Consciousness and the Social Brain

the present theory, consciousness is not integrated information per se. Rather, we are conscious of information that is integrated with an attention schema.
The Difficulties of Testing the Integrated Information Theory

    How can the integrated information theory of consciousness be tested? Theoretically, there are two approaches. First, one could try to create consciousness artificially by building an integrated set of information. Second, one could try to remove consciousness from something that already has it by de-integrating the information.
    The first approach would be to build a system that includes integrated information and then to speculate about whether the system is conscious. The difficulty, as noted in the previous section, is that the claim of consciousness is unverifiable. You could build a computer, put in a good dose of integrated information, and then boldly claim that the computer is conscious. Alas, the computer lacks the verbal skills to say so, and so the test is less than useful.
    The second approach would be to test whether human consciousness fades when integration in the brain is reduced. Tononi 17 emphasizes the case of anesthesia. As a person is anesthetized, integration among the many parts of the brain slowly decreases, and so does consciousness. Someone naïve to the dangers of correlation might mistake this finding as support for the theory. But evenwithout doing the experiment, we already know what the result must be. As the brain degrades in its function, so does the integration among its various parts and so does the intensity of awareness. But so do most other functions. Even many unconscious processes in the brain depend on integration of information and will degrade as integration deteriorates.
    The underlying difficulty here is once again the generality of integrated information. Integrated information is so pervasive and so necessary for almost all complex functions in the brain that the theory is essentially unfalsifiable. Whatever consciousness may be, it depends in some manner on integrated information and decreases as integration in the brain is compromised.
    The attention schema theory has the advantage of greater specificity. Not any integrated information gives rise to consciousness, only the attention schema integrated with other pieces of information. Find the system in the human brain that computes the attention schema, and the theory is directly testable. Knock out that system, and awareness should disappear. Damage part of that system, and awareness should be severely compromised. Alter the processing in that system, and the nature of consciousness should be warped. Where this system might be located in the brain, and what happens when those brain areas are disrupted, is discussed in later chapters.
Explaining the Reportability of Consciousness

    The only objective, physically measurable truth we have about consciousness is that we can, at least sometimes, report that we have it. I can say, “The apple is green,” like a well-regulated wavelength detector, providing no evidence of consciousness; but I can also claim, “I am sentient; I have a conscious experience of green.”
    One of the advantages of the social theories of consciousness, whatever their weaknesses may be, is that they explain the reportability of consciousness. Indeed, they are
about
the reportability ofconsciousness. In that approach, consciousness is a narrative that the brain constructs to explain itself. Gazzaniga’s interpreter, for example, is a language-talented left hemisphere reporting on its motives at least as it has reconstructed them.
    The attention schema theory has the same advantage. It explains the reportability of consciousness. We can report that we have awareness because it is a schema, a complex set of information that can be cognitively accessed and from which summaries can be abstracted and verbalized. We can report that we have experiences because the having of an experience is depicted in the information set.
    Many previous approaches to consciousness do not address the question of reportability. The integrated information view belongs to this category. It is silent on how we get from being conscious to being able to report, “I have a conscious experience.” Yet any serious theory of consciousness must explain the one objective fact that we have about consciousness: that we can, in principle, at least sometimes, report that we have it.
    In discussion with colleagues,