Pockett’s Conscious and Non-Conscious Patterns
Psychologist Susan Pockett's electromagnetic field theory of consciousness proposes that “while conscious experiences are identical with certain electromagnetic patterns generated by the brain” have always been acknowledged, it is critical to “specify what might distinguish conscious patterns from non-conscious patterns … the 3D shape of electromagnetic fields that are conscious, as opposed to those that are not conscious.”
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Susan Pockett
Neurophysiologist & Professor
Susan Pockett is a New Zealand–trained neurophysiologist and Professor emerita at the University of Auckland, best known for her electromagnetic field theory of consciousness, which posits that conscious experience corresponds to specific spatiotemporal brain EM patterns.
Key Takeaways
Core Claim
Conscious experiences are specific electromagnetic (EM) field patterns produced by the brain.
How It Works
The 3D shape of an EM field determines whether it’s associated with consciousness or not.
Distinguishing Idea
Consciousness isn’t a process—it’s a thing: a spatial EM pattern, separable from attention or cognition.
Testable Hypothesis
Conscious EM fields can, in principle, be identified and replicated—even in hardware.
Pockett’s Conscious and Non-Conscious Patterns
Psychologist Susan Pockett's electromagnetic field theory of consciousness proposes that “while conscious experiences are identical with certain electromagnetic patterns generated by the brain” have always been acknowledged, it is critical to “specify what might distinguish conscious patterns from non-conscious patterns … the 3D shape of electromagnetic fields that are conscious, as opposed to those that are not conscious.” She calls this “a testable hypothesis about the characteristics of conscious as opposed to non-conscious fields” (Pockett, 2012).
Moreover, Pockett argues that the central dogma of cognitive psychology that “consciousness is a process, not a thing” is “simply wrong.” All neural processing is unconscious, she asserts.
“The illusion that some of it is conscious results largely from a failure to separate consciousness per se from a number of unconscious processes that normally accompany it—most particularly focal attention. Conscious sensory experiences are not processes at all. They are things: specifically, spatial electromagnetic (EM) patterns, which are presently generated only by ongoing unconscious processing at certain times and places in the mammalian brain, but which in principle could be generated by hardware rather than wetware” (Pockett, 2017).
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