On the character of consciousness
Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience July 1, 2016 Arto eAnnila 18 citations
The brain, as an open thermodynamic system, consumes free energy in the least time across all its processes, from cellular metabolism to cognition and consciousness. This principle, derived from statistical mechanics, treats cognitive operations as identical in organizational principle to other natural processes, emerging along path-dependent, non-determinate trajectories. Consciousness integrates neural networks for coherent free-energy consumption—meaningful action—and the entire hierarchy of systems can be summed up as thermodynamic entropy. The theory also acknowledges awareness in other systems at different levels of nature's hierarchy.