"Consciousness — or better, conscious experience — is obviously a part of reality," said Johannes Kleiner, a mathematician and theoretical physicist at the Munich Center For Mathematical Philosophy, Germany. "We're all having it but without understanding how it relates to the known physics, our understanding of the universe is incomplete."
With that in mind, Kleiner is hoping math will enable him to precisely define consciousness. Working with colleague Sean Tull, a mathematician at the University of Oxford, U.K., the pair are being driven, to some degree, by a philosophical point of view called panpsychism.
This claims consciousness is inherent in even the tiniest pieces of matter — an idea that suggests the fundamental building blocks of reality have conscious experience. Crucially, it implies consciousness could be found throughout the universe.
If the researchers can answer how our brains give rise to subjective experience, there's a chance their mathematical model could extend to inanimate matter too, they said.
"A mathematical theory can be applied to many different systems, not just brains," Kleiner told All About Space via email. "If you develop a mathematical model of consciousness based on data obtained from brains, you can apply the model to other systems, for example, computers or thermostats, to see what it says about their conscious experience too."
Some prominent minds lend weight to the view of panpsychism, not least renowned Oxford physicist Sir Roger Penrose, who was among the first academics to propose we go beyond neuroscience when looking at consciousness. TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...
