The Integrated Information Theory needs Attention
arXiv Preprint Archive June 10, 2024 Azenet Lopez, Carlos Montemayor
The Integrated Information Theory (IIT) is a leading scientific proposal for explaining phenomenal consciousness, but it overlooks the essential role of attention in generating and shaping conscious experience. Without an account of attention, IIT cannot explain informational differences between types of experiences. Although some IIT proponents claim a double dissociation between consciousness and attention, close analysis shows this dissociation is incompatible with IIT. These issues likely extend to other internalist and primitivist theories of conscious contents in philosophy, as well as to structuralist approaches. The discussion highlights that attention is indispensable for both scientific and philosophical theorizing about conscious experience.