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Theoretical exploration highlights gaps in integrated information theory, suggesting material aspects enhance understanding of consciousness.
Integrated information theory (IIT) is celebrated for its formal modelling of consciousness. But drawing on the framework of formal-material ontology, this paper argues that IIT fails to take the qualitative or ‘material’ dimensions of experience into consideration, providing us with a formal skeleton devoid of flesh and blood. Through cases of the natural colour system and the quality space of pain, the research highlights what kinds of material research could be complementary and beneficial to IIT’s formal approach.
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Chang Liu (2026) studied this question.
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