[2024.12.03]

Our thoughts and perceptions don’t have a physical form, and yet they are tied to the material world by the brain. This consciousness paradox has puzzled researchers for decades. For centuries, scientists and philosophers have debated the nature of consciousness. Is it just brain activity? Or is it something deeper—maybe even a fundamental part of reality? 

At GIMBC, Drs. Matteo Martino & Paola Magioncalda are exploring a new wave-based theory of consciousness that could change how we understand the mind. The work proposes a set of hypotheses organized in a working model of the nature of consciousness and its relation with neural activity.

Abstract: The work proposes a set of hypotheses organized in a working model of the nature of consciousness and its relation with neural activity. Briefly, we suggest that consciousness, as a fundamental property of matter, corresponds to the differentiation of unitary portions of matter-energy from the rest of the space-time continuum in the basic form of waves, with their energy variation and spatio-temporal borders reflecting in the quality and spatio-temporal borders of experience. We then assume that the brain represents a unique generator of oscillations with complex spatio-temporal configurations that can produce transient events of synchronized neural activity across distributed cortical sensory areas (modulated by receptor stimulation and associative areas’ activity). Each event of neuronal synchronization might generate a large-scale wave, i.e., a unitary field perturbation, which integrates and differentially amplifies elemental and independent waves (where and when they appear) into a unitary portion of matter, manifesting as a frame of conscious experience. Accordingly, for each frame of conscious experience, the quantity of consciousness might be defined by the physical dimension of the unitary large-scale wave in the environmental field, while the quality of consciousness might be defined by the physical form of such large-scale wave along with its internal composition in elemental waves. This working model might provide a novel framework, along with testable predictions, for developing a wave theory of consciousness.

See the full preprint here: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/v67by_v1