Bringing Physics Into Consciousness Studies

Embark with us on a groundbreaking journey to unravel one of nature's most intriguing mysteries: consciousness. How does our brain conjure the thoughts and feelings that constitute our private experiences? This profound enigma, known as the hard problem of consciousness, has stumped scientists and philosophers alike.

We're thrilled to introduce an ambitious research project at Cambridge University, conducted in collaboration with Tristan Andres Bekinschtein, to validate the Relativistic Theory of Consciousness. By leveraging principles from physics, this innovative theory interprets our subjective experience as a relativistic state, promising new insights into the nature of consciousness.

In this project, we'll employ EEG data to rigorously test the predictions of the theory. The potential outcomes of this research are monumental. Should the theory be substantiated, it may open avenues to discover:

- The evolutionary origin of consciousness in animals.

- The point of consciousness inception in fetuses or infants.

- Consciousness in patients with related disorders.

- Possible degrees of consciousness in AI systems.

We invite you to be part of this pioneering effort that could reshape our comprehension of what it means to be human. Join us in funding this world-changing research and contribute to the scientific advancement of our understanding of consciousness. For more in-depth information about the theory and the research see details below. Your support can make a profound impact!

About us

Hi everyone

My name is Nir Lahav. I finished my PhD in physics from Bar-Ilan University in Israel. My field of study is non linear dynamics, network and chaos theories and how they can be applied to neuroscience. I went to study physics because I was always fascinated by the most mysteries phenomena in nature and Consciousness is exactly one such mystery. Early on I decided to dedicate my life to study and solve this mystery. Last year I published the Relativistic Theory of Consciousness, a new physical solution for the hard problem of consciousness. Together with professor Tristan Bekinschtein from the Consciousness and Cognition lab in Cambridge university in England, we would like to raise funds for a new research to validate the theory. Will you help me pursuit my dream?

About this project

Consciousness is the ability to have something that is like to sense the world, to feel and to think. In other words, to experience ourselves and the world. But which other animals have consciousness? When do human babies start to have consciousness and do AI systems like GPT have consciousness?

We don't know the answers to these questions because consciousness is one of the most mysteries phenomenon in nature.

The mystery lies in the fact that consciousness seems to be private. Only you, from your first person perspective, know that you experience the world and your self. From the outside, from the third person point of view, no one can find your experiences. We can only find neural correlates for consciousness, but not the actual experience that you have. How can it be that we cannot find the actual experience in your brain and how can the brain create it if we cannot find anywhere?

This is such a hard problem that until today no theory of consciousness answers this essential aspect of consciousness.

In 2022 Nir Lahav and Zachariah Neemeh published a paper in Frontiers of psychology about the Relativistic Theory of Consciousness. A new physical theory of consciousness that solves the hard problem of Consciousness in a very straightforward and natural way. To do that we changed one assumption about consciousness, that it's a relativistic phenomenon. Now it depends on the measurements of the observers in their different frames of reference. For instance, think about another relativistic phenomenon, imagine you are sitting in an airplane, moving at constant speed. From your point of view, you are not moving at all but to people outside, the airplane is moving very fast. Both of you are correct because velocity is relative to where you are. In a similar way consciousness is a relativistic phenomenon, while you measure subjective experience for yourself, for anyone observing from the outside it will be ‘just’ brain activity or just behavior. In other words, both observers measure the same underlying reality from different points of view.

How can we prove that consciousness is relativistic? The theory says we expect that consciousness, measured from the outside, will be reflected in specific types of neural patterns, termed mental spaces, each of them represents a different subjective experience.

In this project We want to validate the theory. If indeed every conscious experience is accompanied by at least one mental space that is active in the brain then the opposite should also be true. When we lose consciousness (like in deep sleep for example) there should be no mental spaces active in the brain.

What are the goals of the project?

In this project we want to check if the Relativistic Theory of Consciousness is correct. We plan to analyze brain dynamics using EEG and compare three sets of conscious vs. unconscious states to test the theory's predictions:

1. Wakefulness (conscious), drowsiness and sleep (unconscious) states.

2. REM sleep (while we dream and conscious) and deep sleep (unconscious)

states.

3. Wakefulness (conscious) and anesthesia (unconscious) states.

4. We will also compare conscious vs. altered states of consciousness such as deep meditation and under the influence of psychedelic drugs to analyze how mental spaces change under these altered states.

Why we need your help

Consciousness studies is an under funded subject especially for new theories that are outside the box like our theory. We think it is too important to leave it in the ivory tower, so we decided to approach you. After all, this theory will revolutionize the way that we think about humanity and about technology, so why not get humanity and technology involved in making it happen. In fact, in the past science was funded by royalty patrons. Today, you are the patrons. Let's make a new way of funding science. Let's create this research together. We would like to hear your thoughts and comments as well. You are welcome to leave us messages here.

In addition, we will frequently post updates and will do Zoom meetings periodically to discuss and share our progress. Details will be posted here.

What is the significance of this project?

The implications of such a study are huge. Once the theory is validated, it can be applied to determine which animal was the first in the evolutionary process to have consciousness, when a fetus or a baby begins to be conscious, which patients with consciousness disorders are conscious, and which AI systems might already have a low degree (if any) of consciousness. This theory has the potential to answer so many important questions and offer the first complete theory of consciousness to date. Help us develop the theory and make this research come true!

Approximate project timeline

We would like to start the project in September 2023.

In the first six months we will:

1. Write a theoretical paper about the minimal conditions for the manifestation of consciousness

according to the theory.

2. Initial validation: We will start by analyzing EEG data from 4 existing experiments collected in

the Cambridge Consciousness and Cognition Lab . In all 4 experiments participants were

perceiving different stimuli, and made decisions while falling asleep. We will analyze these results in accordance with the theory’s predictions.

In the next six months we will run new experiments to further validate the prediction of the theory. These experiments will include comparison between wakefulness, deep sleep, REM sleep, anesthesia, deep meditation and psychedelics.

Approximate budget

In the first six months, ~20,000 dollars. The funding will support:

Using the big computational cluster of Cambridge university, getting priority to use the cluster. Traveling and moving to Cambridge (for Nir). Paying for research assistants and experts.

In the second half of the year, ~20,000 dollars. The funding will support conducting the experiments, paying for the subjects, materials, and research assistants.

More details about the theory and the research

If you would like to know more about the theory and about the research, we prepared a series of videos that cover the whole theory. Every couple of days we will upload a new episode. So, sty tune! and now, let's dive in!

The mystery of consciousness episode 1: What is consciousness?