A Syntropic Model of Consciousness

Chalmers divides the problems of consciousness into: The easy problem, which deals with the study of neurobiological models of consciousness. Considering the enormous progresses of science it is relatively simple to find neural correlates of the conscious experiences. The easy problems largely deals with the functioning of the brain in the way it transmits and reads sensory signals, in the processing of information, in the control of behaviour, in the mechanisms underlying intelligence and memory, in the capability of reproducing verbal accounts, etc. Nevertheless, according to Chalmers, this approach does not explain the subjective qualities that consciousness has for the subject; in other words this approach is not able to answer the problem of the phenomenal consciousness. The hard problem which deals with the explanation of the qualitative and subjective aspects of consciousness, which escape a physicalistic and materialistic analysis. In the first chapter of this work, models suggested by Antonio Damasio (1999), Gerald Edelman (2000) and Francisco Varela (1996) are described. These models try to explain consciousness using the principles of classical physics. These models show a different attitude towards localization: Damasio suggests neural sites in which consciousness could take place, Edelman suggests that consciousness is a global process of all the brain and Varela considers consciousness as a distributed quality of all the organism and of the interaction of the organism with the environment. In the second chapter, the models of consciousness based on quantum mechanics are reviewed. Using together the criteria of scientific falsification and the criteria of biological compatibility only two models, one suggested by Luigi Fantappiè (1942) and the other one suggested by Chris King (2003), survive the selection. It is interesting to note that these models are not pure quantum mechanical models, as they both originate from the integration of Schrödinger’s wave equation (quantum mechanics) with special relativity