Zilio, F. (2019). (Never) minding the gap? Integrated Information Theory and Philosophy of Consciousness. In M. Curado, & N. Gouveia (Eds.), Automata's inner movie: Science and Philosophy of Mind (chapter 6, pp. 103-124). Vernon Press. www.researchgate.net/publication/333136202_Neverminding_the_Gap_Integrated_Information_Theory_and_Philosophy_of_Consciousnessxt www.academia.edu/44452243/_Never_Minding_the_Gap_Integrated_Information_Theory_and_Philosophy_Of_Consciousness
[Abstract]The aim of the article is to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the Integrated Information Theory of consciousness and challenge it through contemporary issues in philosophy of mind and phenomenology. I argue that some objectivist theories of consciousness underestimate the constitutive role of the subjective perspective and seem to face the same problems of the dualism that contemporary sciences would like to avoid. IIT faces the hard problem of consciousness from the axioms of experience to the postulates of its physical substrate and considers the phenomenal aspect not as an illusory property to be reduced, rather as the theoretical starting point of the research. The aim of IIT is to account for both the quantity and quality of consciousness in a non-reductive way. However, despite the potential relevance in the empirical domain, this theory presents some theoretical limitations, which are here discussed from a metaphysical, epistemological and phenomenological perspective. Based on this critical discussion it will be suggested to recalibrate IIT in order to redefine its ontological and epistemological grounds.
[Citing Place (1956)]  
Citing Place (1956) in context (citations start with an asterisk *):
Section 3. Analysis from multiple perspectives
Subsection 3.1. Metaphysical observations
* ... I would propose ... that IIT could entail a concept of identity not as equation, but as the asymmetric relation of composition (Place, 1956). From here, the relation between conscious experience and integrated information would be similar to the sentence “lightning is (composed by) electrical discharge, but not vice versa; clouds are (composed by) water molecules, but not vice versa”. Similarly, we can say that “conscious experience is composed by integrated information in a complex”, but at the same time there is no sense in saying that “integrated information in a complex is composed by conscious experience”.