Introduction
This is a second post on the consciousness aspect of the UFO phenomenon. The first post on the consciousness aspect you can find here. As I wrote in that first post, I think it is a good idea to have some basic knowledge of what science and philosophy (in the West) says about human consciousness, so we at least have some starting point from where to continue our exploration of the connection between consciousness and the UFO phenomenon.
It is not certain that modern neuroscience (or quantum physics) can help us further understand the UFO phenomenon´s effects on human consciousness (i.e., altered experiences of space-time and profound psychological and emotional changes). Instead, a greater degree of clarity will perhaps be found in religious and spiritual traditions from around the world? Or, more likely, both science and spirituality will be sources of progress and insights on this issue.
Before we go to the main point of this post, I want to repeat that the main purpose of this post, the previous post, and the coming posts on the consciousness aspect of the UFO phenomenon, is to, hopefully, elicit new thoughts and discussions about what the consciousness aspect can teach us about the nature and origin of the UFO phenomenon, and vice versa.
Or, more specifically: what a person´s altered perception/experience of reality in connection to an encounter with the UFO phenomenon can teach us about the nature and intent of the UFO phenomenon (the nature and intent of at least some part of the UFO phenomenon), and the capabilities of human consciousness.
The point of this blog post
As with the first post (see the link above), the point of this post is to orient you in some of the Western schools of thought about what consciousness is. I just gave the answer to "why" in the introduction above, with the last two paragraphs as the central answer. More specifically, the point of this post is to introduce you to an interesting theory of consciousness, namely, Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness (IIT).
Integrated information theory (IIT) was developed by Dr Giulio Tononi and collaborators at the Wisconsin Institute of Sleep and Consciousness at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I cannot claim to understand IIT in-depth, so I will let Dr Tononi himself give an overview of IIT in the video presentation at the end of this post. You can also read Dr Tononi´s first research article (2004) on IIT here.
An easy-to-understand article (and an update of IIT) about IIT, written and curated by Dr Tononi (2015), can be found on Scholarpedia.
Even though I cannot claim to understand integrated information theory in detail (i.e., the math), I will, nevertheless, give my interpretation of what some of IIT´s main and non-mathematical concepts are. After that, I will say something about why I think IIT might be a useful tool when studying the consciousness aspect of the UFO phenomenon (specifically concerning the manipulation of a person´s conscious experience of space and time, i.e., an altered perception of reality). I use the word "manipulation" in a neutral sense.
As always, the best way to really learn and understand a subject, or an aspect of a subject, is to study first-hand sources. So, do not trust my interpretation of the integrated information theory of consciousness to be accurate. What follows is my level of understanding of IIT at this moment:
- The axioms of IIT are intrinsic existence, composition, information, integration, and exclusion. These are the 5 essential properties (axioms) of consciousness (of every experience).
- Consciousness, or experience, is about existence and "being," rather than function and "doing." Existence is cause-effect power within the system (human) itself. If something exists, it can potentially have a high or low degree of consciousness, depending on its strength of cause-effect power. Consciousness can be graded.
- An experience has a specific geometry. Every experience is definite, differentiated, and integrated information: the quality of an experience is a "form," or "shape," in cause-effect space.
- The physical world ("matter") is a postulate created by consciousness or inner subjectivity. Therefore, you have to start with the 5 essential properties (axioms) of consciousness and then infer what kind of properties physical systems must have to account for its essential properties. That is, you have to start with the experience itself and then ask the question of why the 5 essential properties of every experience are the way they are: what are the properties required of the physical substrate (the postulates of IIT) of experience?
- The axioms (the phenomenology) and the postulates (the neurobiology) converge (identity as postulated by IIT). Consciousness is fundamental to physical systems with properties postulated by IIT, just as mass is fundamental to certain particles.
- I am not sure I am correct in the following, but the five points (my interpretation of IIT) above seems to have similarities with Pythagorean philosophy and what is called "panpsychism" (see, for instance, the ontology of Tibetan Buddhism, Kabbalah, and Gnosticism).
Obviously, my interpretation of IIT is very simplified and coarse, so I recommend everyone interested to read Dr Tononi´s article/overview on Scholarpedia and other research articles by him and his collaborators (see the link above to the Wisconsin Institute of Sleep and Consciousness).
You can, and should, question the axioms of IIT (the axioms can be seen as premises to support the postulates (conclusions)), and other parts of the theory, just like you should question any other theory. So, in short, study IIT with a critical mindset (for instance, ask yourself if IIT is falsifiable).
Why is IIT interesting in connection to the consciousness aspect of the UFO phenomenon? Assuming my understanding of the main concepts of IIT is correct, then consciousness as a system of integrated information can be a useful framework when trying to understand the surreal changes of perception of space and time, which is a common feature in experiencers´ encounters with something unknown.
Dr Tononi, and his collaborators, postulate that intrinsic information is radically different from external information. Intrinsic information is what it "feels like" to be you. So, what you are is identical with your intrinsically integrated information. No one else has your particular set of integrated information, and that is why I cannot fully know or feel what it is to be you, or vice versa. The cause of your variety of experiences is the ability of your intrinsically integrated information to instantiate differences within itself (cause-effect power, feedback loops).
Now, what if a person´s surreal, or altered, perception of space and time, as often told by experiencers, is caused by the Phenomenon´s capability to perceive, access, and manipulate the mathematical structure (i.e., your intrinsically integrated information that has physical substrates) of a person´s consciousness? If the quality of your every experience is a specific geometrical "form", as IIT postulates, then, in principle, it should be possible to access and manipulate someone´s perception of reality, i.e., change the geometrical "form" of one or several experiences of reality at any given moment. Could it also be one of the explanations as to why different witnesses to the same UFO sighting/encounter/contact are experiencing, in some cases, very different chain of events, characters involved, etc.?
Furthermore, when experiencers report that they have floated through a brick wall, or that entities came through a solid wall, are these actual and physical events, or the result of some manipulation of the experiencers' integrated information (consciousness), which creates an illusion or a hallucination? If the latter, the manipulation could be done by a physical being with some advanced technology. There are, however, more esoteric alternatives too. But I am not sure how far I can draw the implications and predictions of IIT, so I stop here.
So, perhaps the surreal changes of perception of space and time are caused by some unknown force/entity/technology manipulating the way an information system (a brain, a consciousness) instantiates cause and effect within itself (i.e., "creates" meaningful experiences/patterns of information)? In other words, something or someone unknown might have the capability to access and alter a person's neurobiology, which affects the person´s phenomenology, i.e., alters what and how the person experiences reality. I think this last issue is the main one that IIT might be helpful to elucidate.
Even though I just said that I am not sure if IIT can support more esoteric alternatives as to the cause of the manipulations of someone´s experience of space and time, I think it can be worthwhile to apply IIT to, for instance, Jacques Vallée´s paper "Five Arguments Against the Extraterrestrial Origin of Unidentified Flying Objects" (Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol 4, No. 1, pp. 105-117, 1990). I am thinking more specifically about what Vallée writes in his fifth argument ("Physical Considerations," pp. 114-115) and in "New Hypotheses" (pp. 115-116). For example, on page 116, Vallée writes:
British researcher Randles has stressed that the analysis of the discourse of abductees consistently reveals a breakpoint in time, after which the percipient leaves normal reality behind. On the "other side" of this boundary ordinary space-time physics no longer seems to apply and the percipient moves as if within a lucid dream (or indeed a lucid nightmare) until returned to the normal world.
IIT might be even more relevant to another paper by Dr Jacques Vallée (co-authored by Dr Eric W. Davis), "Incommensurability, Orthodoxy and the Physics of High Strangeness: A 6-layer Model for Anomalous Phenomena" (2003).
Perhaps a controversial but still mainstream theory of consciousness such as IIT could be a tool for UFO researchers interested in the consciousness aspect to better understand the UFO phenomenon in general and the experiencer (abductees, contactees) cases in particular?
Maybe a theory like IIT could, at a minimum, stimulate to new discussions on how it is possible to leave "normal reality behind" and move "as if within a lucid dream" (or "lucid nightmare")? What can these encounters and altered experiences of space-time of "the percipient" tell about the UFO phenomenon's nature and intent? And about the nature and capabilities of human consciousness?
Now to the presentation (duration 20 minutes) of the integrated information theory of consciousness by Dr Giulio Tononi. I can also recommend this more comprehensive lecture (you can go the 37:55 min mark into the lecture) on IIT by one of Dr Tononi´s collaborators, neuroscientist Christof Koch: https://youtu.be/LGd8p-GSLgY.
Giulio Tononi at FQXi's 5th International Conference.
Enjoy and take care!
/Janne
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