At the Taormina Science of Consciousness conference, taking place from May 22nd to May 27th, a vote is underway to select a theory, which each participant thinks is the most promising way to explain consciousness. Eighteen candidates were given, which I took on ChatGPT for organization and describing them shortly to speed up the study.

Candidates in categories

The theories of consciousness can be generally categorized into a few broad groups based on their philosophical stance and approach to the problem of consciousness. Here's a high-level overview:

• Physicalist Theories: These theories posit that consciousness is a physical phenomenon that can be entirely explained by physical processes, such as neuronal activity in the brain.
  • Mind-Brain Identity Theory (MBI)
  • Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT)
  • Predictive Processing
• Non-Physicalist or Dualist Theories: These theories assert that consciousness cannot be fully explained by physical processes alone, and postulate the existence of non-physical entities or properties.
  • Cartesian Dualism of substance
  • Chalmers's Naturalistic Dualism
• Panpsychism and Related Theories: These theories posit that consciousness or mind-like properties are fundamental and ubiquitous features of the universe.
  • Panpsychism
  • Quantum Pan-Protopsychism
  • Russellian Monism
  • Dual Aspect Monism
  • Classic Idealism
• Information Theories: These theories posit that consciousness arises from certain types of information processing or integration.
  • Integrated Information Theory (IIT)
• Perception and Action Theories: These theories emphasize the role of perception, action, and interaction with the environment in shaping conscious experience.
  • Sensory Motor Theory (O'Regan)
  • Enactivism
• Social and Collective Theories: These theories emphasize the role of social phenomena, interactions, and collective processes in shaping consciousness.
  • Social Approaches (SAC)
  • Mind-Object Identity Theory (MOI)
• Higher-Order and Self-Reflective Theories: These theories posit that consciousness arises from the ability to have thoughts about one's own mental states or to reflect upon oneself.
  • Higher Order Theories (HOT)
• Quantum Theories: These theories posit that quantum phenomena are essential for understanding consciousness.
  • ORCHestrated Objective Reduction (ORCH-OR)
• Eliminative and Illusionist Theories: These theories question the fundamental assumptions about consciousness, arguing either that it does not exist as we believe it to (illusionism) or that our current understanding of mental states is fundamentally flawed and will be replaced (eliminativism).
  • Eliminativism
  • Illusionism

Futher descriptions

Physicalist theories

Physicalist theories of consciousness posit that consciousness can be fully explained in terms of physical properties, such as biological or neural processes. Here are the theories from your list that fall under this category:

1. Mind-Brain Identity Theory (MBI): Proposed in the 1950s and 1960s, this theory suggests that mental states are identical to specific brain states. So, for example, the experience of pain is identical to a specific neurological activity in the brain. The theory follows a type of physicalism known as "reductive materialism", meaning it seeks to reduce mental phenomena to purely physical phenomena. It is important to note that while this theory was influential, it has been critiqued for not adequately addressing phenomena such as multiple realizability (the idea that the same mental state can correspond to different physical states in different organisms) and the subjective nature of conscious experience.
2. Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT): This theory, developed by cognitive neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene and colleagues, posits that consciousness arises from the activity of a "global workspace" in the brain that integrates information from different sensory modalities and cognitive systems. This global workspace is thought to involve widespread areas of the brain, particularly those involved in attention, working memory, and executive control. The theory has received support from neuroimaging studies, but it is also the subject of ongoing debate, particularly regarding its ability to explain the subjective nature of conscious experience.
3. Predictive Processing: This is a theoretical framework for understanding perception and cognition, which posits that the brain is constantly generating predictions about the sensory input it will receive, and then updating these predictions based on the actual input. This "prediction error" is then used to update our mental models of the world. While not a theory of consciousness per se, predictive processing has been used to inform theories of consciousness, and some have suggested that conscious experience corresponds to the brain's predictive models of the world.

Non-Physicalist or Dualist theories