Reasoning about conscious experience with axiomatic and graphical mathematics

Signorelli, Camilo Miguel; Wang, Quanlong; Coecke, Bob

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2021.103168

Reasoning about conscious experience with axiomatic and graphical mathematics

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Signorelli CM, Wang Q, Coecke B. Reasoning about conscious experience with axiomatic and graphical mathematics. Conscious Cogn. 2021 Oct;95:103168. DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2021.103168

Abstract

We cast aspects of consciousness in axiomatic mathematical terms, using the graphical calculus of general process theories (a.k.a symmetric monoidal categories and Frobenius algebras therein). This calculus exploits the ontological neutrality of process theories. A toy example using the axiomatic calculus is given to show the power of this approach, recovering other aspects of conscious experience, such as external and internal subjective distinction, privacy or unreadability of personal subjective experience, and phenomenal unity, one of the main issues for scientific studies of consciousness. In fact, these features naturally arise from the compositional nature of axiomatic calculus.