Integrating Information in the Brain’s EM Field The CEMI Field Theory of Consciousness

" Neural networks, on their own, cannot be responsible for physically integrating conscious information because, like integrated circuits, they integrate information only temporally, not physically." {Credits 1}

" ... the EM field at any point in space represents an integration of information concerning the type, distribution and motion of local charges." {Credits 1}

" Moreover, an EM field can, like an integrated circuit, compute." {Credits 1}

" Whereas information encoded in the matter of neurons is, as I have argued, always localized and discrete both in space and time, information in the field, as illustrated in Fig. 1b, is always integrated yet distributed, in the sense that it may be downloaded from any point within the field. Since, in this case, ‘the field’ is the brain’s global EM field, it also provides a feasible physical substrate for the notions of working memory and/or the global workspace that have been proposed in many other theories of conscious (Baars 2005). And, as illustrated in Fig. 1(b) EM fields may also implement algorithms. This capacity, known as ‘field computing’ (MacLennan 1999) sometimes as quantum-like computing (Khrennikov 2011), has several features in common with quantum computing such as ease of implementation of mathematical functions such as Fourier transforms, compared to digital computers. Moreover, as illustrated in Fig. 1b, this form of field computing—algorithms in space rather than in time—could only be implemented by neurons (either EMF transmitters or receivers) that fire synchronously. So, the theory predicts that, if consciousness is implementing field computing, then consciousness should be highly correlated with the synchrony of neural firing rather than firing rates." {Credits 1}

" So, synchrony, per se, is neither a necessary nor sufficient requirement for consciousness in matter-based neuronal models of consciousness. As far as I am aware, it is only in the EM field theories that synchrony plays an obligatory role in consciousness information processing." {Credits 1}

" The cemi field theory thereby delivers a kind of dualism, but it is a scientific dualism built on the distinction between matter and energy, rather than matter and spirit. Consciousness is what algorithms that exist simultaneously in the space of the brain’s EM field, feel like." {Credits 1}

{Credits 1} 🎪 Johnjoe McFadden, Integrating information in the brain’s EM field: the cemi field theory of consciousness, Neuroscience of Consciousness, Volume 2020, Issue 1, 2020, niaa016, https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niaa016. © The Author(s) 2020. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.