Forti Bruno
Department of Mental Health, Azienda ULSS 1 Dolomiti, Belluno, Italy.
Front Psychol. 2025 Sep 3;16:1627289. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1627289. eCollection 2025.
In this paper, I outline a new theory on consciousness, the Extended Information Theory. This theory jointly addresses issues related to the nature of consciousness and those related to its functional role. The phenomenal analysis of the simplest aspects of experience allows us to identify the structure of consciousness within consciousness itself. The simplest forms of experience are not found in sensations, but in forms of perception in which the qualitative aspects of consciousness necessarily have relational significance. Furthermore, this analysis leads us to hypothesize that the structure of an early visual experience is constituted by a Hierarchy of Spatial Belongings nested within each other. This structure makes it possible to identify a property of consciousness that is more fundamental than qualitative aspects. It can be identified in the fact that a conscious content, like an object, extends in a certain way into the space to which it belongs. Even when faced with an unfamiliar image, this allows us to know how its contents extend into the space to which they belong. The primary role of consciousness could thus be identified in knowing, in the immediacy of experience, the structural aspects of the physical world that surrounds us. From a functional point of view, it can be stated that consciousness handles Extended Information and differs from Non-Conscious systems that handle point-like information. It is in this characteristic, which enables it to overcome some of the limitations of computation, that the evolutionary meaning of consciousness may lie. The phenomenal analysis of early perception allows us to examine this process of knowledge and to propose a tentative hypothesis regarding its functioning. Finally, the paper discusses the difference between the EIT, which reflects the need to integrate information about the structure of the stimulus, and theories based on classical integration.
在本文中，我概述了一种关于意识的新理论——扩展信息理论。该理论同时探讨了与意识本质相关的问题以及与意识功能作用相关的问题。对经验最简单方面的现象学分析使我们能够在意识自身内部识别出意识的结构。经验的最简单形式并非存在于感觉之中，而是存在于知觉形式中，在这些知觉形式里，意识的质性方面必然具有关系意义。此外，这种分析使我们推测早期视觉经验的结构是由相互嵌套的空间所属层次构成的。这种结构使得识别一种比质性方面更基本的意识属性成为可能。可以从这样一个事实中识别出这一属性，即一个有意识的内容，就像一个物体一样，以某种方式延伸到它所属的空间中。即使面对一个不熟悉的图像，这也能让我们知道其内容是如何延伸到它们所属的空间中的。意识的主要作用因此可以在经验的直接性中被识别出来，即了解我们周围物理世界的结构方面。从功能的角度来看，可以说意识处理扩展信息，并且不同于处理点状信息的无意识系统。意识的进化意义可能就在于它的这一特性，即能够克服计算的一些局限性。对早期知觉的现象学分析使我们能够审视这一认识过程，并就其运作提出一个初步假设。最后，本文讨论了反映整合关于刺激结构信息需求的扩展信息理论与基于经典整合的理论之间的差异。
