Consciousness or pseudo-consciousness? A clash of two paradigms

Giulio Tononi¹, Larissa Albantakis², Leonardo Barbosa³, Melanie Boly⁴, Chiara Cirelli², Renzo Comolatti^{2

5}, Francesco Ellia^{6

7}, Graham Findlay², Adenauer Girardi Casali⁸, Matteo Grasso², Andrew M Haun², Jeremiah Hendren⁹, Erik Hoel¹⁰, Christof Koch^{11

12}, Alexander Maier¹³, William Marshall¹⁴, Marcello Massimini^{5

15}, William Gp Mayner², Masafumi Oizumi¹⁶, Joanna Szczotka², Naotsugu Tsuchiya^{6

7}, Alireza Zaeemzadeh¹⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA. gtononi@wisc.edu.
² Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
³ Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion, Roanoke, VA, USA.
⁴ Department of Neurology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
⁵ Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy.
⁶ Laboratory of Qualia Structure, ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, Kyoto, Japan.
⁷ School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing, and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
⁸ Institute of Science and Technology, Federal University of São Paulo, São José dos Campos, Brazil.
⁹ Graduate School Language & Literature, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
¹⁰ Allen Discovery Center, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA.
¹¹ Allen Institute, Seattle, WA, USA.
¹² Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, Santa Monica, CA, USA.
¹³ Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
¹⁴ Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
¹⁵ IRCCS Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi ONLUS, Milan, Italy.
¹⁶ Department of General Systems Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
¹⁷ Novateur Research Solutions, Ashburn, VA, USA.

PMID: 40065188
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-025-01880-y

Consciousness or pseudo-consciousness? A clash of two paradigms

Giulio Tononi et al. Nat Neurosci. 2025 Apr.

. 2025 Apr;28(4):694-702.

doi: 10.1038/s41593-025-01880-y.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA. gtononi@wisc.edu.
² Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
³ Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion, Roanoke, VA, USA.
⁴ Department of Neurology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
⁵ Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, University of Milan, Milan, Italy.
⁶ Laboratory of Qualia Structure, ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, Kyoto, Japan.
⁷ School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing, and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
⁸ Institute of Science and Technology, Federal University of São Paulo, São José dos Campos, Brazil.
⁹ Graduate School Language & Literature, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
¹⁰ Allen Discovery Center, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA.
¹¹ Allen Institute, Seattle, WA, USA.
¹² Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, Santa Monica, CA, USA.
¹³ Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Science, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
¹⁴ Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
¹⁵ IRCCS Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi ONLUS, Milan, Italy.
¹⁶ Department of General Systems Studies, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
¹⁷ Novateur Research Solutions, Ashburn, VA, USA.

PMID: 40065188
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-025-01880-y

No abstract available

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: C.K. and G.T. are Board Members, and C.K., G.T., and M.M. have a financial interest in Intrinsic Powers Inc. G.T. holds patent rights along with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation: patent No. US 8,457,731 B2 and, with C.K. and M.M., patent applications Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation No. P220191, P220192.

References

1. Ferrante, O. et al. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.06.23.546249 (2023).
1. Findlay, G. et al. Preprint at https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.04571 (2024).
1. Albantakis, L. et al. PLoS Comput. Biol. 19, e1011465 (2023). - PubMed - PMC
1. Tononi, G., Boly, M. & Cirelli, C. Neuron 112, 1568–1594 (2024). - PubMed
1. Vezoli, J. et al. Neuroimage 225, 117479 (2021). - PubMed

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Consciousness or pseudo-consciousness? A clash of two paradigms

Affiliations

Consciousness or pseudo-consciousness? A clash of two paradigms

Authors

Affiliations

Conflict of interest statement

References

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources