The Physics of Consciousness
The study of consciousness from the perspective of physics has evolved from a marginal interest to an interdisciplinary frontier. The challenge lies in reconciling the "hard problem"—how subjective experience arises from physical matter—with the objective frameworks of classical and quantum mechanics. Current theoretical physics approaches can be broadly categorized into information-theoretic models and quantum-mechanical hypotheses. Theoretical Frameworks Integrated Information Theory (IIT) IIT posits that consciousness is an intrinsic property of any system possessing "cause-effect power" (Tononi et al., 2016). In this view, a system is conscious to the extent that it integrates information—meaning the system’s state is irreducible to the states of its independent parts. Quantified as \Phi (Phi), this metric captures the degree of integration. While traditionally applied to neural circuits, recent work suggests that the principles of IIT could be mappe...
