Abstract
Integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness proposes an identity between its causal structure and phenomenology. Through this assertion, IIT aims to explain consciousness by prioritizing first-person experience. However, despite its phenomenology-first stance, developments in IIT have overlooked temporality. As such, we argue that at present IIT’s phenomenological analysis is incomplete. In this critique, we show how IIT takes a non-identical illusionist stance towards the experiences of continuity, flow, and extent of our experiences. Moreover, in isolating temporal grains of experience to a single timescale, IIT misses out on capturing the multi-scale nested nature of temporal phenomena. Hence, we contend that IIT needs an axiom for time, through which its causal structure can be refined to account for temporal experiences. Here, we propose an axiom to address these concerns. We conclude by discussing how IIT may need to be revised if our concerns hold true.
References
Aaronson, S. (2014). Why I am not an integrated information theorist (or, the unconscious expander). https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799
Albantakis, L., & Tononi, G. (2021). What we are is more than what we do. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2102.04219
Andersen, H. K., & Grush, R. (2009). A brief history of time-consciousness: Historical precursors to James and Husserl. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 47(2), 277–307. https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.0.0118
Aru, J., & Bachmann, T. (2017). In and out of consciousness: How does conscious processing (d)evolve over time? Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 128. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00128
Barrett, A. B. (2016). A comment on Tononi & Koch (2015) “Consciousness: Here, there and everywhere?” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1687), 20140198. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0198
Bayne, T. (2018). On the axiomatic foundations of the integrated information theory of consciousness. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 2018, 1. https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niy007
Blackmore, S. (2012). Turning on the light to see how the darkness looks. In S. Kreitler & O. Maimon (Eds.), Consciousness: Its nature and functions (pp. 109–124). Nova.
Bregman, A. S. (1994). Auditory scene analysis: The perceptual organization of sound. MIT press. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.408434
Cohen, M. X. (2011). It’s about time. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5, 2. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00002
Costines, C., Borghardt, T. L., & Wittmann, M. (2021). The phenomenology of “pure” consciousness as reported by an experienced meditator of the Tibetan Buddhist Karma Kagyu tradition. Analysis of interview content concerning different meditative states. Philosophies, 6, 2. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies6020050
Dainton, B. (2008). The experience of time and change. Philosophy Compass, 3(4), 619–638. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00153.x
Dainton, B. (2010). Temporal consciousness. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/consciousness-temporal
Dennett, D., & Kinsbourne, M. (1992). Time and the observer: The where and when of consciousness in the brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 15, 183–247. https://doi.org/doi:10.1017/S0140525X00068229
Doerig, A., Schurger, A., Hess, K., & Herzog, M. H. (2019). The unfolding argument: Why IIT and other causal structure theories cannot explain consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition, 72, 49–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2019.04.002
Dorato, M., & Wittmann, M. (2020). The phenomenology and cognitive neuroscience of experienced temporality. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 19(4), 747–771. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-019-09651-4
Droege, P. (2009). Now or never: How consciousness represents time. Consciousness and Cognition, 18(1), 78–90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2008.10.006
Ellia, F., Hendren, J., Grasso, M., Kozma, C., Mindt, G., P. Lang, J., M. Haun, A., Albantakis, L., Boly, M., & Tononi, G. (2021). Consciousness and the fallacy of misplaced objectivity. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 2021(2). https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niab032
Fekete, T., Van de Cruys, S., Ekroll, V., & Leeuwen, C. van. (2018). In the interest of saving time: A critique of discrete perception. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 2018, 1. https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niy003
Grush, R. (2006). How to, and how not to, bridge computational cognitive neuroscience and Husserlian phenomenology of time consciousness. Synthese, 153(3), 417–450. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-006-9100-6
Herzog, M. H., Drissi-Daoudi, L., & Doerig, A. (2020). All in good time: Long-lasting postdictive effects reveal discrete perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24(10), 826–837. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.07.001
Hoerl, C. (2013). A succession of feelings, in and of itself, is not a feeling of succession. Mind, 122(486), 373–417. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzt070
Hogendoorn, H. (2022). Perception in real-time: Predicting the present, reconstructing the past. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 26(4), 128–141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.11.003
Hunt, T. (2016). Taking time seriously in Tononi’s integrated information theory. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 23(9-10), 88–110.
Husserl, E. (1964). The phenomenology of inner time consciousness. Indiana University Press.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. MacMillan.
Johnston, A., & Nishida, S. Y. (2001). Time perception: Brain time or event time? Current Biology, 11(11), 427–430. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0960-9822(01)00252-4
Josipovic, Z., & Miskovic, V. (2020). Nondual awareness and minimal phenomenal experience. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 2087. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02087
Kelly, S. (2005). The puzzle of temporal experience. In A. Brook & K. Akins (Eds.), Cognition and the brain: The philosophy and neuroscience movement (pp. 208–238). Cambridge University Press.
Kent, L. (2019). Duration perception versus perception duration: A proposed model for the consciously experienced moment. Timing & Time Perception, 7(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1163/22134468-20181135
Kent, L., & Wittmann, M. (2021). Time consciousness: The missing link in theories of consciousness. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 2021, 2. https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niab011
Kiverstein, J. (2010). Making sense of phenomenal unity: An intentionalist account of temporal experience. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, 67, 155–181. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1358246110000081
Kiverstein, J., & Arstila, V. (2013). Time in mind. In H. Dyke & A. Bardon (Eds.), A companion to the philosophy of time (pp. 444–469). John Wiley & Sons.
Koenderink, J., Richards, W., & Doorn, A. J. van. (2012). Space-time disarray and visual awareness. I-Perception, 3(3), 159–165. https://doi.org/10.1068/i0490sas
Merker, B., Williford, K., & Rudrauf, D. (2021). The integrated information theory of consciousness: A case of mistaken identity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1–72. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x21000881
Metzinger, T. (2020). Minimal phenomenal experience: Meditation, tonic alertness, and the phenomenology of “pure” consciousness. Philosophy and the Mind Sciences, 1, 1–44. https://doi.org/10.33735/phimisci.2020.I.46
Montemayor, C., & Wittmann, M. (2014). The varieties of presence: Hierarchical levels of temporal integration. Timing & Time Perception, 2(3), 325–338. https://doi.org/10.1163/22134468-00002030
Negro, N. (2020). Phenomenology-first versus third-person approaches in the science of consciousness: The case of the integrated information theory and the unfolding argument. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 19(5), 979–996. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-020-09681-3
Northoff, G., & Huang, Z. (2017). How do the brain’s time and space mediate consciousness and its different dimensions? Temporo-spatial theory of consciousness (TTC). Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 80, 630–645. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.07.013
Northoff, G., Wainio-Theberge, S., & Evers, K. (2020). Is temporo-spatial dynamics the “common currency” of brain and mind? In quest of “spatiotemporal neuroscience.” Physics of Life Reviews, 33, 34–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2019.05.002
Northoff, G., & Zilio, F. (2022). From shorter to longer timescales: Converging integrated information theory (IIT) with the temporo-spatial theory of consciousness (TTC). Entropy, 24(2), 270. https://doi.org/10.3390/e24020270
Oizumi, M., Albantakis, L., & Tononi, G. (2014). From the phenomenology to the mechanisms of consciousness: Integrated information theory 3.0. PLoS Computational Biology, 10, 5. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003588
Phillips, I. (2010). Perceiving temporal properties. European Journal of Philosophy, 18, 2. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0378.2008.00299.x
Phillips, I. (2014). Experience of and in time. Philosophy Compass, 9(2), 131–144. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12107
Phillips, I. (Ed.). (2017). Rethinking the specious present. In The Routledge handbook of philosophy of temporal experience (pp. 146–156). Routledge.
Piper, M. S. (2019). Neurodynamics of time consciousness: An extensionalist explanation of apparent motion and the specious present via reentrant oscillatory multiplexing. Consciousness and Cognition, 73(10275), 1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2019.04.006
Pockett, S. (2003). How long is “now”? Phenomenology and the specious present. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 2(1), 55–68. https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1023/A:1022960122740
Pokropski, M. (2018). Commentary: From the phenomenology to the mechanisms of consciousness: Integrated information theory 3.0. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 101. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00101
Pokropski, M. (2019). Phenomenology and mechanisms of consciousness: Considering the theoretical integration of phenomenology with a mechanistic framework. Theory & Psychology, 29(5), 601–619. https://doi.org/10.1177
Pöppel, E. (1997). A hierarchical model of temporal perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 1, 56. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(97)01008-5
Singhal, I., & Srinivasan, N. (2021). Time and time again: A multi-scale hierarchical framework for time-consciousness and timing of cognition. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 2021, 2. https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niab020
Srinivasan, N. (2020). Consciousness without content: A look at evidence and prospects. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1992. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01992
Tononi, G. (2004). An information integration theory of consciousness. BMC Neuroscience, 5(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-5-42
Tononi, G. (2008). Consciousness as integrated information: A provisional manifesto. The Biological Bulletin, 215(3), 216–242. https://doi.org/10.2307/25470707
Tononi, G. (2015). Integrated information theory. Scholarpedia, 10(1), 41–64. https://doi.org/dx.doi.org/10.4249/scholarpedia.4164
Tononi, G., Boly, M., Massimini, M., & Koch, C. (2016). Integrated information theory: From consciousness to its physical substrate. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 17(7), 450–461. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2016.44
Tononi, G., & Koch, C. (2015). Consciousness: Here, there and everywhere? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 370(1668), 20140167. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0167
Tsuchiya, N., Andrillon, T., & Haun, A. (2020). A reply to “the unfolding argument”: Beyond functionalism/behaviorism and towards a science of causal structure theories of consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition, 79(107), 2877–10287. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2020.102877
Van Gelder, T. (1999). Wooden iron? Husserlian phenomenology meets cognitive science. In F. J. V. J. Petitot, B. Pachoud, & J. M. Roy (Eds.), Naturalizing phenomenology (pp. 245–265). Stanford University Press.
VanRullen, R., & Koch, C. (2003). Is perception discrete or continuous? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(5), 207–213. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00095-0
Varela, F. J. (1999). The specious present: A neurophenomenology of time consciousness. In J. Petitot, F. J. Varela, B. Pachoud, & J.-M. Roy (Eds.), Naturalizing phenomenology: Issues in contemporary phenomenology and cognitive science (pp. 266–329).
Vogel, D. H., Falter-Wagner, C. M., Schoofs, T., Krämer, K., Kupke, C., & Vogeley, K. (2020). Flow and structure of time experience–Concept, empirical validation and implications for psychopathology. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 19(2), 235–258. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-018-9573-z
White, P. A. (2018). Is conscious perception a series of discrete temporal frames? Consciousness and Cognition, 60, 98–126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2018.02.012
White, P. A. (2021). Perception of happening: How the brain deals with the no‐history problem. Cognitive Science, 45, 12. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13068
Whitrow, G. J. (1980). The natural philosophy of time. Clarendon.
Wiese, W. (2020). The science of consciousness does not need another theory, it needs a minimal unifying model. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niaa013
Windt, J. M. (2015). Just in time—Dreamless sleep experience as pure subjective temporality. In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds.), Open MIND. MIND Group. https://doi.org/10.15502/9783958571174
Wittmann, M. (2011). Moments in time. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 5, 66. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnint.2011.00066
Woods, T., Windt, J., & Carter, O. (2021). The path to contentless experience in meditation: An evidence synthesis based on expert texts. MindRxiv. https://doi.org/10.31231/osf.io/6j928
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2022 Ishan Singhal, Ramya Mudumba, Narayanan Srinivasan