The Consciousness Conundrum

John Goldie is a retired GP and medical educator

Humans have evolved the capacity for consciousness. While the nature of consciousness has been puzzling philosophers for centuries, it has only recently been considered by scientists.

There is no generally agreed definition of consciousness. Indeed, some philosophers, particularly Dennett, postulate the idea that consciousness is illusionary.¹ The Oxford English dictionary defines it as the“…state or fact of being mentally conscious or aware of something.” Like most definitions it is lacking. It suggests nevertheless the existence of an internal world, separate to the physical world giving rise to its experiences. This division has led to the dualism of mind-body in most religions and cultures, where the mind, the “I,” or the soul is seen as separate from the body. Descartes, who proposed the best-known dualist theory, suggested that the mind connected to the physical world through the pineal gland. How it connected was not explained. More recently Popper and Eccles proposed a dualistic theory in which the mind interacts with the physical brain at the level of the neural synapses.² Again, no explanation was given as to how it leads to conscious experience.

Scientists have generally adopted a materialist approach, where the brain gives rise to conscious experience. This in turn has been challenged by philosophers such as Chalmers and Nagel who question how subjective experiences can arise purely from physical matter.³ A dichotomy therefore exists between those who suggest consciousness arises from the physical brain and those who indicate an extra ingredient.

The human brain is a complex organ consisting of approximately eighty-six billion neurons, with around one thousand trillion neural connections. Unlike a computer, which has a central processing unit the brain is parallel and distributed in design. It is a vast collection of interpenetrating networks. Information comes in through the senses and is used to control outputs. While different areas control functions like vision, hearing, speech, movement, forward planning etc. They are all linked to each other through networks of connections. In contrast consciousness seems to be unified. At any one time there is a unity to what we experience. Some things are in our consciousness, the contents of consciousness, while others are not. Consciousness is unified over time with continuity from one moment to the next and over a lifetime of conscious experiences. There is also a single experiencer as well as the stream of experiences. A successful theory of consciousness requires to explain how the contents of consciousness, its’ continuity and the self who experiences it arises from a multiple, parallel non-centralised brain.

The two most influential theories are Tononi’s integrated information theory (IIT)⁴ and Baars’ Global Workspace Theory (GWT).⁵ IIT suggests consciousness arises from “Posterior hot zones” in the parietal, temporal, and occipital areas. These networks of neurons form a dynamic core whose intrinsic properties and causal structure produce consciousness. Consciousness is seen as being identical to the brain’s capacity to integrate information. Alternatively, GWT proposes that consciousness emerges from a global workspace within the brain. Information becomes conscious when it is selected, amplified, and broadcast across the brain. Frontoparietal networks facilitate sharing of information across the brain. The pre-frontal cortex is considered key in broadcasting the information. This top-down approach conflicts with the bottom-up approach of IIT, where consciousness arises deeper in the brain and the prefrontal cortex engages in post-conscious processing but not the experience itself. A recent review in the journal Nature,⁶ involving adversarial testing of both theories, challenged both. They found the other main alternative theories to be similarly lacking. The study suggested consciousness is more about perception than planning as how we see may be more central to consciousness than how we think. The need for further principled, theory-driven, collaborative, quantitative research was emphasised.

What is needed perhaps is a different way of looking at the problem.⁷ In doing so we could adopt Whitehead’s process philosophy, where experience is viewed as fundamental. This approach is consistent with how we are as General Practitioners. As living, autonomous agents we actively create our own experience and the environment we inhabit through our actions. We are embedded in the world, which is shaped by our actions and interactions. Consciousness is not an isolated process but situated within and dependent upon our physical and social environment. It is an ongoing sense making process to establish meaning and relevance as we interact with the world.^6,7

By moving beyond studying consciousness solely as a physical process and adopting an experience-centric perspective, we might finally solve the conundrum of consciousness.

References

1. Dennett DC. The User- Illusion of Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 28(11-12), 167-177. 2021
2. Popper KR, Eccles C. The Self and its Brain. New York. Springer.1977.
3. https://consc.net/papers/facing.pdf [accessed 10/10/25]
4. Oizumi M, Albantakis L, Tononi G. From the Phenomenology to the Mechanisms of Consciousness: Integrated Information Theory 3.0. PLOS Computational Biology. 2014. 10(5): e1003588.
5. Baars BJ. A Cognitive theory of Consciousness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1988.
6. Cogitate Consortium et al. Adversarial testing of Global Neuronal Workspace and Integrated Information Theories of Consciousness. Nature. 2025. 642, 133-142.
7. Frank A. Why Science Hasn’t Solved Consciousness (Yet). Noema. July 8. 2025. http://www.noemamag.com [accessed 10/10/25].

Featured image by Dan Meyers on Unsplash