Giulio Tononi's Theory of Consciousness

[Jehanne]

It seems to me that he's talking "around" the subject without actually penetrating it.  He uses a lot of phenomenological analysis but he never really explains why we have the phenomenology.

That's known as the "hard problem".  I like to think of it as self-replicating molecules.  What is the chemical process behind that?  No scientist knows for sure.  Likewise, for consciousness.  What's the arrangement of molecules that would result in that?  No one really knows.  However, with time, some brilliant scientist may find such an arrangement (in silicon perhaps), and as with self-replicating molecules, that system of molecules would possess consciousness.