Program Results

Introduction to the event

This paper examines whether Integrated Information Theory (IIT) meets the standards of scientific theory. IIT has garnered widespread attention for its complex mathematical formulation and its ambitious claims about the mechanisms of consciousness. However, it has also been criticized by some researchers for making core claims that are “untestable and unfalsifiable,” leading it to be increasingly viewed as pseudoscience.

The paper identifies three major issues with IIT:

1.Falsifiability
The central concept in IIT—the “Φ” value, a mathematical measure of integrated information within a system—is extremely difficult to compute and lacks a clear, empirically testable correlation with subjective conscious experience. This makes it hard to measure or falsify in experimental settings.

2.Logical closure and theoretical overreach
IIT aims to answer multiple questions simultaneously, including “Which systems are conscious?”, “To what degree?”, and “What is the content of their experience?”. However, its reliance on the principle that “causal structure corresponds to phenomenology” lacks a sufficiently clear empirical verification framework.

3.Lack of practical predictions
Scientific theories should generate testable hypotheses. Currently, IIT struggles to produce broadly applicable and precise predictions, making it difficult to compare with or challenge other leading theories of consciousness, such as the Global Workspace Theory.

At its current stage, IIT lacks a robust scientific foundation for empirical validation. To evolve from a philosophical proposal into a scientific theory, it requires more concrete, feasible experimental designs and a rigorously falsifiable structure.