Here’s one particularly weird consequence of IIT: a zeroed-out system has the same degree of consciousness as a dynamic one, because it’s a structural measure of a system. For example, a physical, memrister based neural net has the same degree of integrated information when it’s unplugged. Or, to chase after a more absurd-seeming conclusion, human consciousness is not reduced immediately upon death (assuming no brain damage), instead slowly decreasing as the cellular arrangement begins to decay.
Given that, I agree with Scott- while interesting, IIT doesn’t track particularly well with ‘consciousness’ in the conceptual sense.
Here’s one particularly weird consequence of IIT: a zeroed-out system has the same degree of consciousness as a dynamic one, because it’s a structural measure of a system. For example, a physical, memrister based neural net has the same degree of integrated information when it’s unplugged. Or, to chase after a more absurd-seeming conclusion, human consciousness is not reduced immediately upon death (assuming no brain damage), instead slowly decreasing as the cellular arrangement begins to decay.
Given that, I agree with Scott- while interesting, IIT doesn’t track particularly well with ‘consciousness’ in the conceptual sense.