Hard Problem and Free Will: an information-theoretical approach
arXiv Preprint Archive December 14, 2020 Giacomo Mauro D'Ariano, Federico Faggin
A quantum-information-based panpsychism is proposed, where consciousness is a fundamental property of quantum information, and the experience of information by its supporting system solves the hard problem of consciousness. The internally experienced quantum state must be pure (ontic), while the externally predictable state is mixed (epistemic). Purity-preserving evolution, called atomic quantum operation, is probabilistic, and its outcome is interpreted as free will, which is unpredictable even in principle. This framework also addresses the combination problem of panpsychism. Short-term experience is accounted for by quantum state evolution, while long-term memory is classical and requires quantum-to-classical and classical-to-quantum transfers.