Critiques of Integrated Information Theory

IIT has its critics, of course, as should every scientific theory. Some like to highlight IIT's “anti-common sense” predictions imputing consciousness to objects and things that just do not in any way seem to be conscious. The early exchange between theoretical quantum computer scientist Scott Aaronson and Giulio Tononi is illuminating (Aaronson, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c; Tononi, 2014a).

The Pseudoscience Letter and Its Fallout

More sensational, though not necessarily more illuminating, is the open letter from 124 neuroscientists and philosophers, including leading names, that characterizes IIT as “pseudoscience,” a damning descriptor that relegates IIT with the likes of astrology, alchemy, flat Earth and homeopathy. The impact is such that one can no longer discuss IIT without referencing the letter (Fleming et al., 2023).

The letter is titled “The Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness as Pseudoscience” and it expresses concerns that the media, including both Nature and Science magazines “celebrated” IIT as “a ‘leading’ and empirically tested theory of consciousness”—prior to peer-review. Moreover, the letter criticizes the large-scale adversarial collaboration project as testing only “some idiosyncratic predictions made by certain theorists, which are not really logically related to the core ideas of IIT.” The letter concludes, “As researchers, we have a duty to protect the public from scientific misinformation”—thereby igniting a firestorm in consciousness studies (Fleming et al., 2023).

Responses from the Field

Nature called it an “uproar” (Lenharo, 2023a, 2023b). Responding, Christof Koch said, “IIT is a theory, of course, and therefore may be empirically wrong,” but it makes its assumptions very clear—for example, that consciousness has a physical basis and can be mathematically measured.

David Chalmers was quick to comment: “IIT has many problems, but ‘pseudoscience’ is like dropping a nuclear bomb over a regional dispute. It's disproportionate, unsupported by good reasoning, and does vast collateral damage to the field far beyond IIT. As in Vietnam: ‘We had to destroy the field in order to save it’” (Chalmers, 2023).

Hakwan Lau, one of the lead co-authors of the open letter, writes in an extended response to the “uproar” that “it is already false to characterize IIT, a panpsychist theory, as being empirically tested at all in a meaningful way.” He argues that the entire field, including his own theory, is not at the stage where predictions can logically apply, stating “the advertised goal of really testing and potentially falsifying theories is unrealistic, given where the field is at the moment.” Lau concludes by doubling down: “The world has now seen the nature of the conflicts and problems in our field, which can no longer be unseen. As a matter of fact, a sizable group of researchers think that IIT is pseudoscience” (Lau, 2023).

To physicist-neuroscientist Àlex Gómez-Marín, “IIT ticks too many nonmaterialist boxes. There is academic hate for nonphysicalist speech … Cancel culture has unfortunately landed in the sciences, and just now in neuroscience. Using the pseudo-word is a pseudo-argument akin to name-calling to get rid of people … We have the responsibility to tell the truth, to the best of our ability” (Gómez-Marín, 2023).

My own view straddles the barbed fence. On one side, I agree that IIT has more weight than warrant in the pop-sci and even scientific communities, and that the results of the adversarial collaboration experiments, even if they could achieve their preset objectives, would not, perhaps could not, justify the core IIT theory. Moreover, the one-on-one adversarial experiments in general, with their high publicity, give the inappropriate impression that the two protagonists are the finalists in a theory-of-consciousness “run off,” as it were, when in fact there are many dozens of other theories, nonphysical as well as physical, still in the game.

On the other side, I do not sign on to the “pseudoscience” branding; just because IIT may not be subject to traditional kinds of scientific methodologies, such as falsification, does not ipso facto force it out of bounds. (The multiverse in cosmology faces similar kinds of criticism.^[1]) It could be that discerning consciousness escapes traditional science methodologies, as would a majority of theory-categories on this Landscape (not that discerning truth is a democratic process).

Footnote

[1]. We do not carry the multiverse analogy too far, because the multiverse has more independent theoretical motivations and mechanisms.