Psience Quest

Is consciousness just a complex electromagnetic field?

Tam Hunt interviews Johnjoe McFadden

Quote:There are many field theories of consciousness and McFadden is not the first to develop an electromagnetic field theory of consciousness. Field theories were first proposed in the 1940s by Kohler, Wallach and Held. John, Libet, Pockett, Jones and others have proposed electromagnetic theories in the last twenty years. Mostyn Jones’ 2013 paper, “Electromagnetic-field theories of mind,” is a great overview of this history.

My own General Resonance Theory of consciousness includes electromagnetic fields as a possible seat of consciousness, and the same holds with any physical field. EM fields differ, in my approach, in that while other physical fields like gravity or nuclear forces could be the seat of consciousness in some systems, EM fields are capable of far more complex and fast-acting consciousness. We see below that McFadden holds a similar view in this regard.

McFadden’s approach seems to be panpsychist, as Jones has suggested in his work, but McFadden denies this and, as with Giulio Tononi in my 2011 interview of him in my book, Eco, Ego, Eros, seems to shy away from the panpsychist implications of his theory.

I’ve been inspired by McFadden’s work over the years, even though we differ on some key issues (such as panpsychism), and it was an honor to be able to dialogue with him here. We conducted this interview by email in the latter half of 2019.

(2019-12-22, 10:01 PM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]Good find...

He gives IIT a boot doesn't he (which I agree with), and he also stomps on Orch-OR (which is probably right), but also seems to lay the boot into the more general idea that there are any quantum processes associated with Microtubules (MT's), which I think is a bit harsh.

It's Tubulin proteins which make up MT's, which then make up Centrioles, Cilia and Basal Bodies, and it does seem that these highly conserved structures are somehow involved in sensing, communicating, processing information, and generally moving around and navigating space-time.

Yeah I don't think Orch-OR as fully laid out is the right answer but it seems odd to not credit Hammeroff's research relating to anesthesia. Which is not to say Hammeroff [h]as demonstrably shown he's right either, but it seems as much a live hypothesis as McFadden's own?

And it's not too long ago (less than a decade IMO) that quantum biology in its entirety was considered impossible, so this idea that there's nothing to find re: microtubules, quantum biology, and consciousness seems presumptuous.

(2019-12-22, 10:01 PM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]He gives IIT a boot doesn't he (which I agree with), and he also stomps on Orch-OR (which is probably right)

Probably right to stomp on it, or the theory itself is probably right? I thought that Bandyopadhyay's observations had put the "too warm, wet and noisy" objection to bed.