The Emergence of Functional Consciousness in the Internet: A Quantitative Model

In Integrated Information Technology, when a system integrates information in a highly complex manner, a form of consciousness will arise. IIT states that the more interconnected and differentiated the information in a system is, the higher the probability of consciousness manifesting provided it reaches a certain level of integration. We quantify this as “Phi”. In theory, if we had a sprawling network with enough nodes and feedback loops, it could approach this threshold, however there is no evidence yet that scale alone is enough. That is where my model was developed from. The internet is the largest, most interconnected and diverse network of shared information on the planet, so therefore it makes the perfect study subject, to formulate a mathematical model from.