The Projective Wave Theory of Consciousness

TL;DR

The paper proposes a novel wave-based model for consciousness that addresses key neural theory problems by suggesting a projective wave in the brain encodes spatial experience, supported by indirect evidence and Bayesian reasoning.

Contribution

It introduces the projective wave theory, proposing that a wave encoding a projective transform of space underlies spatial consciousness, offering solutions to longstanding neural theory problems.

Findings

Supports the wave hypothesis with indirect neural evidence.

Explains how the wave encodes detailed 3D spatial information.

Achieves a good Bayesian balance between assumptions and data.

Abstract

Neural theories of consciousness face three difficulties: (1) The selection problem: how are those neurons which cause consciousness selected, from all the other neurons which do not? (2) the precision problem: how do neurons hold a detailed internal model of 3D space, as the origin of our spatial conscious experience? and (3) the decoding problem: how are the many distorted neural representations of space in the brain decoded, to give our largely undistorted conscious experience of space? These problems can all be addressed if the brains internal model of local 3D space is held not in neurons, but in a wave excitation (holding a projective transform of Euclidean space), and if the wave is the source of spatial consciousness. Such a wave has not yet been detected in the brain, but there are good reasons why it has not been detected; and there is indirect evidence for a wave, in the mammalian thalamus, and in the central body of the insect brain. The resulting projective wave theory of consciousness gives good agreement with the spatial form of our consciousness. It has a positive Bayesian balance between the complexity of its assumptions and the data it accounts for; this gives a basis to believe it.