Workshop on Methods of Information Theory in Computational NeuroscienceNaotsugu TsuchiyaMonash University
Structure of information to understand the physical basis of consciousness
One of the biggest mysteries in science is the origin of subjective conscious experience. In modern investigation on consciousness, researchers distinguish level and contents of consciousness. The former is about the global state of conscious creatures, which goes from very low in coma, vegetitative states, deep dreamless sleep, and deep general anesthesia to high in fully wakeful state. The latter is about the contents that one experiences at a given moment of high level of consciousness, sometimes called qualia, covering all sensory and any other experiences.
In both meanings, consciousness has been difficult to relate to electrochemical physical interactions in the brain. Meanwhile, informational structure, which is derived from these neural activity and connectivity, is more promising as a possible candidate that is isomorphic to consciousness.
In this talk, I will explain three approaches that try to characterize 1) structures of information, 2) structures of consciousness, and 3) relationship between these two structures, primarily drawing on the approach with Integrated Information Theory [Tononi 2004 BMC, Tononi 2016 Nat Rev Neuro, Oizumi 2016 PNAS, Haun 2018, Leung 2020 bioRxiv] and Category Theory [Spivak 2011, Tsuchiya 2016 Neurosci Res, Tsuchiya 2020 OSF].
