About 150 years ago, William James introduced the notion of a “stream of consciousness” and encouraged exploration of subjective experience. In 1913 John Watson promoted psychology based solely on observable behavior, and by the 1930s B.F. Skinner’s radical behaviorism dominated, treating living beings as automata and excluding subjective experience from experimental study. The late 20th century saw renewed interest in consciousness research. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) proposes that consciousness emerges from integrated information within physical systems, using mathematical and neuroscientific tools. Causal emergence theory explains how higher-level causal structures can arise from weakly connected constituent parts.
To no avail. In 1913, psychologist John Watson proposed that legitimate psychology had to be based on what we objectively observe, not suppositions about someone's mental state. By the 1930s, the reductionist, radical behaviorism of B.F. Skinner dominated the field. Living things (apart from humans) were viewed as automata, and thinking about subjective experience was de facto banned from experimental psychology.
Hoel would know. He earned his PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under Professor Giulio Tononi, the godfather of IIT. He later created causal emergence theory, which offers a framework for how causality can emerge within a large system when its constituent parts only appear weakly connected - how we are composed of atoms, for instance, and we are conscious, but atoms are not.
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