Electromagnetic Field Theory of Consciousness
Craig Weinberg
Synchronous Firing and Its Influence on the Brain’s Electromagnetic Field
Evidence for an Electromagnetic Field Theory of Consciousness
http://www3.surrey.ac.uk/qe/pdfs/cemi_theory_paper.pdf
A step in the right direction I think, although ultimately still (understandably) limited by the assumptions of physics of disembodied fields of energy.
"The brain’s em field is as much a part of it’s activity as neuronal firing. Efforts to understand human consciousness have focused on the informational processing performed by neurone firing and synaptic transmission, yet the brain’s em field holds precisely the same information as neurone firing patterns and may be involved in transmission and processing of that information. The equivalence of matter and energy, apparent in Einstein’s famous equation, implies that there is no a priori reason why consciousness should be associated with the matter of neurones rather than the em field activity within and between neurones. However, whereas information in neurones is digital, discrete and spatially localized, information in em fields is analogue, integrated and distributed."
Until we integrate the actual lived experience of perception with our theory of physics, we will always be painting ourselves into a homunculus corner. So our experience of imagining a flying purple octopus is really the silent buzzing of an invisible cloud rather than the infinitesimal sparks between trillions of cellular tendrils. Okay. So where is the flying purple octopus?
What I see is that it isn't the octopus that is an interpretation of physical 'information', but rather it is awareness which is informs and is informed by physical activity. These changes in awareness are electromagnetic changes (and gravitational changes, thermodynamic changes) which are already interpreted by definition. They are experienced on many levels in many different senses. Our personal experience as human beings usually translates as certain activities of the central nervous system when translated into its impersonal correlate. We can however, with practice or talent, extent our consciousness to some extent into the sub-personal and super-personal levels which correspond to the micro and macro impersonal levels that are covered by physics.
This paper is a good start because they recognize that synchronization of neural activity can be an effect of a top down cause rather than a bottom up automation. I don't think the em field as we understand it now will turn out to be 'consciousness' because we are exposed to such a variety of electromagnetic fields all of the time without apparent disruption that it seems unlikely to be more causally efficacious than the tissue of the brain itself. I don't think that you could use TMS to compensate for brain trauma or chronic disease, for instance. If you have a big hole in your brain, I don't think that broadcasting an electromagnetic bandaid is going to fix it. If I'm right, what we call an electromagnetic field is the impersonal reductionist perspective on what is actually experiences of synchronized participation. The em field model is a good way of mapping out the computations of the brain in a different way, but as different as the global field model is from the digital neuron model, the sensorimotive experience reality is even more fundamentally alien to quantitative analysis. There just isn't any force or field out there that adds up to be what we feel 'in here'. It only makes sense the other way around, with realism as projection and phenomenology as ground of being.