Khan et al.²⁵ that describes how the effects of an anesthetic can be slowed when rats are injected with a microtubule-stabilizing drug called epothilone B. Although this is an interesting finding, how does this relate to the universe? After briefly discussing Penrose’s theory, she goes on to wonder whether “on a quantum level, consciousness is capable of being in all places at the same time. In other words, it can exist everywhere simultaneously, suggesting that your own consciousness can hypothetically connect with quantum particles beyond your brain, maybe entangling with consciousness all across the universe.” If this were to be true, what kind of conditions would need to be met for this connection to bubble up into experiential awareness? How can we access each others’ minds?

Brahambhatt’s article discusses dreams and how they might be “conduits to alternative dimensions or elevated states of consciousness,” a theory I have heard before in my rabbit-hole travels. It harkens back to Monroe’s hemi-sync astral projection, as discussed in the CIA’s Gateway Project, a fascinating topic I wrote on years ago. Brahambhatt also mentions that consciousness might be able to affect people in parallel universes, and while she just kind of throws this idea out there based on a quote from a paper stuck in preprint,²⁶ I find myself agreeing with her. My reasoning for taking this position, however, is based on hermetic wisdom, as the growth of a person leads to the growth of the mind and possibly its capabilities. I’m not about to bet the farm on any of these ideas of course, it’s just interesting to think about given how much overlap there is within different teachings throughout human history and around the world.

Both Ralls and Monaghan write on the idea of hyperdimensionality as envisioned by physicist Michael Pravica. Though Pravica’s argumentation is weak, namely that because we can mathematically describe more than four dimensions, they might actually exist, the Ralls article establishes a connection to string theory. Since the “basic building blocks of the universe” consist of vibrating one-dimensional strings, additional spatial dimensions are necessary for the mathematics of string theory.²⁷ Maybe this is what Pravica is referring to though, and Ralls just portrayed it poorly. Either way, this line of thinking moves the discussion into an Idealist realm, one which claims that mathematics reflects a world beyond the physical universe, as described by Plato. Whether this move appeals to the reader depends on his or her perspective on what mathematics is. Is it something created by humans, like the game of chess, or is it something waiting to be discovered by intelligent beings?

Altogether, these articles suggest some kind of conceptual bridge is needed between the Penrose-Hameroff theory and claims about consciousness being connected to other dimensions or the rest of the universe. Though sketchy, Bentov’s explanations provide a lead. Maybe not a robust explanation, but a lead for further investigation. If I hadn’t read Pendulum, there would be no conceivable way that I would have followed the line of reasoning offered by these articles. This whole topic may be under-baked, but we do have a set of ingredients to work with here.

Evolutionary processes may explain how consciousness came to be, but that doesn’t mean that the phenomenon itself isn’t more complex or mysterious than we previously thought. If not, then that’s fine; however, subjective experiences can be strange and inexplicable at times. Again, I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything here, I’m just trying to make sense of things. If you know, you know, and if not, that’s okay too. There are plenty of mysteries in the universe one can sink their time into, and that’s worth celebrating on its own.

The Ancient Five Elements and the Corresponding Five Platonic Shapes

Works Cited

1 “Stuart Hameroff | The Science of Consciousness Conference,” University of Arizona, accessed January 6, 2026, https://consciousness.arizona.edu/person/stuart-hameroff.

2 Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose, “Orchestrated Reduction of Quantum Coherence in Brain Microtubules: A Model for Consciousness,” Mathematics and Computers in Simulation 40, no. 3 (1996): 453–80, https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-4754(96)80476-9.

3 Itzhak Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness (Destiny Books, 1988), 33.
4 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 12.
5 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 50.
6 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 55.
7 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 52.
8 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 52.
9 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 53.
10 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 54.
11 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 54.
12 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 55.
13 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 55.
14 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 56.
15 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 62.
16 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 62–63.
17 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 63.
18 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 74.
19 Bentov, Stalking the Wild Pendulum, 75.

20 Manasee Wagh, “Your Consciousness Can Connect With the Whole Universe, Groundbreaking New Research Suggests,” Science, Popular Mechanics, September 26, 2024, https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a62373322/quantum-theory-of-consciousness/.

21 Wagh, “Your Consciousness Can Connect With the Whole Universe, Groundbreaking New Research Suggests.”

22 Eric Ralls, “Consciousness May Stem from Unseen Dimensions Beyond Our Reality,” Earth.Com, September 21, 2024, https://www.earth.com/news/consciousness-may-stem-from-unseen-dimensions-beyond-our-reality/.

23 Becca Monaghan, “How Does Human Consciousness Work? It May Come from Another Dimension, Scientist Suggests,” Indy100.Com, September 20, 2024, https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/human-consciousness-another-dimension.

24 Rupendra Brahambhatt, “Your Consciousness Could Travel Multiverse When You Dream: Scientists,” Interesting Engineering, October 19, 2024, https://interestingengineering.com/science/alternate-reality-in-dreams.

25 Sana Khan et al., “Microtubule-Stabilizer Epothilone B Delays Anesthetic-Induced Unconsciousness in Rats,” Research Article: New Research, eNeuro 11, no. 8 (2024), https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0291-24.2024.

26 David Leong and Oxana Zinych, “Dreams as Portals to Parallel Realities and Reflections of Self,” Qeios, ahead of print, Qeios, December 18, 2023, https://doi.org/10.32388/242XCF.

27 Ralls, “Consciousness May Stem from Unseen Dimensions Beyond Our Reality.”

January 11, 2026

Esoteric Theories of Consciousness: A Quantum Theory

This is a topic I will address in a few different parts because I am connecting some divergent yet similar ideas. I wrote a preface to this topic earlier this year, discussing Sir Roger Penrose’s first book The Emperor’s New Mind. In it, he doesn’t really discuss what he think consciousness is per se, but mentions that it doesn’t result from some kind of algorithm or procedure. This conclusion would have, at the time, differed from prevailing views of the mind. His second book does a better job at theorizing the causes of consciousness, which is what I will discuss here.

In Shadows of the Mind, Penrose’s general claim is that we probably need a new understanding or perspective of physics to understand what consciousness is and how it comes about. Though I am sympathetic and open-minded, I don’t think we necessarily need a new understanding of physics to draw some preliminary conclusions about consciousness. That said, there very well could be physical aspects of consciousness that are poorly understood, if at all. These are the ideas I would like to explore in this series of posts titled “A Quantum Theory of Consciousness.” Although I have a basic theory of consciousness, that doesn’t mean there isn’t more to the story.

Penrose begins Shadows with a discussion of minds and robots, a topic I won’t discuss here because my thesis has covered this topic in depth. There may be room to expand and elaborate on this topic, but I won’t do it in this post. In section 1.3,¹ Penrose provides four options for thinking about consciousness, which he labels A through D:

A: All thinking is computation; in particular, feelings of conscious awareness are evoked merely by the carrying out of appropriate computations.
B: Awareness is a feature of the brain’s physical action; and whereas any physical action can be simulated computationally, computational simulation cannot by itself evoke awareness.
C: Appropriate physical action of the brain evokes awareness, but this physical action cannot even be properly simulated computationally.
D: Awareness cannot be explained by physical, computational, or any other scientific terms.

Though Penrose is interested in exploring option D, I am of the belief that C is the more appropriate view. In fact, I think Penrose makes a category error in his preference for D, as an explanation of consciousness which appeals to quantum mechanics is still explained by physical and scientific terms. It’s just that the terms and ideas he appeals to aren’t fully understood or generally accepted, however, they nonetheless comport with physics in general. We aren’t appealing to some spiritual cause here; instead, we are expanding what is meant by “physical” and “scientific.” Regardless, I don’t think it would be wise to deviate from C, as this would lead us back to something like conjecture or spiritualism. I mean we can, but then anything goes, and there’s no fun in that.

A few pages later, Penrose draws some interesting conclusions on simulations that I’d like to briefly touch on. He appeals to Searle to state that “a physical process is very different thing from the actual process itself. (A computer simulation of a hurricane, for example, is certainly no hurricane!)”² Yes indeed, this a very important idea to keep in mind with respect to robots. As I argued in my thesis, the simulation of empathy does not mean that true empathy is present.

To his credit, Penrose does admit on page 15 that he believes that “C is the [option] which… [is] closest to the truth.” That said, since he and others do not have an idea of what C might involve, D is also worth exploring. This is just a clarification I needed to pointed out for the sake of charitability.

The rest of Chapter 1 and Part 1 explores some interesting and related topics, but I won’t go into them here because I’ve already discussed my opinions of these ideas in my thesis, or they veer into a tangent that isn’t all that important to my purpose here. What I will say is that in 1.7, Penrose discusses Chaos.³ This is a good thing, as he is approaching an important topic related to minds and complex systems in general. He claims that “the future behaviour of the system depends extremely critically upon the precise initial state of the system”⁴ but initial conditions aren’t the only aspects that matter. Every physical system necessarily interacts with other physical systems, and a multitude of variables are always present. Initial variables are important, but there could be other variables that might matter as well. Think about making a loaf of bread. The amount of yeast, salt, and sugar, as initial variables, are very important indeed. However, there could be other variables at play which do not exist in the beginning, like changes in temperature or humidity. The world around us is complex and ever-changing, and a number of variables which are not present in the initial stages will also impact the outcomes of complex systems. Random events occur which end up influencing the outcomes of systems which cannot be accounted for during the initial stages. You can be driving correctly, following the rules of the road and acting cautiously, when all of the sudden, out of nowhere, a vehicle from the oncoming lane swerves directly in front of you. There are always variables which cannot be fully accounted for. Later on, Penrose mentions that “the question of whether or not something can be simulated in practice [sic] is a separate one from the in principle [sic] issues that are under consideration here.”⁵

As a quick aside, when Penrose states that something is “computational,” he means that it can be articulated through an algorithm or series of procedures to reach a conclusion or outcome. During the 20^th century, it was thought that the mind worked like a computer, rather than the other way around. In actuality, the mind produced computers as a reflection of their own rational capacities. The cart was placed before the horse, so to speak. The mind is an outcome of physical systems which, eventually, in evolutionary timelines, gave rise to abstractions and algorithms. Once human brains became sufficiently advanced, they could produce procedures and processes which could be articulated as a series of steps. Otherwise, there is only “know-how” or the ability to just do something,⁶ like score a goal or make pierogies. Penrose, like countless others before and after him, make this error. One of these individuals is Yuval Noah Harari, and his book Homo Deus exemplifies this critical mistake. I am very much looking forward to writing a review of this book.

Before skipping ahead to the meat of Penrose’s argument, let’s quickly review why he is so interested in an alternate view of consciousness. He states in his first book The Emperor’s New Mind that the mind is not a computational thing because intuition and insight plays an important role in mathematical break-throughs, as seen in Gödel’s conclusions regarding the incompleteness of mathematics. In Shadows, he goes over this argument again to arrive at the idea that “human understanding cannot be an algorithmic activity”⁷ to which I, and anyone sympathetic to embodied cognition, will agree to. Instead, “meanings can only be communicated from person to person because each person is aware of similar internal experiences or feelings about things.”⁸

After much scrolling past discussions of Gödel’s contributions and resulting conclusions, we reach a discussion of what consciousness is. To be fair, Penrose takes the reader through a “quick” tour though quantum physics before connecting these theories to consciousness. He begins Chapter 7 with a reminder that neuronal activity exists as an “on or off” phenomena, where there are no alternatives which are characteristic of “quantum actions.”⁹ In quantum theory, it is feasible that some states may be both “on” and “off” at the same time with no contradiction. Moreover, quantum coherence refers to situation where a number of particles adhere to a single quantum state, namely “on” or “off,” which is decoupled or “unentangled” from the wider external environment. They seem to follow their own rules or patterns which remain independent from external factors.¹⁰

In the fourth section of Chapter 7, Penrose introduces us to the “humble paramecium” with its “numerous tiny hairlike legs” called cilia.¹¹ Paramecia are especially interesting because they are single-celled organisms which exist and thrive without nervous systems. Instead, they roam around governed by their cytoskeleton, the structure which secures their shape in addition to many more functions, like “transporting… molecules from one place to another.”¹² Indeed, the cytoskeleton acts as a skeleton, muscles, circulatory system, and nervous system for the organism. The paramecium’s cilia are made up of microtubules, hollow cylindrical tubes which are arranged in fan-like structures when cut into cross-sections. Now, each microtubule is a protein polymer which can be divided into subunits called tubulins. Each tubulin consists of a dimer or pair of distinct parts, where each consists of about 450 amino acids. Together, these “peanut-shaped” protein pairs are arranged in different ways depending on their configuration and influenced by the presence of electrons.¹³ Messages can be propagated along the length of microtubules depending on the conformation of dimers, influencing the behaviour of these organisms. Given that neurons have their own cytoskeletons, Penrose speculates that neuronal activity is influenced by their microtubules, where the firing of neurons may have something to do with factors influencing their cytoskeletons.¹⁴

How? Penrose appeals to studies conducted by Stuart Hameroff in the 1970’s which suggest that microtubules “might act as ‘dielectric waveguides.’¹⁵ As such, the interior of the tube remains unentangled with the environment for a certain amount of time, resulting in signals which can be passed to nearby microtubules. Is there evidence for this? Apparently so. When it comes to general anaesthetics, we do not have a robust understanding of how they work. In fact, a number of “completely different substances that seem to have no chemical relationship with one another”¹⁶ can render us unconsciousness. Nitrous oxide (N₂O), ether (CH₃CH₂OCH₂CH₃), chloroform (CHCl₃), and other chemical compounds, including the inert gas xenon, have anaesthetic effects on humans and animals.¹⁷ Penrose, following Hameroff’s work, suggests that these chemicals can interrupt microtubule functionality through their electric dipole properties.¹⁸ By changing the configuration of dimers which make up microtubules, the actions of microtubules can be influenced or interrupted. Penrose concludes that consciousness thus must rely on a functioning cytoskeleton, where factors which interrupt this functionality will influence consciousness in some way.

Therefore, the “mind is a mere shadow [sic] of the deeper level of cytoskeletal action–and it is at this deeper level where we must keep the physical basis of mind!”¹⁹

Very interesting indeed, given that we still do not understand how general anaesthetics work. Perhaps there is some quantum phenomena at play to even render sensation and perception possible in the first place. There are likely layers of “awareness” which are necessary for high-level consciousness to manifest in mammals like humans.

Penrose concludes Shadows with a discussion of artificial intelligence and minds generally, stating that computational systems will never be able to “directly ‘feel’ things”.²⁰ Since there is no understanding in computers, certain aspects of the world like beauty, goodness, and morality are beyond their comprehension. Truth, according to Penrose, is another aspect which is cannot be understood by computers, given the conclusions drawn by Gödel.²¹ Truth is a conclusion which can only be reached by minds, and not by algorithms or calculations. There must be an external system which can look inside a narrower system to determine whether some proposition is true with respect to the bigger picture. Statements and premises refer to a specific set of physical phenomena which can be represented formally, reducing the physical system to a formula which can be expressed in some kind of notation. Ultimately, “human insight lies beyond formal argument and beyond computable procedures.”²² Although Penrose goes on to state that this argues for the existence of the Platonic mathematical world, I won’t weigh in on that here, although I believe that I agree with him. “Mathematical truth is not determined arbitrarily by the rules of some ‘manmade’ formal system, but has an absolute nature, and lies beyond any such system of system of specifiable rules.”²³ Yes, but in Emperor’s New Mind, Penrose states that algorithms are a part of this Platonic realm, which I disagree with for reasons I mentioned above. Minds create algorithms which are predicated on mathematical, Platonic truths, but without minds, there are no algorithms. Procedures belong to the physical world, because the interpreter needs a process whereby an outcome can be reached. The details of this process are determined by the ways in which the physical world operates.

So what now? Although sensation and perception appears to be dictated by the nervous system and the body, perhaps there is a realm of causality that influences how the body operates. Maybe some aspect of the physical world influences the firing of neurons, where the ideas and feelings we have are governed by forces we do not yet understand. I don’t know, this is why I am interested in this crazy stuff. I know that when I smell the lilacs I experience that wonderful, familiar scent, but do lilacs need to be present to trigger that sensation? Can my unverbalized thoughts influence the ideas or feelings that manifest in others? I don’t know, maybe we are all connected in ways we have yet to understand. There is room for interpretation and theory which comports with mystery and discovery. Human hubris only shuts out possibility, and while I am not a fan of unguided speculation, it is brash to rule out possibilities which have not been adequately explored.

In the next entry, I will dive into Itzhak Bentov’s discussion of the quantum mind and the ways it apparently connects to the physical world. Since he offers no evidence for his theory, we will see whether these ideas are factual or salvageable, however, I think they are nevertheless worth exploring. Life is short and consciousness might be forever, so let’s go for it.

Thank you for your patience as I write these entries. I really appreciate it. Stay curious dear reader, I think the world is far more mysterious and interesting than what we have been taught in school.

Works Cited

1 Roger Penrose, Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness (Oxford University Press, 1994).
2 Penrose, 15.
3 Penrose, 21.
4 Penrose, 21.
5 Penrose, 24.

6 Hubert L. Dreyfus, What Computers Still Can’t Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1992), xi.

7 Penrose, Shadows of the Mind, 51.
8 Penrose, 53.
9 Penrose, 348.
10 Penrose, 351.
11 Penrose, 357.
12 Penrose, 358.
13 Penrose, 359.
14 Penrose, 366.
15 Penrose, 368.
16 Penrose, 369.
17 Penrose, 369.
18 Penrose, 370.
19 Penrose, 376.
20 Penrose, 399.
21 Penrose, 400.
22 Penrose, 418.
23 Penrose, 418.

July 5, 2025

Preface to a Quantum Theory of Consciousness

This theory was first proposed by physicist and mathematician Sir Roger Penrose in his book Shadows of the Mind. My familiarity with it is only from reading secondary literature related to philosophy of mind, so I figured I should read his book in order to write on it. Since Shadows of the Mind is Penrose’s second book, I wanted to read The Emperor’s New Mind beforehand to get a better sense of where he’s coming from. Now that I have finished it, I thought I would provide a bit of context here, prior to discussing the Quantum Theory of Consciousness. I haven’t begun reading Shadows yet but plan to start soon, and considering how long it takes me to read and write anything now that I’m working full time, I decided an intermediate post would be a good idea.

The Emperor’s New Mind is somewhat underwhelming, given what its title suggests. It’s an odd book because it’s primarily about mathematics and physics, with some half-hearted conclusions about the mind at the end. Given its title, you’d expect the conclusions of this book to be somewhat revolutionary and counterintuitive, but they really aren’t. Maybe for 1989 they might have been, but Penrose’s suggestions aren’t claimed with certainty; his opinions come across as suggestions rather than conclusions. Essentially, it argues that the mind probably doesn’t result from some kind of algorithm because mathematical insights tend to simply appear from intuitive origins, rather than the result of following some kind of procedure. Although I found myself in agreement with Penrose throughout, his way of appealing to math and physics to draw conclusions about consciousness felt a bit inappropriate. As in, I did not find the premises to his conclusions all that insightful because physics isn’t directly related to the mind. Minds are the result of biology, and considering the degree of complexity introduced by biochemistry, it’s a bit of a stretch to try to apply principles from physics to draw conclusions about the mind. Anyway, the most compelling point he makes is that when we look at brain activity, the left hemisphere is generally responsible for algorithmic thinking, and that since some of the most interesting developments in mathematics arise from intuition rather than from following procedures, maybe consciousness isn’t all that algorithmic after all. For anyone familiar with McGilchrist’s work, this is an easy idea to accept.

The beginning opens with a discussion on computers and mathematics, specifically the Turing Test and whether computers could someday be considered conscious entities. He postulates that if the mind is the result of some kind of algorithm, a commonly-held belief at the time, that it might make sense to claim that AIs could be conscious. His ultimate conclusion is that the mind does not work like an algorithm, given the way mathematical insights seem to just appear out of the blue. Prior to reaching this conclusion, however, he goes on a whirlwind tour of significant developments and theories in mathematics and physics, providing the reader with a thorough education in these domains. I enjoyed the parts about mathematics because I like math, but admittedly skimmed through the portions on physics. Not only are they somewhat tangential to his thesis, I don’t have much of a physics background because it’s just not that interesting to me. Just like how some people aren’t all that interested in the specific techniques for perfecting a serve in tennis or how small the crumbs of butter should be for the most optimal pie crust. I’m open to learning more about physics but only if it’s required for something specific, like a theory of consciousness or a pie crust recipe. In this book, however, that’s not the case. The amount of depth and discussion he goes into about various concepts and historical developments within math and physics isn’t really related to anything, you can tell he just likes to write about it. Which, I mean, that’s cool and all, but I’m not really that compelled to read it.

The idea that the mind is algorithmic is a strange one, considering that an algorithm is just a procedure for doing something. The concept of an algorithm belongs to the domain of epistemology, rather than ontology. In nature, there is only cause and effect, and any characterization of this relationship is necessarily created by an agent. For example, hot water softens pasta, and the procedure for cooking pasta was developed by people with minds. The notion that evolution or biological developments could have selected for a mind that is algorithmic in nature is a very anthropomorphic position. Selective pressures only target causal patterns, and it is the observer who classifies something as an algorithm. Penrose’s suggestion that consciousness must involve more than just algorithmic thinking is good, but it isn’t all that revolutionary. Maybe at the time it was, but today it’s not that controversial. Thankfully, phenomenology has become more widely accepted since then, along with an understanding of animal consciousness. Actually, this book is an exemplar for McGilchrist’s thesis of The Master and his Emissary, namely that Western perspectives have been overly influenced by the left hemisphere and its specialization in parts rather than wholes, certainty rather than ambiguity. Anyway, I can see where Penrose’s motivation is coming from, and given the computationalist and cognitivist perspectives that were prevalent during the latter half of the 20^th century, it makes sense. Since then, however, embodiment as a concept has grown in popularity, making phenomenology more widely accepted as a result. In a nutshell, embodiment views the physical body and its various processes as the foundation from which high-level thinking results, the kind of thinking that is involved in the creation of algorithms. Though one can characterize aspects of physiology as an algorithm, this ultimately results from human minds rather than natural cause-effect relationships. The fact that x causes y is salient to humans and animals because it informs us about how the world works; without these minds, it just is.

From Cuisinier Royal (1693), uploaded by Jpbrigand

January 29, 2025

Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness

The Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of Consciousness is a theory originally proposed by Giulio Tononi which has since been further developed by other researchers, including Christof Koch. It aims to explain why some physical processes generate subjective experiences while others do not, and why certain regions of the brain, like the neocortex, are associated with these experiences.¹ Evidently, he appeals to information theory, a technical domain which uses mathematics to determine the amount of entropy or uncertainty within a process or system.² Less uncertainty means more information, where complex systems like humans and animals contain more information than simpler systems like an ant or a camera. Relationships between information are generated from a “complex of elements”³ and when a number of relationships are established, we see greater amounts of integration.⁴ Tononi states “…to generate consciousness, a physical system must be able to discriminate among a large repertoire of states (information) and it must be unified; that is, it should be doing so as a single system, one that is not decomposable into a collection of causally independent parts (integration).”⁵ This measure of integration is symbolized by the Greek letter Φ (phi) because the line in the middle of the letter stands for ‘information’ and the circle around it indicates ‘integration’.⁶ More lines and circles!

In addition to considering the quantity of information generated by the system, IIT also considers the quality of this information generated by its mechanisms. Both attributes determine the quality of an experience. This experience can be conceived of as a “shape” in a qualia space made up of elements and the connections between them.⁷ Each possible state of the system is considered an axis of the qualia space, each of which is associated with a probability of actually existing as that state. A particular quale consists of a shape in this state space, specifying the quality of an experience. Therefore, viewing a red object results in a particular state and shape in the qualia space, a mathematical object supposedly representing neuronal activity.⁸ As such, Tononi claims that his theory provides a way to describe phenomenology in terms of mathematics.⁹ Sure, however, this doesn’t really explain much about consciousness or qualia, it just provides a mathematical description of it.

In later publications, he attempts to clarify this theory a bit further. Rather than appealing to activity in the brain, his theory “starts from the essential phenomenal properties of experience, or axioms, and infers postulates about the characteristics that are required of its physical substrate.”¹⁰ The reason is because subjective experiences exist intrinsically and are structured in terms of cause-and-effect in some physical substrate like a brain. Experiences, therefore, are identical to a conceptual structure, one expressible in mathematics.¹¹ By starting from axioms, which are self-evident essential properties, IIT “translates them into the necessary and sufficient conditions” for the physical matter which gives rise to consciousness and experience.¹²

Not satisfied? I hear ya barking, big dog. When I first heard about it, I was intrigued by the concept but was ultimately unimpressed because it doesn’t explain anything. What do we mean by ‘explain’? It’s one of those philosophically dense concepts to fully articulate, however, a dictionary definition can give us a vague idea. By ‘explain’, we mean some discussion which gives a reason or cause for something, demonstrating a “logical development or relationships of” the phenomenon in question,¹³ usually in terms of something else. For example, the reason it is sunny right now is because the present cloud coverage is insufficient for dampening the light coming from the sun. Here, ‘sunny’ is explained in terms of cloud coverage.

We are not alone in our dissatisfaction with IIT. On Sept. 16^th 2023, Stephen Fleming et al. published a scathing article calling IIT pseudoscience.¹⁴ The reason is because IIT is “untestable, unscientific, ‘magicalist’, or a ‘departure from science as we know it’” because the theory can apply to many different systems, like plants and lab-generated organoids.¹⁵ They state that until the theory is empirically testable, the label of ‘pseudoscience’ should apply to prevent misleading the public. The implications of IIT can have real-world effects, shaping the minds of the public about which kinds of systems are conscious and which are not, for example, robots and AI chatbots.

One of the authors of this article would go on to publish a longer essay on the topic to a preprint server on Nov. 30^th that same year. Keith Frankish reiterates the concerns of the original article and further explains the issues surrounding IIT. To summarize, the axiomatic method IIT employs is “an anomalous way of doing science” because the axioms are not founded on nor supported by observations.¹⁶ Instead, they appeal to introspection, an approach which has historically been dismissed or ridiculed by scientists because experiences cannot be externally verified.The introspective approach is one which belongs to the domain of philosophy, more akin to phenomenology than to science. Frankish grants that IIT could be a metaphysical theory, like panpsychism, but if this is the case, it is misleading to call it science.¹⁷ If IIT proponents insist that it is a science, well, then it becomes pseudoscience.

As a metaphysical theory, I’m of the opinion that it isn’t all that great. It doesn’t add anything to our understanding because the mathematical theory is rather complex and doesn’t provide a method for associating itself with scientific domains like neuroscience or evolutionary biology. It attempts to, however, it’s explanatorily unsatisfactory.

That said, the general idea of “integrated information” for consciousness isn’t exactly wrong. My perspective on consciousness, based on empirical data, is that consciousness is a property of organisms, not of brains. There are no neural correlates of consciousness because it emerges from the entire body as a self-organizing whole. It can be considered a Gestalt which arises from all of our sensory mechanisms and attentional processes for the sake of keeping the individual alive in dynamic environments. While the contents of subjective experience are private and unverifiable to others, that doesn’t make them any less real than the sun or gravity. They can be incorrect, as in the case of illusions and hallucinations, however, the experiences as experiences are very real to the subject experiencing them. They may not be derived from sense data portraying some element of the natural world, as in the cases of visual illusions, however, there is nonetheless some physical cause for them as experiences. For example, the bending of light creates a mirage; the ingestion of a substance with psychoactive effects creates hallucinations. The experiences are real, however, their referents may not exist as an aspect of the external world, and may just be an artifact of other neural or physiological processes.

I’ve been thinking about this for many years now, and since the articles calling IIT pseudoscience were published, have been thinking some more. Hence why I’m a bit “late to the game” on discussing it. Anyway, once I graduate from the PhD program, I’ll begin work on a book which explains my thoughts on consciousness in further detail, appealing to empirical evidence to back up my claims. I have written an extensive discussion on qualia, accompanied by a video, aiming to present a theory of subjective experiences from a perspective which takes scientific findings into consideration.

My sense is that, for a long time, our inability to resolve the issues surrounding qualia and consciousness was a product of academia. We’re so focused on specialization that the ability to incorporate findings and ideas from other domains is lost on many individuals, or is just not of interest to them. I hope we are slowly getting over this issue, especially with respect to consciousness, as philosophy of mind has a lot to learn from other domains like neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science, and evolutionary biology, just to name a few.

Consciousness is a property of organisms like humans and animals for detecting features of the environment. It comes in degrees; a sea sponge is minimally conscious, while a gecko is comparatively more aware of its surroundings. Many birds and mammals demonstrate a capacity for relatively high-level consciousness and thus intelligence. Obviously humans are at the top of this pyramid, given our mastery over aspects of our world as seen in our technological advancements. Consciousness, as an organismic-level property, emerges from the coordination and integration of various physiological subsystems, from systems of organs to specific organs and tissues, all the way down to cells and cellular organelles. It is explained by the interactions of these subsystems, however, cannot be causally reduced to them. Though the brain clearly plays an important role for consciousness and subjective experiences, it is a mistake to be looking for causal properties of consciousness in the brain, like a region or circuit. Consciousness is an emergent property of bodies embedded within a wider physical environment.

From this perspective, we can and have developed an analogue of consciousness for machines, as per the work¹⁸ of Dr. Pentti Haikonen. The good news is that because this machine doesn’t use a computer or software, you don’t need to worry about current AIs becoming conscious and “taking over the world” or outsmarting humans. It physically isn’t possible, and the recent discussions I’ve posted aim to articulate ontologically why this is the case. You ought to be far more afraid of people and companies, as explained by this excellent video from the YouTube channel Internet of Bugs.

Lastly, I want to extend a big Thank You to Dr. John Campbell for inspiring me to work on this explanation of consciousness, as per the helpful comment he left me on my qualia video. I recommend following Dr. Campbell on YouTube, he is a fantastic researcher and educator, in addition to being an honest, critically-thinking gentleman who covers many interesting topics related to healthcare.

*A Scholar in his Study* by Thomas Wijck (1616 – 1677)

Works Cited

1 Giulio Tononi, “Consciousness as Integrated Information: A Provisional Manifesto,” The Biological Bulletin 215, no. 3 (December 1, 2008): 216, https://doi.org/10.2307/25470707.

2 Tononi, 217; Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, Second (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1948), 17, https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11810.001.0001; C. E. Shannon, “A Mathematical Theory of Communication,” The Bell System Technical Journal 27, no. 3 (July 1948): 393, https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-7305.1948.tb01338.x.

3 Tononi, “Consciousness as Integrated Information,” 217.
4 Tononi, 219.
5 Tononi, 219.
6 Tononi, 220.
7 Tononi, 224.
8 Tononi, 228.
9 Tononi, 229.

10 Giulio Tononi et al., “Integrated Information Theory: From Consciousness to Its Physical Substrate,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 17, no. 7 (July 2016): 450, https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2016.44.

11 Tononi et al., 452.
12 Tononi et al., 460.

13 “Explain,” in Merriam-Webster.Com Dictionary (Merriam-Webster), accessed August 10, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/explain.

14 Stephen Fleming et al., “The Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness as Pseudoscience” (PsyArXiv, September 16, 2023), https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/zsr78.

15 Fleming et al., 2.

16 Keith Frankish, “Integrated Information Theory: Pseudoscience or Appropriately Anomalous Science?” (OSF, November 30, 2023), 1–2, https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/uscwt.

17 Frankish, 5.

18 Pentti O Haikonen, Robot Brains: Circuits and Systems for Conscious Machines (John Wiley & Sons, 2007); Pentti O Haikonen, “Qualia and Conscious Machines,” International Journal of Machine Consciousness, April 6, 2012, https://doi.org/10.1142/S1793843009000207; Pentti O Haikonen, Consciousness and Robot Sentience, vol. 2, Series on Machine Consciousness (World Scientific, 2012), https://doi.org/10.1142/8486.

August 10, 2024

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