Separating weak integrated information theory (IIT) into IIT-inspired and aspirational-IIT approaches

Mediano et al. (1. Mediano 2022 TICS) separate out strong and weak flavours of the integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness. They describe “strong IIT” as attempting to derive a universal formula for consciousness, and “weak IIT” as searching for empirically measurable correlates of aspects of consciousness. We put forward that their overall notion of “weak IIT” may be too weak. Rather, it should be separated out to distinguish “aspirational IIT”, which aims to empirically test IIT by making tradeoffs to its proposed measures, and “IIT inspired” approaches, which adopt high level ideas of IIT while dropping the mathematical framework it reaches through its introspective, first-principles approach to consciousness.