Chirapat Ukachoke

This study analyzes neural and behavioral events occurring before, during, and after the emergence of a pain quale and the consciousness of that pain to examine the causal efficacy of the quale and consciousness. It finds that events occurring before or concurrently with the emergence of the quale are neither caused nor influenced by the quale or consciousness. Events occurring afterward may also be unaffected by the quale or consciousness if they do not overtly involve phenomenal content. By contrast, activities that explicitly incorporate phenomenal characteristics—such as experiencing, remembering, or reporting the pain quale—are influenced by the occurrence and phenomenal character of the quale or consciousness. Accordingly, qualia and consciousness are not inert. However, their influence does not operate through mechanistic particle–force interactions. Instead, they function as higher-level factors that stand in stable, constitutive counterfactual relations to downstream neural and behavioral effects. Physically, they perform this role by providing the involved neural causal chain with their phenomenal information, which is necessary in initiating and structuring that causal chain and determining the content of the outputs. Nevertheless, qualia and consciousness cannot generate these outputs by themselves; the relevant neural circuits must be present to implement the mechanistic processing required for producing physical effects. Only when both components function together is the causal chain complete and can yield results. Thus, the study concludes that qualia and consciousness influence the neural system and, although they are not mechanistic, independent, or complete causes of physical events, they can be considered causally efficacious in a restricted, information-based sense.

This study addresses a central question in neuroscience: What is the physical nature of consciousness? Taking a neuroscientific approach, the study first establishes working definitions for its principal terms—qualia, consciousness, and information—to specify clearly the entities under investigation. It then analyzes the essential features of these defined terms. Information, in particular, is examined in detail across several aspects, including its carrier, nature, effects, interpretations, and meanings. The study next investigates the essential properties of consciousness and identifies potential entities that could underlie it. Candidate entities are drawn from two groups: physically established non-material entities in the brain, such as electrical fields, magnetic fields, electromagnetic waves, and neural information, and physically unestablished non-material entities proposed in various theoretical models. Each candidate is assessed for whether it can satisfy the required properties of consciousness. The analysis finds that the entity that most parsimoniously meets these criteria, without invoking new forces or physical laws, is neural information. Accordingly, the study proposes the hypothesis that consciousness is a form of neural information, specifically information encoded in the spatiotemporal patterns of electrochemical signaling within certain neural circuits. It presents empirically verifiable predictions derived from this hypothesis, making the hypothesis falsifiable. Further, it identifies a neural mechanism by which some information can manifest phenomenally as consciousness, enabling the occurrence of consciousness in the brain, and another mechanism underlying why this manifestation occurs only from the first-person perspective of some neural circuits. The study then compares its hypothesis and proposed mechanisms with existing theories of consciousness, clarifying how it differs in focus, explanatory scope, and thesis. Broader implications for neuroscience, clinical research, and the possibility of artificial consciousness are discussed, along with limitations of the present framework. Overall, because its evidence and arguments lie entirely within established neuroscience, with no novel entities, forces, or physical laws posited, this study advances a parsimonious and neuroscientifically grounded hypothesis on the physical nature of consciousness.

This book offers a rigorous exploration into the nature of the mind through the lens of empirical evidence. Moving beyond abstract speculation, the book dissects the essential architecture of the mind—mental processes, qualia, and consciousness—and proposes a formal scientific theory complete with verifiable theorems on what the nature of these entities is. The book also proposes a scientific solution to the "Hard Problem," explaining both the how and the why qualia and consciousness occur in the brain, and physical systems in general. Related crucial matters—information, variable qualia, and philosophical zombies—are also examined. Information, especially, is investigated in detail that can provide a basis for a more general theory of the mind.