AI 中文总结
该研究以整合信息理论（IIT）为基础，提出将意识视为内在结构的“体验化学”方法，将其应用于空间、时间、对象等体验内容，还可用于研究难以内省的感受质，相关解释符合七项优秀解释标准。
AI 中文摘要
拥有意识即拥有一种体验——它并非现象原子的集合，而是由差异与联结这些差异的关系所构成的结构化整体。整合信息理论（Integrated Information Theory, IIT）明确了每一种体验的本质属性（公理），将其转化为基质必须满足的操作公设，并将由此产生的复合体的因果力量展开为Φ-结构。解释体验的内容，就是要识别构成该体验的现象差异与关系，并证明它们一一对应地反映在相应Φ-结构的因果差异与关系中。我们将该方法应用于三种结构部分可通过内省获知的普遍体验内容：空间广延由具有自反性这一基本特征的点构成，这些点通过自反包含、联结与融合而绑定；时间流由具有指向性这一特征的时刻构成，这些时刻通过指向性包含、联结与融合而绑定；对象则通过具有层级特征的关系将特定的特征配置与一般概念绑定。这项工作类似于化学，化学通过有限的一组元素及其结合方式解释了种类繁多的化合物。我们依据优秀解释的七项标准——范围、综合性、特异性、自洽性、系统一致性、简洁性与科学验证——评估这些解释，并勾勒出随之而来的预测：即使活动与行为保持可比，改变基质所指定的结构也应会改变相应的体验内容。同样的方法或许可用于触及难以内省的狭窄感受质（qualia），以及将多种感受质绑定在一起的复合内容，不过在这方面它仍处于概念验证阶段，是一个开放的研究项目。
英文摘要
To be conscious is to have an experience - not a collection of phenomenal atoms, but a structured whole composed of distinctions and the relations that bind them. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) identifies the essential properties of every experience (axioms), formulates them operationally as postulates that a substrate must satisfy, and unfolds the cause-effect power of the resulting complex into a $Φ$-structure. Accounting for a content of experience is then a matter of identifying the phenomenal distinctions and relations that compose it, and showing them reflected one-to-one in the causal distinctions and relations of the corresponding $Φ$-structure. We apply that method to three pervasive contents whose structure is partly open to introspection. Spatial extendedness is composed of spots, whose elemental signature is reflexivity, bound by reflexive inclusion, connection, and fusion; temporal flow is composed of moments, whose signature is directedness, bound by directed inclusion, connection, and fusion; objects bind a particular configuration of features to a general concept through relations bearing the signature of hierarchy. The endeavor is akin to chemistry, which accounts for an endless variety of compounds from a limited set of elements and the ways they bond. We assess these accounts against seven criteria of a good explanation - scope, synthesis, specificity, self-consistency, system consistency, simplicity, and scientific validation - and sketch the prediction that follows: altering the structure specified by a substrate should alter the corresponding content, even when activity and behavior are held comparable. The same method may reach narrow qualia, which resist introspection, and the compound contents that bind many qualia together, though there it remains a proof of concept and an open research program.
