The unfolding argument: Why IIT and other causal structure theories cannot explain consciousness.
Consciousness and Cognition July 1, 2019 Adrien Doerig, Aaron Schurger, K. Hess et al.
Theories that identify consciousness with specific causal structures in the brain, such as those requiring feedback loops, are either false or unscientific. Using theorems from computation theory, the authors demonstrate that causal structure theories—including Information Integration Theory (IIT) and Recurrent Processing Theory (RPT)—cannot be empirically tested because any causal structure can be realized by systems that lack consciousness. This undermines the claim that feedforward systems are never conscious and feedback systems always are. The argument suggests that consciousness research should focus instead on functional explanations, such as global workspace or higher-order theories, which are compatible with diverse neural implementations.