Unifying consciousness theories with MaxCon: maximizing configurations of the brain web

Abstract

There is such a vast proliferation of theories and conceptual frameworks of consciousness and cognition that it is worrying some scholars. There are even competitions to test different theories, and the results are inconclusive. Consciousness research, far from converging toward a unifying framework, is becoming more discordant than ever. We do not need more theories but rather integration across theories to facilitate a comprehensive view on consciousness andcognition and on how normal nervous system dynamics can develop into pathological states. In dealing with what is considered an extremely complex matter, we try to adopt a perspective from which the subject appears in relative simplicity. Grounded in experimental and theoretical observations, we advance an encompassing theory, MaxCon, which incorporates aspects of several main existing theories, finding convergence points in an attempt to simplify and to understand how cellular collective activity is organized to fulfill the dynamic requirements of the diverse theories our proposal comprises. In essence, our proposal derived from the level of description of the interactions among cell networks highlights the tendency to maximise the number of configurations of neural network connections ―constrained by neuroanatomy, biophysical features and the environment― for conscious awareness and proper sensorimotor transformations.