Integrated information theory

Integrated information theory is Giulio Tononi’s proposal that consciousness matches the amount of integrated information (Φ) a system produces, over and above what its parts produce alone.

It’s one of the few frameworks that could in principle tell us whether a given simulation contains minds. The sandbox doesn’t try the calculation.

IIT puts consciousness in the physical cause-and-effect structure of a system, not in the computation it runs. So on IIT, a brain simulated on ordinary digital hardware would have almost none, whatever it simulates. It’s the best-known theory on which the model’s working premise fails. The sandbox assumes the premise and says so.