The Consciousness Atlas is an interactive web app that visualizes more
than 450 theories of consciousness. It is based on Robert Lawrence
Kuhn's 2024 paper,
"A Landscape of Consciousness". The Atlas maps theories that address phenomenal consciousness - the
subjective feel of experience, such as the redness of red.
What the Atlas is
The Atlas is a visual reference built on Kuhn's taxonomy. It presents
the full set of theories at once so you can explore the field visually
and open any theory to read its entry, like an encyclopedia with
structured entries. Each theory entry shows a concise identity line,
conceptual ground, suggested mechanism, empirical notes, implications,
and sources.
Why this exists
Consciousness is studied across disciplines - neuroscience,
philosophy, and sometimes spiritual or anomalous-state research.
Kuhn's paper collects and organizes hundreds of theories along a
spectrum from most physical to least physical. The Atlas puts that
organization into a visual form so readers, students, and researchers
can quickly see how different positions relate and where each theory
sits on the spectrum.
How it works
Theories are grouped into ten main categories, arranged by their
stance on the physical-to-nonphysical spectrum. Examples of categories
include Materialism, Non-Reductive Physicalism, Functionalism,
Quantum-based theories, Panpsychism, Monism, Dualism, Idealism,
Anomalous States, and Challenge Theories. The app shows the whole map
at once. Click any theory to read its structured entry, which includes
references to canonical sources and named thinkers.
Who it is for
- Students learning philosophy of mind and cognitive science
-
Researchers and lecturers looking for an at-a-glance comparative
resource
-
Journalists and writers who need a quick reference to the range of
positions
-
Curious readers who want a clear view of what people mean when they
talk about consciousness
What the Atlas does not do
The Atlas does not endorse or rank theories. It is a visualization and
reference based on Kuhn's taxonomy - collect and present, not judge.
It does not attempt to settle the hard problem of consciousness. It is
a tool for exploration and comparison.
A note from Kuhn
Kuhn explicitly states the project's purpose: "collect and categorize,
not assess and adjudicate." The Consciousness Atlas follows that
approach. The data and structure are derived from Kuhn's paper;
feedback and suggested corrections are welcome, but the app is a
visualization layer on top of Kuhn's work.
Kuhn was not involved in the design or content of the Consciousness
Atlas, other than his original paper, 'A Landscape of Consciousness,'
which is the sole source.
FAQ
What is phenomenal consciousness?
Phenomenal consciousness refers to subjective experience - the
qualitative feel of being aware, like the taste of coffee or the
redness of red.
How many theories does the Atlas include?
The Atlas visualizes over 220 individual theories, grouped into ten
broad categories.
Does the Atlas show which theory is true?
No. The Atlas presents theories neutrally. It is a map, not an
argument for any single position.
Is the Atlas academic?
The Atlas is based on an academic source - Robert Kuhn's 2024 paper,
"A Landscape of Consciousness" - and links to canonical sources
where available.
Summary
The Consciousness Atlas is a straightforward visualization tool: it
presents Kuhn's taxonomy as a single, explorable map and lets users
open individual theory entries to read structured, referenced
summaries. It is designed to make this complex field easier to survey
and to serve as a practical reference.
Materialism › Electromagnetic
Fingelkurts and Fingelkurts’s Operational Architectonics
Consciousness as Nested Operations of Brain Fields
Alexander and Andrew Fingelkurts propose that brain and mind share one structure built from ‘operations’, spatiotemporally bounded events that count as both neural activity and experience. Conscious contents arise when local electromagnetic fields generated by transient neuronal assemblies synchronize into operational modules, and the succession of these modules forms the stream of consciousness.
Alexander Fingelkurts, Andrew Fingelkurts
What consciousness is
Consciousness is constituted by the operational level of brain organization: hierarchically nested, synchronized local electromagnetic fields that are isomorphic to the structure of experience.
Mind and body
The Fingelkurtses separate three levels: the brain’s physical space-time (anatomy and physiology), operational space-time (field dynamics), and phenomenal space-time (experience). The operational level emerges from the physical level, and experience supervenes on the operational level and is reducible to it, though not to neurophysiology in the classical physicalist sense.
Mechanism
Temporal synchronization of local fields from distributed neuronal assemblies couples simple operations into complex, metastable operational modules, each presenting a phenomenal object.
Core claims
- Brain activity and experience share a nested spatiotemporal structure built from the same units, called operations.
- Local electromagnetic fields appear in EEG as quasi-stationary segments framed by rapid transitive periods.
- Synchronization of these fields forms operational modules, each of which presents a specific conscious content.
- The mesoscopic field level holds unconscious phenomenal potential that may surface in deep meditation or under psychedelics.
- OA-based EEG analysis may detect phenomenal content in covert consciousness, disorders of consciousness, and meditation.
Criticisms
The view combines emergentism (between physiology and fields) with supervenience and reduction (between fields and experience), and the line between these relations is subtle. Showing that EEG field structure mirrors phenomenal structure establishes correlation more readily than constitution.
Implications
- AI consciousness: Uncertain
- Consciousness requires specific field dynamics of neuronal assemblies; whether artificial hardware could produce comparable nested fields is not addressed.
- Survival beyond death: No
- Since experience supervenes on the brain’s operational field level, it cannot outlast the brain that generates those fields.
- Virtual immortality: Unlikely
- On this view a simulation would need to reproduce physical field dynamics, not just information processing, so uploading as usually imagined would not carry consciousness over.
Related theories
Sources
- Fingelkurts and Fingelkurts’s Operational Architectonics, Alexander Fingelkurts and Andrew Fingelkurts (2013)
Explore all theories on the Consciousness Atlas
