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The QBIT Theory of Consciousness
Version 1
: Received: 26 May 2019 / Approved: 29 May 2019 / Online: 29 May 2019 (11:53:48 CEST)
Version 2 : Received: 21 June 2019 / Approved: 21 June 2019 / Online: 21 June 2019 (11:22:39 CEST)
Version 3 : Received: 21 July 2019 / Approved: 23 July 2019 / Online: 23 July 2019 (10:32:33 CEST)
Version 4 : Received: 23 August 2019 / Approved: 15 October 2019 / Online: 15 October 2019 (08:14:14 CEST)
Version 5 : Received: 9 October 2019 / Approved: 14 October 2019 / Online: 14 October 2019 (09:53:26 CEST)
Version 2 : Received: 21 June 2019 / Approved: 21 June 2019 / Online: 21 June 2019 (11:22:39 CEST)
Version 3 : Received: 21 July 2019 / Approved: 23 July 2019 / Online: 23 July 2019 (10:32:33 CEST)
Version 4 : Received: 23 August 2019 / Approved: 15 October 2019 / Online: 15 October 2019 (08:14:14 CEST)
Version 5 : Received: 9 October 2019 / Approved: 14 October 2019 / Online: 14 October 2019 (09:53:26 CEST)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Beshkar M. (2020) The QBIT theory of consciousness. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, DOI: 10.1007/s12124-020-09528-1 Beshkar M. (2020) The QBIT theory of consciousness. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, DOI: 10.1007/s12124-020-09528-1
Abstract
The QBIT theory is an attempt toward solving the problem of consciousness based on empirical evidence provided by various scientific disciplines including Quantum mechanics, Biology, Information theory, and Thermodynamics. This theory formulates the problem of consciousness in the following four questions: (1) What is the nature of qualia? (2) How are qualia generated? (3) Why are qualia subjective? (4) Why does a quale have a particular quality or meaning?In sum, the QBIT theory proposes that (1) when certainty of an observer about an event exceeds a certain level, the observer becomes conscious of that event; (2) consciousness requires Maxwell demon-assisted quantum computation; (3) a quale is a dense pack of meaningful quantum information encoded in maximally entangled pure states; (4) a quale is generated when robustness of an internal representation exceeds a certain threshold; (5) the quality or meaning of a quale is determined by a process of information compression via the matching and unification of patterns; and (6) subjectivity of consciousness is due to the fact that maximally entangled pure states are private and unshareable.
Keywords
Coherence; Compression; Computation; Consciousness; Entanglement; Information; Qualia; Quantum; Representation
Subject
Physical Sciences, Quantum Science and Technology
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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