Scientific theories of consciousness identify its contents with the spatiotemporal structure of neural population activity. We follow up on this approach by stating and motivating Dynamical Emergence Theory (DET), which defines the amount and structure of experience in terms of the intrinsic topology and geometry of a physical system’s collective dynamics. Specifically, we posit that distinct perceptual states correspond to coarse-grained macrostates reflecting an optimal partitioning of the system’s state space—a notion that aligns with several ideas and results from computational neuroscience and cognitive psychology. We relate DET to existing work, offer predictions for empirical studies, and outline future research directions.

中文翻译：

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动态涌现理论 (DET)：现象意识的计算解释

意识的科学理论将其内容与神经群体活动的时空结构相一致。我们通过陈述和激励动态涌现理论 (DET) 来跟进这种方法，该理论根据物理系统集体动力学的内在拓扑和几何形状定义了经验的数量和结构。具体来说，我们假设不同的感知状态对应于反映系统状态空间最佳划分的粗粒度宏观状态——这一概念与计算神经科学和认知心理学的几个想法和结果一致。我们将 DET 与现有工作联系起来，为实证研究提供预测，并概述未来的研究方向。