I have found another paper on the subject here, from which I quote the abstract and the conclusion.

Mostyn W. Jones – Electromagnetic-Field Theories of Mind
Journal of Consciousness Studies, 20, No. 11–12, 2013
Paper received October 2011; revised July 2013.



"Abstract: Neuroscience investigates how neuronal processing circuits work, but it has problems explaining experiences this way. For example, it hasn’t explained how colour and shape circuits bind together in visual processing, nor why colours and other qualia are experienced so differently yet processed by circuits so similarly, nor how to get from processing circuits to pictorial images spread across inner space. Some theorists turn from these circuits to their electromagnetic fields to deal with such difficulties concerning the mind’s qualia, unity, privacy, and causality. They include Kohler, Libet, Popper, Lindahl, Arhem, Charman, Pockett, John, McFadden, Fingelkurts, Maxwell, and Jones. They’re classifiable as computationalist, reductionist, dualist, realist, interactionist, epiphenomenalist, globalist, and localist. However, they’ve never been analysed together as a whole, which hinders evaluations of them. This article tries to rectify this. It concludes that while field theories face challenges, they aren’t easily dismissed, for they draw on considerable evidence and may avoid serious problems in neuroscience concerning the mind’s qualia, unity, causality, and ontology."

"9. Conclusions

Standard neuroscience investigates how neuronal processing works. But it has problems explaining the mind’s qualia, unity, privacy, and causality this way. For example, it isn’t clear about why colours and other qualia are processed so similarly yet experienced so differently, how colour and shape information unite in visual processing, and how abstract information, concrete brain activities, and private experiences are causally and ontologically related given their radical differences.
Field theories of mind try to avoid such problems by turning from neurons to their fields. Here minds typically get their unity from the continuous nature of the fields generated by discrete neurons, while different qualia arise from different structures in the fields. These qualia are private (not publicly accessible) either because they’re non-physical or because they’re the underlying nature of fields (hidden behind what instruments and reflected light show). Mind–brain causality is (in the simplest field theories) just field–brain causality. Field theories offer new ontological approaches to dualism’s problematic causality and reductionism’s explanatory gap. Field theories face their own problems, but they’re progressively improving upon each other (see Table 1). These theories can’t be easily dismissed, for they’re based on considerable evidence and they offer powerful ways of dealing with standard neuroscience’s deepest problems."

There are numerous interpretations of quantum field theory which is still a physicalist scientific view of reality. Considering this work is still in its infancy and we here are not quantum physicists, our somewhat speculations about how this impacts upon notions of consciousness are simplistic and most likely wrong.

"Abstract: Neuroscience investigates how neuronal processing circuits work, but it has problems explaining experiences this way."

But "fields" doesn't solve those problems.

I've thought for some time that phenomena involving waves may be a crucial aspect of the mechanism of consciousness. There certainly are synchonised waves of neuronal activity, and one can easily imagine how that could lead to unification, integration. But I don't think this explains conscious experience, it's just speculation at this stage. The "fields" idea also seems like speculation. I'm surprised to see an academic article like this about it.


"However, they’ve never been analysed together as a whole, which hinders evaluations of them. This article tries to rectify this. It concludes that while field theories face challenges, they aren’t easily dismissed, for they draw on considerable evidence and may avoid serious problems in neuroscience concerning the mind’s qualia, unity, causality, and ontology."

Shouldn't we be hearing about some of that evidence in this abstract?

One huge advantage to some kind of field theory of consciousness is that it solves the binding problem.

How so?

If one wants to hold on to a naturalistic world view, one must assign consciousness either to matter or to a field. — spirit-salamander

My own personal philosophical worldview, Enformationism, is intended to be naturalistic, except that it requires a conscious First Cause, which existed prior to the Big Bang beginning of our world -- hence super-natural, or meta-natural, or preter-natural. It's merely a layman's thesis, proposing an evolutionary process to explain how Life & Mind could emerge from the physical interactions of fundamental particles or substances. In that theory, the fundamental substance of reality is Information (EnFormAction), which occurs in both tangible physical (matter) & intangible meta-physical (energy) forms.

Recently I came across a novel theory postulated by Johnjoe McFadden, professor of Quantum Biology & Molecular Genetics. He calls it Conscious Electromagnetic Information (cemi), and it seems to fit neatly into my hypothesis of the origin of Consciousness via natural processes. I'm pretty sure this CEMI theory is also currently in the hypothetical stage, but it should allow for some empirical verification. And it also appears to be be compatible with Tononi's Integrated Information Theory (I.I.T.). So, it looks like these professional conjectures are on the same track with your notion of the "mind as a physical field". However, I suspect that the "Mind Field" would have some different properties & effects from the various "energy fields" of Physics, including the well-known Magnetic & Electromagnetic Fields. :smile:

Electromagnetic theories of consciousness :
McFadden has proposed that the brain's electromagnetic field creates a representation of the information in the neurons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_theories_of_consciousness

The EnFormAction Hypothesis :
http://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html

Thanks for the tips. Most here seem somewhat "hostile" to the idea that consciousness or the mental might be related to a physical field in perhaps only a remote sense. To me, the connection of the two is forward-looking and promising.

Here you can find the whole article
https://philpapers.org/archive/JONETO.pdf

The concept of Mind-Brain is Is totally obsolete. It is now known that the "enteric brain" communicates bidirectional with the "other brain". In time, science will discover that every part of the body (which is largely microbes) is communicating with every other part via the nervous system. In effect, the body is a wholistic Mind. But it is but neurons creating a field. It is the Mind communicating via neurons. Science mistakenly continues on with the physical bias, because that is all science can operate on. It's a practical, but limiting viewpoint, and in some instances leads to dangerous conclusions.

Thanks for the tips. Most here seem somewhat "hostile" to the idea that consciousness or the mental might be related to a physical field in perhaps only a remote sense. To me, the connection of the two is forward-looking and promising. — spirit-salamander

I suspect that scientist's "hostility" to the notion of a Mind Field, that might extend beyond the brain or body, is due to its similarity to New Age notions of Consciousness as something like a radio signal that the brain tunes-in to. But, McFadden himself noted that the neuron fields he studies have a very short range from the emitter. So his theory may not provide much support for those who believe in Mind-Reading and remote Mind Control. Elon Musk's Neuralink technology is still quite primitive and clunky, compared to Mr. Spock's Mind Meld. :smile:

Mind Field :
In a circa-2002 publication of The Journal of Consciousness Studies, the electromagnetic theory of consciousness faced an uphill battle for acceptance among cognitive scientists. Scientific study of consciousness has only recently begun to gain acceptance as a legitimate scientific discipline, and some think field theories like McFadden's are unscientific beliefs that threaten their hard-won legitimacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_theories_of_consciousness

Neuralink :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1nDo8KYozU

Scientific study of consciousness has only recently begun to gain acceptance as a legitimate scientific discipline, and some think field theories like McFadden's are unscientific beliefs that threaten their hard-won legitimacy. — Gnomon

So much more exists in the brain than neuron synapsing. The analogy to a computer's electrical wiring is hugely inadequate. Investigating chemistry in the soma and glia will lead to a revolution in our model of brain structure. It will be key to comprehend the molecules involved in hallucinatory states, and define exactly how the additiveness of electromagnetic fields and further kinds of coherence fields with nanoscale, quantum entangled molecular complexes works.

So much more exists in the brain than neuron synapsing. The analogy to a computer's electrical wiring is hugely inadequate. Investigating chemistry in the soma and glia will lead to a revolution in our model of brain structure. It will be key to comprehend the molecules involved in hallucinatory states, and define exactly how the additiveness of electromagnetic fields and further kinds of coherence fields with nanoscale, quantum entangled molecular complexes works. — Enrique

I doubt that the conscious Mind is literally an electro-magnetic field. If it was, we could easily learn how to read minds, just as we tune our radios to E-M frequencies. Energy fields can only be detected by their effects on matter; the field itself is invisible and intangible.

A "field" just a familiar physical concept that we can use as a metaphor for an immaterial function. For me the mind-field consists only of Information, imagined as a kind of energy. Energy is also not a material object, but an invisible matrix or pattern of mathematical relationships and ratios. So it's not necessarily the physical neurons or glia or cells or molecules that generate the mind-field, but more likely contributions from the whole body to the complex pattern of relationships, that can only be seen by the mind's eye. So far, scientists have found no way to detect mind-fields, if they indeed exist. The physical E-M analogy is a handy way to think about meta-physical minds. But it can be misleading if taken literally.

As far as we know, unlike Energy, individual minds have only local effects on the thinking subject, and no effect on material objects (psychokinesis). So, in order to communicate with other minds, we have to translate incorporeal thoughts into physical material objects that serve as symbols or proxies for immaterial ideas. But that real-world limitation doesn't stop people from trying to bend spoons with their minds, and imagining all kinds of mental powers, such as Chi -- which martial artists in video games use like laser beams to vanquish their simulated enemies. :cool:

I doubt that the conscious Mind is literally an electro-magnetic field. If it was, we could easily learn how to read minds, just as we tune our radios to E-M frequencies. Energy fields can only be detected by their effects on matter; the field itself is invisible and intangible. — Gnomon

I think the electromagnetic field might suffice to make a trillion trillion atoms in neurons of the brain (or whatever the amount is) simultaneously reside in states of quantum entanglement. Scientists entangled 15 trillion atoms at 350 degrees Farenheit, and an action potential easily reaches that amount of energy, but as electricity rather than heat. The axon is insulated by the myelin sheath so that a neuron loses minimal energy while the ion cascade occurs, and all of this electrical energy is spouted into the soma where it probably produces a very strong coherence (entanglement) field at the nano or micro scale, channeled into functional form by nuanced biochemical arrays and pathways while generating the nonlocal magnetic effects always characteristic of electric currents.

The action potentials in billions of neurons are synched up by dendrite linkages so that their coherence fields are extremely coordinated, which is probably responsible for standing waves in the brain, a sort of macroscopic cycling built from said microscopic fields.

Systems of coherence fields within coherence fields superposition (blend) because they are composed of particles with wavelike properties, exactly like the additive nature of the visible light spectrum. Action potentials are a timing and energy amplification mechanism, but coherence fields in the soma and probably glial cells as well must be the additive substance of qualitative perception (in consort with organs of sensation): subjective color, sound, smell, taste, touch, feel, vastly variable quantum resonances amongst wavicles.

This of course does not mean the brain's electromagnetic field is the only coherence field that contributes to consciousness, for the range of nonlocal phenomena in natural environments seems huge and a lot of what matter does and consists in is still unknown, but is probably enough to provide the foundation of that which occurs within our heads.

How so? — 180 Proof

Because a field is a single partless place extended in space. So it's a candidate for the 'one' part of the many-in-one nature of experience.

I tend to agree with Dennett and Dehaene that, in fact, experience is fragmentary (or bundled in Hume's sense) and that 'unitary experience' is only an illusion confabulated by the brain for adaptive expedience (even caloric efficiency); thus, there might not be a "binding problem" – the neuroscientific jury is still out.

And in any case, "a consciousness field" or whatever would only make "binding" more of a problem since that would suggest a higher level "hive mind" or binding of multiple minds as well. No evidence of the "hive mind" (or "telepathy") as a "mind, or consciousness, field" implies though, so a (e.g. panpsychist) "field theory of consciousness" is merely an implausible, unwarranted, idle speculation (woo-of-the-gaps).

And in any case, "a consciousness field" or whatever would only make "binding" more of a problem since that would suggest a higher level "hive mind" or binding of multiple minds as well. No evidence of the "hive mind" (or "telepathy") as a "mind, or consciousness, field" implies though, so a (e.g. panpsychist) "field theory of consciousness" is merely an implausible, unwarranted, idle speculation (woo-of-the-gaps). — 180 Proof

Oh well that settles it then