Rejecting the “formless stuff” response to the origin of consciousness problem for IIT 4.0

Abstract

This paper examines and ultimately rejects a proposed solution to a problem arising from the ontological commitments of Integrated Information Theory (IIT) 4.0, particularly its claim that only conscious entities truly exist. This commitment generates the “origin of consciousness problem”: if non-conscious entities are denied genuine existence, how could consciousness evolve from non-conscious ancestors? As argued by Cea et al. (2024a), this problem pushes IIT toward a very problematic form of “Big Bang consciousness”—a primordial ontological dust of minimally conscious elementary particles originating at the beginning of the universe. Here we analyze and ultimately reject an alternative solution to the origin of consciousness problem based on what we call the “formless stuff hypothesis” (Koch, 2024). This view seeks to avoid both the idea that consciousness arises from nothing and the need for “Big Bang consciousness”, positing instead that before conscious experience there exists a formless, undifferentiated state of reality, distinct from nothing. We argue, however, that this proposal is implausible i) for reasons internal to IIT, ii) due to considerations related to our scientific knowledge regarding the non-conscious world,  and iii) because Koch’s main justification for introducing this ‘formless stuff’ rests on an epistemological–ontological conflation. Instead, IIT should adopt a form of causal-physical realism according to which a structured and lawful universe beyond consciousness truly exists.