Electromagnetic theories of consciousness
The electromagnetic theory of consciousness is a theory that says the electromagnetic field generated by the brain (measurable by EEGs) is the actual carrier of conscious experience.
This theory was initially proposed by Johnjoe McFadden, Susan Pockett and E. Roy John (For the recent account see Andrew and Alexander Fingelkurts).
The starting point for the theory is the fact that every time a neuron fires to generate an action potential it also generates a disturbance to the surrounding electromagnetic (EM) field. Information coded in neuron firing patterns is therefore reflected into the brain's EM field. Locating consciousness in the brain's EM field, rather than the neurons, has the advantage of neatly accounting for how information located in millions of neurons scattered throughout the brain can be unified into a single conscious experience (sometimes called the binding problem): the information is unified in the EM field. In this way EM field consciousness can be considered to be 'joined-up information'.
This theory accounts for several otherwise puzzling facts, such as the finding that attention and awareness tend to be correlated with the synchronous firing of multiple neurons rather than the firing of individual neurons. When neurons fire together their EM fields generate stronger EM field disturbances; so synchronous neuron firing will tend to have a larger impact on the brain's EM field (and thereby consciousness) than the firing of individual neurons.
The different EM field theories disagree as to the role of the proposed conscious EM field on brain function. In McFadden's cemi field theory, the brain's global EM field modifies the electric charges across neural membranes and thereby influences the probability that particular neurons will fire, providing a feed-back loop that drives free will. However in the theories of Susan Pockett and E. Roy John, there is no causal link between the conscious EM field and our consciously willed actions.
If true, the theory has major implications for efforts to design consciousness into Artificial intelligence machines; current microprocessor technology is designed to transmit information linearly along electrical channels, and more general electromagnetic effects are seen as a nuisance and damped out; if this theory is right, however, this is directly counterproductive to the process of creating an artificially-intelligent computer, which would instead have electromagnetic fields that synchronized its outputs.
Further reading
- J McFadden. The conscious electromagnetic field theory (cemi theory).
- Our Conscious Mind Could Be An Electromagnetic Field
- Integrating consciousness via short-range electric interactions
- Consciousness Based on Wireless?
- Our minds are radios
- Synchronous firing and its influence on the brain's electromagnetic field: evidence for an electromagnetic field theory of consciousness
- Consciousness issues addressed using the known transient electric fields of the brain.
See also
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