Supplanting the Integrated Information Theory

Natural selection does not start de novo with each new species; it uses the information contained in organisms that have come earlier in evolutionary history. Evolution is conservative. A self-generated consciousness can only emerge as the product of information realized out of the exchanges between the organism and the world. Cells provide the original platform that first organized this kind of integrated information exchanges. They are not conscious, but their systems biology is a form of knowledge. Cells are the original knowing without a knower. Human consciousness is also abstract, and one cannot directly measure it. Its abstract nature is a description, not a speculation. The IIT relies on the concept of effective information, which represents the entropy of the actual repertoire of a system in relation to its potential repertoire. This aspect of the theory agrees with the notion of information.expectation and renders this blueprint consistent with the empirical support of the IIT. However, the IIT does not address the role of the subject in the realization of information.expectation. The realization of information is an active process. Neurobiology provides no evidence for the production of information by unactivatable systems.

Keywords: Action-Based Consciousness, Complex Emerging Systems, Consciousness in Inactive Systems, Consciousness Detachment from the Subject, Conservative Natural Selection, Evolutionary Origin of the Subject, Effective Information Calculation, Empirical Support, Entropy, Information Single-Celled Organisms, Information.Expectation, IIT Fallacy, Integrated Information, Intelligent Design, Minimally Conscious Photodiode, Overlap with the IIT, Realization of Relational Information, System Repertoire.