The science or pseudoscience of consciousness

There used to be a conference based in Tuscon, AZ, called “Towards a science of consciousness”. A few years ago it became “The Science of Consciousness”. Here is the website for the 2023 version, held in Italy: https://tsc2023-taormina.it/

We met the charge of “pseudoscience” earlier. Now let’s have a look around. Dip in. Survey the breadth of the offerings. Look for familiar and unfamiliar stuff. Expose yourself to the state of the art (at least according to this conference).

Pick one topic to bring back with you to class. We can assume that none of us is an expert in any one direction or topic here, but that is always true!

I have particular regard for the work of Harald Atmansbacher, who has taken the notion of non-duality, which is central to the Indian school of Advaita Vedanta, and re-worked it for consideration among this group.

This year the organizers provided an entertaing gag:

“This year, we’ve decided to try something new and let TSC2023 participants choose
the most convincing solution to the problem of consciousness. Similar to what has
been done at other famous conferences regarding preferred interpretations of
quantum mechanics or the origin of the universe, we’ll ask you to vote for which
theory you think is most likely to explain consciousness! For simplicity, you’ll need
to choose from this list selected by the TSC2023 scientific committee!
Vote for the best theory of consciousness!”

And they provide this finite list of theories to vote on. Which have you heard of?

1. Mind-Brain Identity Theory (MBI)
2. Cartesian Dualism of substance
3. Global Neuronal Workspace (GNWT)
4. Sensory Motor Theories
5. Higher Order Theories (HOT)
6. Classic Idealism
7. Illusionism/Eliminativism
8. Panpsychism
9. Dual Aspect Monism
10. Mind-Object Identity Theory (MOI)
11. Integrated Information Theory (IIT)
12. Predictive Processing
13. Enactivism
14. Quantum Pan-Protopsychism
15. Quantum Theory (ORCH OR)
16. Russellian Monism
17. Social Approaches (SAC)
18. Chalmers’s Naturalistic Dualism

Now, after all this, we should be finally able to resolve the question of whether IIT is pseudoscience or not!