Consciousness as a State of Matter
arXiv Preprint Archive May 2, 2014 Max Tegmark
Consciousness may be understood as a special state of matter called "perceptronium," which has unique information processing abilities. Five basic principles—information, integration, independence, dynamics, and utility—distinguish conscious matter from ordinary physical systems like solids, liquids, and gases. This idea extends Giulio Tononi's integrated information framework for neural-network-based consciousness to any quantum system, and it links consciousness to error-correcting codes, condensed matter criticality, and the emergence of time.