The physiological basis of consciousness: A clinical ambition and the insufficiency of current philosophical proposals

In neuropsychiatric practice some patients present pathological deformations of consciousness. An understanding of the physiological basis of consciousness is therefore a clinical as well as scientific and philosophical problem. We review four possible responses to this clinical requirement: (1) absolute dualism, (2) McGinn’s model of cognitive closure, (3) a model based on the inadequacy of physics, and (4) Wilczek’s metaphor of mind–brain complementarity. One possible quantification of consciousness, the integrated information theory of consciousness, is considered, and its limitations and the difficulties associated with its implementation are outlined. A less ambitious alternative based on an extension of information dynamics which offers the possibility of global time-dependent characterizations of central nervous system (CNS) information dynamics is presented. We suggest that while an integration of information dynamics and network theory may fail to solve the matter-consciousness problem, the investigation could produce technologies and understandings that are clinically useful.