F.faggin Paper

Hard Problem and Free Will:
an information-theoretical approach
Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano and Federico Faggin

arXiv:2012.06580v2 [quant-ph] 28 Jan 2021
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
William Shakespeare
Abstract We explore definite theoretical assertions about consciousness, starting

from a non-reductive psycho-informational solution of David Chalmers’s hard prob-
lem, based on the hypothesis that a fundamental property of "information" is its
experience by the supporting "system". The kind of information involved in con-
sciousness needs to be quantum for multiple reasons, including its intrinsic privacy
and its power of building up thoughts by entangling qualia states. As a result we
reach a quantum-information-based panpsychism, with classical physics superven-
ing on quantum physics, quantum physics supervening on quantum information, and
quantum information supervening on consciousness.
We then argue that the internally experienced quantum state, since it corresponds
to a definite experience–not to a random choice–must be pure, and we call it on-
tic. This should be distinguished from the state predictable from the outside (i.e.
the state describing the knowledge of the experience from the point of view of an
external observer) which we call epistemic and is generally mixed. Purity of the
ontic state requires an evolution that is purity preserving, namely a so-called atomic
quantum operation. The latter is generally probabilistic, and its particular outcome is
interpreted as the free will, which is unpredictable even in principle since quantum
probability cannot be interpreted as lack of knowledge. We also see how the same
purity of state and evolution allow solving the well-known combination problem of
panpsychism.
Quantum state evolution accounts for a short-term buffer of experience and contains
itself quantum-to-classical and classical-to-quantum information transfers. Long
Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano

Dipartimento di Fisica, University of Pavia, via Bassi 6, 27100 Pavia, e-mail: [email protected]
Federico Faggin
Federico and Elvia Faggin Foundation
1
2 Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano and Federico Faggin
term memory, on the other hand, is classical, and needs memorization and recall
processes that are quantum-to-classical and classical-to-quantum, respectively. Such
processes can take advantage of multiple copies of the experienced state re-prepared
with "attention", and therefore allowing for a better quality of classical storing.
Finally, we explore the possibility of experimental tests of our theory in cognitive
sciences, including the evaluation of the number of qubits involved, the existence of
complementary observables, and violations of local-realism bounds.
In the appendices we succinctly illustrate the operational probabilistic theory (OPT)
framework for possible post-quantum theories of consciousness, assessing the con-
venient black-box approach of the OPT, along with its methodological robustness in
separating objective from theoretical elements, guaranteeing experimental control
and falsifiability. We finally synthetically compare the mathematical postulates and
theorems of the most relevant instances of OPTs–i.e. classical and quantum theories–
for convenience of the reader for better understanding our theory of consciousness.
The mathematical notation is provided in a handy table in the appendices.
1 A quantum-informational panpsychism
In his book The Character of Consciousness [1] David Chalmers states what he calls
the hard problem of consciousness, namely the issue of explaining our experience–
sensorial, bodily, mental, and emotional, including any stream of thoughts. Chalmers
contrasts the hard problem with the easy problems which, as it happens in all sciences,
can be tackled in terms of a mechanistic approach that is useless for the problem
of experience. Indeed, in all sciences we always seek explanations in terms of
functioning, a concept that is entirely independent from the notion of experience.
Chalmers writes:
Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience? ...
Why doesn’t all of this information processing go on “in the dark” free of any inner feel?...
There is an explanation gap between the function and the experience.
An effective paradigm for comprehending the conceptual gap between “experience”

and “functioning” is that of zombie, which is behaviourally indistinguishable from a
conscious being, nevertheless has no inner experience.
There are currently two main lines of response to the hard problem: 1) the
Physicalist view–with consciousness “emergent from a functioning”, such as some
biological property of life [2]; 2) the Panpsychist view–with consciousness as a
fundamental feature of the world that all entities have. What is proposed here is:
Panpsychism with consciousness as a fundamental feature of “information”, and
physics supervening on information.
The idea that physics is a manifestation of pure information processing has been
strongly advocated by John Wheeler [3] and Richard Feynman [4, 5], along with
Hard Problem and Free Will 3
several other authors, among which David Finkelstein [6], who was particularly fond
of this idea [7]. Only quite recently, however, the new informational paradigm for
physics has been concretely established. This program achieved: 1) the derivation
of quantum theory as an information theory [8, 9, 10], and 2) the derivation of
free quantum field theory as emergent from the nontrivial quantum algorithm with
denumerable systems with minimal algorithmic complexity [11, 12].1 In addition
to such methodological value, the new information-theoretic derivation of quantum
field theory is particularly promising for establishing a theoretical framework for
quantum gravity as emergent from the quantum information processing, as also
suggested by the role played by information in the holographic principle [14, 15]. In
synthesis: the physical world emerges from an underlying algorithm, and the kind of
information that is processed beneath is quantum.
The idea that quantum theory (QT) could be regarded as an information theory is
a relatively recent one [16], and originated within the field of quantum information
[17]. Meanwhile what we name “information theory” has largely evolved, from its
origins as a communication theory [18], toward a general theory of “processing” of
information, which previously had been the sole domain of computer science.
What do we mean by “information theory”?
Recently, both in physics and in computer science (which in the meantime con-
nected with quantum information), the theoretical framework for all information
theories emerged in the physics literature in terms of the notion of Operational
Probabilistic Theory (OPT) [9, 10, 19]. an isomorphic framework that emerged
within computer science in terms of Category Theory [20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25].
Indeed, the mathematical framework of an information theory is precisely that of
the OPT, whichever information theory we consider–either classical, quantum, or
"post-quantum". The main structure of OPT is reviewed in the Appendix.2
Among the information theories, classical theory (CT) plays a special role. In
fact, besides being itself an OPT, CT enters the operational framework in terms
of objective outcomes of the theory, which for causal OPTs (as QT and CT) can
be used for conditioning the choice of a following transformation within a set.
Clearly this also happens in the special case of QT. Thus, the occurrence of a given
outcome can be regarded as a quantum-to-classical information exchange, whereas
conditioning constitutes a classical-to-quantum information exchange. We conclude
that we should regard the physical world faithfully ruled by both quantum and
classical theories together, with information transforming between the two types.
1 The literature on the informational derivation of free quantum field theory is extensive, and,
although not up to date, we suggest the review [7] written by one of the authors in memoriam
of David Finkelstein. The algorithmic paradigm has opened for the first time the possibility of
avoiding physical primitives in the axioms of the physical theory, allowing a re-foundation of the
whole physics over logically solid grounds [13].
2 The reader who is not familiar with the notion of OPT can regard the OPT as the mathematical
formalization of the rules for building quantum information circuits. For a general idea about OPT
it is recommended to read the appendix. The reader is supposed to be familiar with elementary
notions, such as state and transformation with finite dimensions.
This theoretical description of reality should be contrasted with the usual view
of reality as being quantum, creating a fallacy of misplaced concreteness. The most
pragmatic point of view is to regard QT and CT together as the correct information
theory to describe reality, without incurring any logical paradox. We will use this
idea in the rest of the chapter. Due to the implicit role played by CT in any OPT,
when we mention CT we intend to designate the special corresponding OPT.
We will call the present view, with consciousness as fundamental for information
and physics supervening on quantum information: Quantum-Information Panpsy-
chism.
In place of QT, one may consider a post-quantum OPT–e.g. RQT (QT on real
Hilbert spaces), FQT (Fermionic QT), PRB (an OPT build on Popescu-Rohlich boxes
[26]), etc. [10], yet some of the features of the present consciousness theory can be
translated into the other OPT, as long as the notion of “entanglement” survives in
the considered OPT.
2 A non-reductive psycho-informational solution: general

principles
The fundamental nature of the solution to the hard problem proposed here has been
suggested by David Chalmers as satisfying the following requirements [1]
Chalm1 : Consciousness as fundamental entity, not explained in terms of anything
simpler...
Chalm2 : ... a non reductive theory of experience will specify basic principles that
tell us how basic experience depends on physical features of the world.
Chalm3 : These psychophysical principles will not interfere with physical laws
(closure of physics). Rather they will be a supplement to physical theory.
In an information-theoretic framework, in which physics supervenes on infor-
mation our principle will be psychoinformational (see Chalm3 ). The non-reductive
(Chalm2 ) psycho-informational principle that is proposed here is the following:
P1: psychoinformational principle: Consciousness is the information-system’s expe-
rience of its own information state and processing.
As we will see soon, it is crucial that the kind of information that is directly
experienced be quantum.
Principle P1 may seem ad hoc, but the same happens with the introduction of
any fundamental quantity (Chalm1,2 ) in physics, e.g. the notions of inertial mass,
electric charge, etc. Principle P1 asserts that experience is a fundamental feature
of information, hence also of physics, which supervenes on it. P1 is not reductive
(Chalm2 ), and it does not affect physics (Chalm3 ), since the kind of information
involved in physics is quantum+classical. On the other hand, P1 supplements physics
(Chalm3 ), since the latter supervenes on information theory.
It is now natural to ask: which are the systems? Information, indeed, is everywhere:
light strikes objects and thereafter reaches our eyes, providing us with information
on those objects: colour, position, shape,... Information is supported by a succession
of systems: the light modes, followed by the retina, then the optical nerves, and
finally the several bottom-up and top-down visual processes occurring in the brain.
Though the final answer may have to come from neuroscience, molecular biology,
and cognitive science experiments, we can use the present OPT approach to inspire
crucial experiments. OPT has the power of being a black-box method that does not
need the detailed "physical" specification of the systems, and this is a great advan-
tage! And, indeed, our method tackles the problem in terms of a pure in-principle
reasonings, independent of the "hardware" supporting information, exactly as we do
in information theory. Such hardware independence makes the approach particularly
suited to address a problem so fundamental as the problem of consciousness.
We now proceed with the second principle:
P2: Privacy principle: Experience is not sharable, even in principle.
Principle P2 plays a special role in selecting which information theories are com-
patible with a theory of consciousness. Our experience is indeed not sharable: this
is a fact. We hypothesize that that non shareability of experience holds in principle,
not just as a technological limitation.3A crucial fact is that information shareability
is equivalent to information readability with no disturbance.4 Recently it has been
proved that the only theory where any information can be extracted without dis-
turbance is classical information theory [28]. We conclude that P2 implies that a
theory of consciousness needs nonclassical information theory, namely QT, or else
a “post-quantum” OPT.
Here we will consider the best known instance of OPT, namely QT. As we will
see, such a choice of theory turns out to be very powerful in accounting for all the
main features of consciousness. We state this choice of theory as a principle:
P2’: Quantumness of experience: The information theory of consciousness is quan-

tum theory.
We remind that classical theory is always accompanying any OPT, thus there will be
exchanges and conversions of classical and quantum information.
We now introduce a third principle:
3 It may be possible to know which systems are involved in a particular experience, as considered in
Ref. [27]. However, we could never know the experience itself, since it corresponds to non sharable
quantum information.
4 In fact, information shareability is equivalent to the possibility of making copies of it–technically
cloning information. The possibility of cloning information, in turn, is equivalent to that of reading
information without disturbing it. Indeed, if one could read information without disturbing it, he
could read the information as many times as needed in order to acquire all its different comple-
mentary sides, technically performing a tomography of the information. And once he knows all the
information he can prepare copies of it at will. Viceversa, if one could clone quantum information,
he could read clones keeping the original untouched.
I(X : Y ) := H(pXY ||pX pY ) = Âi2X, j2Y pi
pi
i )S
Âi2X (Tr ri )S
Â (Tr rj2Y
i }i2X ) := S(rX ) Âi2Xi2X,
XY ||pX pY ) =
P3: Psycho-purity principle: The state of the conscious system is pure.
P3 may seem arbitrary if one misidentifies the experience with the knowledge of it.
The actual experience is ontic and definite. It is ontic, à la Descartes (Cogito, ergo sum
c({ri }i2X ) := S(rX )

...). The existence of our experience is surely something that everybody would agree
on, something we can be sure of. It is definite, in the sense that one has only a single
experience at a time–not a probability distribution of experiences. The latter would
describe the knowledge of somebody else’s experience. Consider that the experience
of a blurred coin is just as definite as the experience of a sharp coin since they are
H(p
two different definite experiences. It is the knowledge of the coin side that is definite,
which only occurs if the image of the coin is sufficiently sharp, otherwise it would be
represented in probabilistic terms, e.g. by the mixture-state 21 TAIL+ 12 HEAD, based
on a fair-coin hypothesis (see Fig. 1). We thus can understand that by the same
about the coin having two possible states. In synthesis:

: Y ) :=
definition the notion of mixture is an epistemic one, based on our prior knowledge
I(Xc({r
1. Experience is described by an ontic quantum state, which is pure.
2. Knowledge is described by an epistemic quantum state, which is generally mixed.
We will see later how principle P3 is crucial for solving the combination problem.
Ontic State
Experienced by the system
|•i"i+⌦| #i
(| |•i⌦+|•i)
| #i6=
⌦ ||•i)
!i6= ⌦||•i !i=⌦12|•i
Epistemic State
=++12 (|
(| "i | #i)
"i +
⌦ |(|•i
Predicted by an outside observer #i)+⌦|•i)
(|•i + |•i
+ +
Fig. 1 Illustration of the notions of ontic and epistemic states for a system given by a classical
bit, here represented by a coin, with states 0=HEAD or 1=TAIL. We call ontic the “actual” state
1 p1 (|"i p1 |#i)
of the system, which is pure and generally unknown, except as an unsharable experience (in the
2
(| "ip⌦2
|•i
(| "i
+ ⌦
| #i
|•i⌦+|•i)
| #i ⌦
= |•i)
2
= + 2
+ |#i) =
(|"i=
figure it is the coin state HEAD covered by the hand). We call epistemic the state that represents the
knowledge about the system of an outside observer, e.g. the state of the unbiased coin corresponds
to 21 HEAD+ 12 TAIL.
Let’s now state our fourth principle, which is theory independent:

P4: Qualia principle: Experience is made of structured qualia.
Qualia (phenomenal qualitative properties) are the building blocks of conscious
experience. Their existence has so far been inexplicable in the traditional scientific
framework. Their privacy and ineffability are notorious. Qualia are structured: some
of them are more fundamental than others, e.g. spectrum colours, sound pitch, the five
different kinds of taste buds (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami), somatic sensations
(pain, pleasure, ...), basic emotions (sadness, happiness, ...). Qualia are compositional
with internal structures that generally partially determine their qualitative nature.
They are connected by different relations, forming numerous complex structures,
such as thoughts and emotions. Since we regard consciousness as the direct fruition
of a very structured kind of quantum information (we are the system supporting such
final information), then, according to principle P1, qualia correspond to information
states “felt” by the aware system, and according to principles P2 and P2’ such states
are quantum states of such systems.
S1: Qualia are described by ontic pure quantum states.
We will see in Subsect. 3 how quantum entanglement can account for organizing
nontrivial qualia. The qualia space thus would be the Hilbert space of the systems
involved in the quale.
Classical information coming from the environment through the senses is ul-
timately converted into quantum information which is experienced as qualia. The
inverse quantum-to-classical transformation is also crucial in converting structures
within qualia into logical and geometric representations expressible with classical
information to communicate free-will choices to classical structures. For such pur-
poses, the interaction with the memory of past experiences may be essential, for, as
we shall see, memory is classical.
Finally we come to the problem of free will. First we must specify that free will,
contrary to consciousness, produces public effects which are classical manifestations
of quantum information. Since the manifestation is classical, the possible choices of
the conscious agent are in principle jointly perfectly discriminable.5
We then state what we mean by free.
S2: Will is free if its unpredictability by an external observer cannot be interpreted
in terms of lack of knowledge.6
In particular, statement S2 implies that the actual choice of the entity exercising its
free will cannot be in principle predicted with certainty by any external observer.
One can immediately recognise that if one regards the choice as a random variable,
it cannot be a classical one, which can always be interpreted as lack of knowledge.
On the other hand, it fits perfectly the case of quantum randomness, which cannot
be interpreted as such.7
5 In the usual classical information theory the convex set of states is a simplex, and its extremal
states are jointly discriminable.
6 Here there is a clear distinction between the "willing agent" and the observers of it. The word
unpredictability applies only to the observers.
7 The impossibility of interpretation of quantum randomness as lack on knowledge fits quantum
complementarity. Indeed we cannot by any means know both values of two complementary vari-
ables. One may argue that both values may exist anyway, even if we cannot know them, but such
argument disagrees with the violation of the CHSH bound (the most popular Bell-like bound),
which is purely probabilistic, and is based on the assumption of the existence of a joint probability
3 Qualia: the role of entanglement
According to Statement S1 qualia are described by ontic quantum states and, being
such states pure, we can represent them by normalised vectors |𝜓i ∈ HA in the
Hilbert space HA of system A. For the sake of illustration we consider two simple
cases of qualia: direction and colour. These examples should not be taken literally,8
but only for the sake of illustration of the concept that the linear combinations of
qualia can give rise to new complex qualia.
Fig. 2 Illustration of how qualia superpose to make new qualia. Left figure: the Bloch sphere
illustrates the case of direction qualia. Summing and subtracting the quale “up” with the quale
“down” we obtain the qualia “right” and “left”, respectively. Similarly, if we make the same
combinations with the imaginary unit 𝑖 in front of “down” we obtain the qualia “front” and “back”.
Summing with generic complex amplitudes 𝑎 and 𝑏 (with |𝑎 | 2 + |𝑏 | 2 = 1) we get the quale
corresponding to a generic direction, corresponding to a generic pure state | 𝜓i. Right figure:
summations of two of the three colour basis red, green, and blue (RGB) and subtraction of two of
the three colours cyan, magenta and yellow (CMY). As explained in the main text, these examples
are only for the sake of illustration of the notion of linear combination of quantum ontic states to
make new ontic states corresponding to new qualia. A third case of superposition is that of sounds
with precise frequency that combine with addition and subtraction into timbers and chords. Notice
that all three cases fit the wave aspect of reality, not the particle one.
We have said that qualia combine to make new qualia, and thoughts and emotions
themselves are structured qualia. Superimposing two different kinds of qualia in an
entangled way produces new kinds of qualia. Indeed, consider the superposition of a
distribution for the values of complementary observables, assumption that obviously is violated by
quantum complementarity. Others can argue (and this is the most popular argument) that one must
use different local random variables depending on remote settings, which leads to the interpretation
of the CHSH correlations in terms of nonlocality: such interpretation, however, is artificial, whereas
the most natural one iw that the measurement outcome is created by the measurement.
8 We emphasize that the above examples are only for the sake of illustration of concepts. The
example about color qualia in Fig. 2 would be a faithful one if the colours were monochromatic and
the summation or subtraction were made with wave amplitude, not intensity, which is the actual
case. The case of direction qualia based on the Bloch sphere is literally correct. The directions are
those of the state representations on the Block sphere.
Âi2
Âi2
Âi2
) =j2
rX =
X ) ÂS(ri2i
I(X : Y ) := H(pXY ||pX pY ) =

I(X : Y ) := H(pXY ||pX pY ) =
I(X : Y ) := H(pXY ||pX pY ) =

p i2X,
(Tr
Y =X Y
ij Â
Âi2X
c({ri }i2X ) := S(rX )

c({ri }i2X ) := S(rX )
c({ri }i2X ) := S(rX )

i S(r
H(p )p||p
j2Y i j log pi p j
⌘
XY X pXY
i2X ) X:=
Tr ri
S(r r )
Y ) :=p||p
⇣
(Tr rii})S
:=
:= :H(p
c({r
Âi2X,
i i2X
c({ri }i2X ) := S(rX ) Âi2X )
I(X : Y )I(X
}
red up-arrow with a green down-arrow. This is not a yellow right-arrow as one may
I(X : Y ) := H(pXY ||pX pY ) =
c({r
expect, since the latter corresponds to the independent superposition of direction
and colour, as in the following equation:
p1 (| "i ⌦ |•i p 1 1
2
1
+ |(|#i"i⌦⌦|•i)
|•i 6= 1
!i
+ |p#i ⌦⌦
(| |•i
"i = |12+
⌦ 6=
|•i) |•i (|2|(|
!i
p "i⌦"i
#i ⌦ ⌦ = 126=
|•i
||•i)
|•i
+ #i) ⌦ #i+
+(|(|•i
| "i
!i ⌦||•i)
+⌦ |•i ⌦
#i) |12!i
6= (|•i +⌦|•i)
(| "i +|•i = (1)
| #i) ⌦ "i +
2 (|(|•i +||•i)
#i) ⌦ (|•i + |•i)
2 2
p1 (| "i
We would ⌦ |•i
have + | #i ⌦ |•i) 6= | !i ⌦ |•i = 12 (| "i + | #i) ⌦ (|•i + |•i)
instead
2
↵
p1 (| "i ⌦ |•i + | #i ⌦ |•i) = p1 (|"i + |#i) = , (2)
2 2
⇣ ⌘where
N the ket with the blue star represents a completely new qualia. In a more general
p1 . ⌦have
[. . we (|a1 ia⌦state
|b1 ivector
± |a2with
i ⌦ |btriple
2 i) ⌦or(|quadruple
"i ⌦ |•i ±or| more
#i ⌦ |•i) ⌦ (|r1 i ⌦ in ± i|r2 i ⌦ |s2 i) ⌦ . . .]
|s1aifactor
2 case, entanglement
1 product, and more generally, every system
of a tensor
µ [. . . ⌦ (|a1pi 2⌦(||b"i1 i⌦⌦|•i
|c1+
i±| #i
|a⌦ |•i) 6= | !i ⌦ |•i = 1 (| is"ientangled, e.g. + |•i) .
+ | #i) ⌦ (|•i
2 i ⌦ |b2 i ⌦ |c2 i) ⌦ (| "i2 ⌦ |•i ± | #i ⌦ |•i) ⌦ (|r1 i ⌦ |s1 i ± i|r2 i ⌦ |s2 i) ⌦ . . .]
. . . ⊗ (|𝑎 1 i ⊗ |𝑏 1 i ⊗ |𝑐 1 i ⊗ |𝑑1 i ± |𝑎 2 i ⊗ |𝑏 2 i ⊗ |𝑐 2 i ⊗ |𝑑2 i) ⊗ (| ↑i ⊗ |•i ± | ↓i ⊗ |•i) ⊗ . . .
(3)
We can realise how in this fashion one can achieve new kinds of qualia whose number
grows exponentially with the number of systems. In fact, the number of different
ways of entangling 𝑁 systems corresponds to the number of partitions of 𝑁 into
integers, multiplied√ by the number of permutations of the systems, and therefore it
grows as 𝑁!𝑒 2𝑁 /3 , and this without considering the variable vectors that can be
entangled!
Since qualia correspond to pure states of the conscious systems, their Hilbert space
coincides with the multidimensional Hilbert space of the system. Experimentally one
may be able to locate the systems in terms of neural patterns, but will never be able
to read the encoded information without destroying the person’s experience, while
at best gaining only a single complementary side of the qualia, out of exponentially
many. In synthesis:
• System identification is possible, but not the "experience" within.
The fact that it is possible to identify the information system proves that the
identity of the observer/agent is public and is thus correlated with its "sense of
self," which is instead private. This is a crucial requirement for a unified theory
of consciousness and free will, namely that the observer/agent be identifiable both
privately–from within and through qualia–and publicly–from without and through
information. Within QT (or post-quantum OPTs) this is possible.
4 Evolution of Consciousness and Free Will
Since the quantum state of a conscious system must be pure at all times, the only
way to guarantee that the evolving system state remains pureÍis that the evolution
itself is pure (technically it is atomic, namely its CP-map T = 𝑖 𝑇𝑖 · 𝑇𝑖† has a single
Krauss operator 𝑇𝑖0 ). We remind that both states and effects are also transformations
from trivial to non trivial systems and viceversa, respectively. In Table 1 we report
the theoretical representations of the three kinds of ontic transformations, including
the special cases of state and effect.
Circuit symbol Symbol Map Operator domain-codomain

transformation A
T B T T =𝑇 ·𝑇† 𝑇 Bnd( HA → HB )
Effect A 𝛼 (𝛼| Tr[· | 𝛼i h𝛼 |] h𝛼 | Bnd( HA → C)
State 𝜓 A | 𝜓) | 𝜓i h𝜓 | | 𝜓i Bnd(C → HA )
Table 1 Notations for the three kinds of ontic transformations (for the meaning of symbols see
Table 2). For the list of Quantum Theory axioms and its main theorems see Tables 3 and 4.
Let’s consider now the general scenario of a conscious composite system in an

ontic state 𝜔𝑡 at time 𝑡 evolved by the one-step ontic transformation O𝐹(𝑡𝑡 ,𝑥𝑡 ) with
outcome 𝐹𝑡 , depending on classical input 𝑥 𝑡 from senses and memory9
𝜔𝑡 A𝑡
O𝐹(𝑡𝑡 ,𝑥𝑡 ) A𝑡+1
=: 𝜔𝑡+1 A𝑡+1
. (4)
The epistemic transformation would be the sum of all ontic ones corresponding to
all possible outcomes: ∑︁
E (𝑡 ,𝑥𝑡 ) := O𝐹(𝑡𝑡 ,𝑥𝑡 ) . (5)
𝐹𝑡
The outcome 𝐹𝑡 is a classical output, and we identify it with the free will of the
experiencing system.
It is a probabilistic outcome that depends on the previous history of qualia of the
system. Its kind of randomness is quantum, which means that it cannot be interpreted
as lack of knowledge, and, as such, it is free. Notice that both mathematically and
literally the free will is the outcome of a transformation that corresponds to a change
of experience of the observer/agent. The information conversion from quantum to
classical can also take into account a stage of "knowledge of the will" corresponding
to "intention/purpose", namely "understanding" of which action is taken.
We may need to provide a more refined representation of the one-step ontic
transformation of the evolution in terms of a quantum circuit, for example:
A D G M
𝛼𝑖 𝜓 (𝑖) A ( 𝑥𝑡 ) (6)
R (𝑘)
B E H N
ABC
O𝐹(𝑡𝑡 , 𝑥𝑡 ) M = B
E𝑘 Λ (𝑙)
𝑗
C F V𝑙 L O
C
9 As we will see, memory is classical.

that are entangled. In this ways thoughts correspond to pure states in the tensor product of the
oyalsocietypublishing.org Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 0000000

............................................................
tensor-product Hilbert space of the involved systems. In short, such Hilbert space describes the
multidimensional qualia space. Experimentally one may be able to locate the systems in terms of
a neural patterns, but not to read the information encoded on them, if not destroying the person’s
thought for just gaining only one of the exponentially many complementary sides of the thought.
4. Consciousness Evolution
Hard Problem and Free Will
and Free Will 11
Since the quantum state of consciousness

Generally for each timemust
𝑡 webe pure
have at all times,
a different theInonly
circuit. way to guarantee
the example in circuit (6) we
that the evolved consciousness
see that a single state step
remain pure is also
can contain that states
the evolution and thenamely
is atomic,
and effects, the
output system of
corresponding CP-map thehaswhole a single Krauss
circuit (M in operator.
the presentWe remind
case) that both
is generally states (not
different and even
effects are
isomorphic)
also transformations, to
from
thetrivial to non
input ones trivial
ABC. system and
Following viceversa, respectively.
the convention In Table
used for the ontic 1 we
transformation
O𝐹(𝑡𝑡 , 𝑥𝑡 ) the lowerof index
report the theoretical representations the three
is akinds of ontic
random transformations:
outcome,10 and the uppertransformation,
index (𝑡, 𝑥 𝑡 ) is a
effect, and state. parameter from which the transformation generally depends. Overall in circuit (6)
we have free will 𝐹𝑡 = {𝑖, 𝑘, 𝑙, 𝑗 }, whereas the transformations 𝜓 (𝑖) , R (𝑘) , B, and C
are deterministic (they have no lower index), and do not contribute to the free will,
Circuit
and thesymbol
same forSymbol OperatorAmap
the transformation Operator
( 𝑥𝑡 ) , which dependsdomain-codomain
on the sensorial input 𝑥 𝑡 .
transformation
In
A circuitB(6) we can see that we have also
T T =T ·T † classical
T
information at work, since e.g.
Bnd(HA ! HB )
T
the transformation R (𝑘) depends on the outcome 𝑘 of the transformation E 𝑘 , and
A (𝑙)
Effect similarly↵ the choice (↵|of test {ΛTr[·|↵ih↵|] h↵| Bnd(H ! C)
𝑗 } depends on the outcome 𝑙 ofAV𝑙 , and similarly
the state (𝑖) depends
State A𝜓
| ) on the effect
| ihoutcome
| 𝛼𝑖 . Each
| i element
Bnd(Cof the
!H circuit
A)
is ontic,
i.e. atomic, and atomicity of sequential and parallel composition guarantee that the
Table 1. Notations for the three
wholekinds of ontic transformations.
transformation is itself atomic. This means that its Krauss operator 𝑂 𝑡 can be
written as the product of the Krauss operators of the component transformations as
follows
Let’s consider now the general
(𝑡 , 𝑥𝑡 ) scenario of the
(𝑙) conscious
(𝑥 )
composite(𝑘)system in an ontic state
𝑂 = (𝐼 𝑀 ⊗ hΛ |) ( 𝐴 𝑡
⊗ 𝐵 )⊗
(t,x 𝐶) (𝑅 ⊗ 𝑉𝑙 ) (|𝜓𝑖 ih𝑎 𝑖 | ⊗ 𝐸 𝑘 ) , (7)
!t at time t evolved by the one-step
𝐹𝑡 ontic
| transformation
𝑗
} | O{z Ft
t
with
} |outcome
{z }F|t , depending
{z on
}
classical input from senses xt
{z
MNO→M GHL→MNO DEF→GHL ABC→DEF
A t ), 𝑥𝑡A
(t,x(𝑡 At+1
where!O
t (𝑡 , 𝑥t𝑡 ) O
=F𝑂 ) t+1 (𝑡 ,𝑥=: !t+1 that
· 𝑂 𝐹𝑡 𝑡 ) † . Notice (4.1)
in the expression for the operator
𝐹𝑡 t 𝐹𝑡
(𝑡 , 𝑥𝑡 )
The epistemic transformation in Eq.be(7)
𝑂 𝐹𝑡 would thethe
sum operators
over allfrom the input
possible to the
outcomes of output areone:
the ontic written from the
right to the left–the way we compose
X (t,x ) operators on Hilbert spaces. Moreover, the
(t,x
(𝑡 ,t𝑥)𝑡 )
expression (7) ofE𝑂 𝐹
:=is not O Ft
t
unique,. since it depends on the choice (4.2)
of foliation of
𝑡
the circuit, namely the way Fyou
t cover all wires with leaves to divide the circuit into
We may need to provide a more refined representation ofEq.
input-output sections. For example, the(7) would ontic
one-step correspond to the foliation
transformation of thein Fig.
3
evolution in terms of a quantum circuit, for example:
A D G M
↵i (i)
A(xt ) . (4.3)
(k)
R
B E H N
ABC (t,xt )
OFt
M
= B
(l)
Ek ⇤j
C F L O
Vl C
Generally for each time
Fig. 3t we havecircuit
Quantum a different
foliation circuit. We see
corresponding that
to Eq. (7) in the example in Eq. 4.3
the circuit describing a single step can contain also states and effects, and the output systems
of the whole circuit are generally different (not even isomorphic) to the input ones. Following
(t,x )
the convention used for the ontic transformation OFt t the lower index is a random outcome
A different foliation, for example, is the one reported in Fig. 4, corresponding to the
and the upper index is a parameter from
(𝑡 , 𝑥𝑡 ) which the transformation depends. Overall in Eq. 4.3
expression for 𝑂 𝐹𝑡
10 The outcome is random for an observer other than the conscious system, for which, instead, it is
precisely known.
Let’s consider now the general scenario of the conscious composite system in an ontic state
(t,xt )
!t at time t evolved by the one-step ontic transformation OFt with outcome Ft , depending on
classical input from senses xt
At (t,xt ) At+1 At+1

!t OF t =: !t+1 (4.1)
The epistemic transformation

12 would be the sum over all possible outcomes of the
Giacomo Mauro ontic one:
D’Ariano and Federico Faggin
(t,xt )
X (t,xt )
𝑂 (𝑡 , 𝑥𝑡 ) = (𝐼 ⊗EhΛ (𝑙) |):=( 𝐴 ( 𝑥𝑡 )O⊗Ft𝐵 ⊗. 𝐼 ) (𝑅 (𝑘) ⊗ 𝐶𝑉 ) (|𝜓 i ⊗ 𝐸 ) (h𝑎 (4.2)
𝐹𝑡 𝐶 𝑗 O |⊗𝐼 ).
𝑙 𝑖 𝑘 𝑖 BC
| {z } | Ft {z }| {z }| {z }| {z }
GHO→MNO DEF→GHO BC→DEF ABC→BC
We may need to provide a more refined
MNO→Mrepresentation of the one-step ontic transformation of the
(8)
evolution in terms of a quantum circuit, for example:
A D G M
↵i (i)
A(xt ) . (4.3)
(k)
R
B E H N
ABC (t,xt )
OFt
M
= B
(l)
Ek ⇤j
C F L O
Vl C
Generally for each time t we have a different circuit. We see that in the example in Eq. 4.3
Fig. 4 Quantum circuit foliation corresponding to the expression for 𝑂 (𝑡,𝑥 𝑡)
Eq. (8)
the circuit describing a single step can contain also states and effects, and the 𝐹output 𝑡 systems
of the whole circuit are generally different (not even isomorphic) to the input ones. Following
(t,x )
the convention used for the ontic transformation OFt t the lower index is a random outcome
Wea parameter
and the upper index is remind thatfrom
all operators
which the(including kets and
transformation bras asOverall
depends. operators from
in Eq. 4.3and to
the trivial Hilbert space C) are contractions, namely have norm bounded by 1,
corresponding to marginal probabilities not greater than 1. Thus, also 𝑂 𝐹(𝑡𝑡,𝑥𝑡 ) is itself
a contraction. Contractivity for operator 𝑋 can be conveniently expressed as
𝑋 ∈ Bnd(H𝑖𝑛 → H𝑜𝑢𝑡 ), 𝑋 † 𝑋 6 𝑃𝑆𝑋 6 𝐼𝑖𝑛 , 𝑃𝑆𝑋 := Proj Supp 𝑋. (9)
Now, since the evolution of consciousness must be atomic at all times, we can write
a whole consciousness history as the product of the Krauss operators 𝑂 𝑡 ≡ 𝑂 𝐹(𝑡𝑡,𝑥𝑡 )
at all previous times 𝑡
Ω𝑡 := 𝑂 𝑡 𝑂 𝑡−1 . . . 𝑂 1 , 𝑂 𝑡 := 𝑂 𝐹(𝑡𝑡,𝑥𝑡 ) , (10)
and apply the history operator to the wavevector of the initial ontic state-vector |𝜔0 i
|𝜔𝑡 i = Ω𝑡 |𝜔0 i. (11)
The squared norm ||𝜔𝑡 || 2 of vector 𝜔𝑡 is the probability of the full history of conscious
states {𝜔0 , 𝜔1 , 𝜔2 , . . . , 𝜔𝑡 } and equally of the free-will history {𝐹1 , 𝐹2 , . . . , 𝐹𝑡 }
𝑝(𝜔0 , 𝜔1 , 𝜔2 , . . . , 𝜔𝑡 ) = 𝑝(∅, 𝐹1 , . . . , 𝐹𝑡 ) = ||𝜔𝑡 || 2 = ||Ω𝑡 𝜔0 || 2 . (12)
5 Memory
The ontic evolution of the consciousness state, though it maintains coherence, can
keep very limited quantum memory of experience. The latter, due to contractivity
of 𝑂, will go down very fast as ||Ω𝑡 || 2 ' ||𝑂|| −2𝑡 , i.e. it will decrease exponentially
with the number of time-steps. The quantum memory intrinsic in the ontic evolution
instead works well as a short-term buffer to build up a fuller experience–e.g. of a
landscape, or of a detailed object, or even to detect motion. How many qubits will
make such a single-step buffer? The answer is: not so many.11 Indeed, if we open
our eyes for just a second to look at an unknown scene, and thereafter we are asked
to answer binary questions, we would get only a dozen of right answers better than
chance. Tor Nørretranders writes [31]: The bandwidth of consciousness is far lower
than the bandwidth of our sensory perceptors. ... Consciousness consists of discarded
information far more than information present. There is hardly information left in
our consciousness.12
We reasonably deduce that there is actually no room for long-term memory in
consciousness, and we conclude that:
S3: Memory is classical. Only the short-term buffer to collect each experience is
quantum.
By “short” we mean comparable to the time in which we collect the full experience,
namely of the order of a second.
Transferring quantum experience to classical memory
If we have quantum experiences and classical memory, we need to convert informa-

tion from quantum to classical in the memorization process, and from classical to
quantum in the recollection process. The first process, namely transferring quantum
experience to classical memory, must be necessarily incomplete, otherwise it would
violate the quantum no-cloning theorem. The Holevo theorem [33] establishes that
the maximal amount of classical information that can be extracted from a quantum
system is a number of bits equal to the number of qubits that constitute the quantum
system. Obviously, such maximal classical information is infinitesimal compared to
11 For example, the amount of visual information is significantly degraded as it passes from the eye to
the visual cortex. Marcus E. Raichle says [29]: Of the virtually unlimited information available from
the environment only about 1010 bits/sec are deposited in the retina. Because of a limited number
of axons in the optic nerves (approximately 1 million axons in each) only 6 ∗ 106 bits/sec leave the
retina and only 104 make it to layer IV of V1 [30, 31]. These data clearly leave the impression that
visual cortex receives an impoverished representation of the world, a subject of more than passing
interest to those interested in the processing of visual information [32]. Parenthetically, it should
be noted that estimates of the bandwidth of conscious awareness itself (i.e. what we "see") are in
the range of 100 bits/sec or less [30, 31].
12 We believe that the inability to recall much information contained in one second of visual
experience, when the actual experience is felt to be quite rich, should not be construed to diminish
the importance of consciousness. In fact, experience is quantum while memory is classical, and
although not much classical information appears to have been memorized, the actual experience has
the cardinality of the continuum in Hilbert space. Consciousness is about living the experience in its
unfolding and understanding what is happening, so to make the appropriate free-will decisions when
necessary. Recalling specific information in full detail is unnecessary. Consciousness is focused
on the crucial task of getting the relevant meaning contained in the flow of experience. The scarce
conscious memory of specific objects and relationships between objects should not be an indication
that consciousness is a "low bandwidth" phenomenon, but that what is relevant to consciousness
may not be what the interrogator believes should be relevant.
the continuum of classical information needed to communicate classically a quantum

state!
From a single measurement one can extract classical information about just one
of the continuum of complementary aspects of the quantum state, e.g. along a given
direction for a spin. Moreover, the state after the measurement would be necessarily
disturbed13, due to the information-disturbance tradeoff .14 So, which measurement
should one perform for collecting the best classical information from a quantum
system?
The answer is easy for a single qubit. Just perform the usual von Neumann mea-
surement along a random direction! This has been proved in Ref. [35].15 For larger
dimensions it is in principle possible to generalise this result, however, the probabil-
ity space turns out to be geometrically much more complicated than a sphere,16 and
a scheme for random choice is unknown. For this reason we can consider the larger
class of observation tests called informationally complete ("infocomplete"),17 which,
unlike the case of the optimal measurement of spin direction, can be taken as discrete
and with a finite number of outcomes. Such a measurement would correspond to the
following epistemic transformation
13 For example, for the spin originally oriented horizontally and measured vertically a la von
Neumann, the final state would be vertical up or down, depending on the measurement outcome.
14 There are many ways of regarding the information-disturbance tradeoff, depending on the specific
context and the resulting definitions of information and disturbance. The present case of atomic
measurements with the "disturbance" defined in terms of the probability of reversing the measure-
ment transformation has been analysed in the first part of Ref. [34]. In the same reference it is
also shown that a reversal of the measurement would provide a contradicting information which
numerically cancels the information achieved from the original measurement, thus respecting the
quantum principle of no information without disturbance.
15 Let’s consider the case of a single qubit realised with a particle spin. The usual observable of
von Neumann corresponds to a measurement of the orientation of the spin along a given direction,
e.g. up or down along the vertical, or left or right along the horizontal direction. But when we
prepare a spin state (e.g. by Rabi techniques), we can put the spin in a very precise direction, e.g.
pointing north-east along the diagonal from south-west to north-east, and, indeed if we measure
the spin along a parallel direction we find the spin always pointing north-east! So the spin is
indeed (ontically!) pointing north-east along the same diagonal! Now it would be a legitimate
question to ask: how about measuring the direction itself of the spin? This can be done–not exactly,
but optimally–using a continuous observation test constituted of a continuous of effects (what is
usually called POVM, the acronym of Positive Operator Valued Measure). However, it turns out
that the measured direction is a fake, since such a quantum measurement with a continuous set
of outcomes is realised as a continuous random choice of a von Neumann measurement [35]. In
conclusion the optimal measurement of the spin direction is realised by a customary Stern-Gerlach
experiment in which the magnetic field is randomly oriented! The same method can be used to
achieve an informationally complete measurement to perform a quantum tomography [36] of the
state, by suitably processing the outcome depending on the orientation of the spin measurement.
16 The convex set of deterministic states for a qutrit (i.e. 𝑑 = 3), defined by algebraic inequalities,
has eight dimensions, and has a boundary made of a continuous of balls.
17 What in OPT language is called observation test is the same of what in the quantum information
literature is called discrete POVM. An observation test is infocomplete for system A when it spans
the linear space of effects Eff R (A).
∑︁
M ∈ Trn1 (A → B), M= 𝑀 𝑗 𝜌𝑀 †𝑗 , |𝐽 | ≥ dim(HA ) 2 , (13)
𝑗 ∈𝐽
which is the coarse graining of the infocomplete quantum test {M 𝑗 } 𝑗 ∈𝐽 , with M 𝑗 =

𝑀 𝑗 · 𝑀 †𝑗 where {|𝑀 | 2𝑗 } 𝑗 ∈𝐽 is an infocomplete observation test. "Infocomplete" means
that, in the limit of infinitely many usages over the same reprepared state, the
measurement allows to perform a full tomography [36] of the state.
The infocomplete measurement (or the random observables seen before) is bet-
ter suited to extract classical information from the quantum buffer for long-term
memory, since is does not privilege a particular observable. It is also likely that the
conscious act of memorising an experience may be achieved by actually repreparing
the ontic state multiple times in the quantum buffer, and performing the infocom-
plete test multiple times, thus with the possibility of memorising a (possibly partial)
tomography of the state. Notice that, generally, the ontic state 𝑀 𝑗 𝜌𝑀 †𝑗 for a given
𝑗 still depends on 𝜌. However, the test will disturb it, and the less disturbance, the
smaller the amount of classical information that can be extracted [34].18
Transferring classical memory to quantum experience
We have seen that an infocomplete measurement is needed to (approximately) store

an experience in the classical long-term memory. By definition, the recovery of
an experience requires a reproduction of it, meaning that the corresponding ontic
state is (approximately) reprepared from the classical stored data. The memory,
being classical, will be read without disturbance, thus left available to following
recollections. In order to transfer classical to quantum information, methods of state-
preparation have been proposed in terms of quantum circuit schemes [38].
A possible benchmark for the memory store-and-recall process is the maximal
fidelity achievable in principle with a measure-and-reprepare scheme that optimises
the fidelity between the experienced state and the recalled one. We will consider
𝑀 ≥ 1 input copies of the same state to quantify attention to the experience. The
optimal fidelity19 between the experienced state and the recalled one averaged over
all possible experiences (i.e. input states) is given by [39]
𝑀 +1
𝐹 ( 𝐴, 𝑀, 𝑑) = , (15)
𝑀+𝑑
18 Particularly symmetric types of measurements are those made with a SIC POVM (Symmetric
informationally complete POVM) [37], where 𝑀 𝑗 = | 𝜓 𝑗 i h𝜓 𝑗 | are 𝑑 2 projectors on pure states
with equal pairwise fidelity
𝑑 𝛿 𝑗𝑘 + 1
| h𝜓 𝑗 | 𝜓𝑘 i | 2 = . (14)
𝑑+1
The projectors | 𝜓 𝑗 i h𝜓 𝑗 | defining the SIC POVM in dimension 𝑑 form a (𝑑 2 − 1)-dimensional
regular simplex in the space of Hermitian operators.
19 The fidelity 𝐹 between two pure states corresponding to state vectors | 𝜓i and | 𝜑 i, respectively,
is defined as | h𝜑 | 𝜓i | 2 .
where 𝑑 is the dimension of the experiencing system.20

Such upper bound for fidelity may be used to infer an effective dimension 𝑑 of the
system involved in consciousness, e.g. in very focused restricted experiences as those
involved in masking conscious perception [40].
Information transfer from body to consciousness and vice versa
We would expect that most of the operation of the human body is automatic and
uses classical information that is never translated into quantum information to be
experienced by consciousness. The portion of the classical information produced
by the body that needs to be converted into quantum should only be the salient
information that supports the qualia perception and comprehension necessary to "live
life" and make appropriate free-will choices. The amount of quantum information to
be translated into classical for the purpose of free-will control of the body top-down
should be relatively small.
6 On the combination problem
The combination problem concerns the issue about if and how the fundamental
conscious minds come to compose, constitute, or give rise to some other, additional
conscious mind [41]. By definition, the problem becomes crucial for panpsychism:
if cosciousness is everywhere, what is the criterion to select novel conscious in-
dividuals? Is the union of two conscious beings a conscious being? If this is true,
then any subset of a conscious being can also be a conscious being. The present
theoretical approach provides a precise individuation criterion. The criterion derives
from principle P3 about the purity of quantum conscious states and, consequently,
the need for ontic transformations. Let’s see how it works.
It is reasonable to say that an individual is defined by the continuity of its experi-
ence. Such a statement may be immediately obvious to some readers. However, for
those who may not agree, we propose a thought experiment.
20 The optimal fidelity in Eq. (15) is achieved by an observation test with atomic effects |Φ𝑖 i hΦ𝑖 |
with
√︁ 𝑀 +𝑑−1
|Φ𝑖 i = 𝑤𝑖 𝑑 𝑀 | 𝜓𝑖 i ⊗𝑀 , 𝑑𝑀 = , (16)
𝑑−1
where { | 𝜓𝑖 i }𝑖=1
𝐴 are pre-specified pure state-vectors, and {𝑤 } 𝐴 is a probability vector satisfying
𝑖 𝑖=1
the identity
𝐴
∑︁ D E
𝑤𝑖 | 𝜓𝑖 i h𝜓𝑖 | ⊗𝑀 = | 𝜓i h𝜓 | ⊗𝑀 . (17)
𝑖=1
where the notation h. . .i denotes averaging over the prior of pure-state vectors, taking as the prior
the Haar measure on the unit sphere in C𝑑 .
Consider a futuristic “quantum teleportation experiment”, meaning that the quan-

tum state of a system is substituted to that of a remote isomorphic system.21 The matter
(electrons, protons, ...) of which a teleported person is composed is available at the
receiver location and is in-principle indistinguishable from the same matter at the
transmission location: indeed, it is only its quantum state that is teleported. The
resulting individual would be the same as the original one, including his thoughts
and memory.22
The above thought experiment suggests the following individuation criterion
within our theoretical approach:
S4: A conscious mind is a composite system in an ontic state undergoing an ontic
transformation, with no subsystem as such.
In Figs. 5 and 6 we illustrate the use of the criterion in two paradigmatic cases. Here
we emphasise that the role of interactions is crucial for the criterion.
entangled
marginal states
are epistemic factorised ontic states
1 individual 2 individuals
Fig. 5 The combination problem. Stated generally, the problem is about how the fundamental
conscious minds come to compose, constitute, or give rise to some further conscious mind. The
ontic-state principle P1 provides a partial criterion to exclude some situations, e.g. (figure on the
left) two entangled systems cannot separately be conscious entities, since each one is in a marginal
state of an entangled one, hence it is necessarily mixed. On the other hand, (figure on the right) if
two systems are in a factorized pure state, each system is in an ontic state, and they are two single
individuals, and remain so depending on their following interactions (see Fig. 6).
This section has described what is necessary to form a combination of conscious

entities, thus removing the difficulties encountered with panpsychist models based
on classical physics. The key idea is that the states of the combining systems and
their transformations be ontic and that such systems interact quantumly. These re-
quirements assure that the combined entity is also in a pure state and that none of its
subsets are conscious. Clearly, the interactions between the conscious entity and the
environment (including other entities) can only be classical, otherwise a larger entity
21 Teleportation will need the availability of shared entanglement and classical communication, and
technically would use a Bell measurement at the sender and a conditioned unitary transformation
at the receiver. [42]
22 Of course, this would violate the no cloning theorem, if at the transmission point the original
individual would not be destroyed. Indeed, according to the quantum information-disturbance
tradeoff [34], teleportation cannot even make a bad copy leaving the original untouched.
would be created and would persist for as long as a disentangling transformation

does not occur, as in the case illustrated in Fig. 6.
Fig. 6 The combination problem. The general individuation criterion in statement S4 requires
full quantum coherence, namely the ontic nature of both states and transformations. In the case
depicted in this figure, every transformation (including effects and states as special cases) is pure,
and we suppose each multipartite transformation is not factorizable. Then the first two boxes on
the left represent two separate individuals. The box in the middle merges the two individual into
a single one, whereas the immediately following effects convert quantum to classical information,
and separate again the single individual into the original separate ones. Notice that a merging of
two individuals necessarily needs a quantum interaction.
7 Theory experimentability and simulability
Proposing feasible experiments about the quantum nature of consciousness is a

very exciting challenge. In principle quantumness could be established through
experimental demonstration of one of the two main nonclassical features of quantum
theory: nonlocality and complementarity. The two notions are not independent, since
in order to prove nonlocality we need complementary observations, in addition to
shared entanglement.
In order to prove nonlocality of consciousness we need measurements at two sepa-
rate points sufficiently far apart to exclude causal connection, and such a requirement
is very challenging, since it demands very fast measurements, considering that for
a distance of 3 cm between the measurements points a time-difference of a tenth of
nanosecond is sufficient to have signalling.
About nonlocality together with complementarity, we speculate that they together

may be involved in 3D vision, and take the opportunity to suggest that such line of
research may anyway be a fruitful field of experimental research on consciousness.23
For example, a genuine case of complementarity in 3D experience is occurring as
a result of looking at Magic Eye images published in a series of books [44]. These
images feature autostereograms, which allow most people to see 3D images by
focusing on 2D patterns that seem to have nothing in common with the 3D image
that emerges from them. The viewer must diverge or converge his eyes in order
to see a hidden three-dimensional image within the patterns. The 3D image that
shows up in the experience is like a glassy object that, depending on convergence
or divergence of the eyes, shows up as either concave or convex. Clearly the two
alternative 3D views–convex and concave–are truly complementary experiences,
and each experience has an intrinsic wholeness.
Regarding complementarity alone, speculative connections with contrasting or
opposite dimensions of human experience have been considered in the literature,
e.g. "analysis" vs "synthesis", and "logic" vs "intuition" [45]. Here, however, we
are interested in complementariy in experiences possibly reproducible in different
individuals, of the kind of gedanken-experiments a la Heisenberg, e.g. one experience
incompatible with another and/or disturbing each other. Having something more
than two complementary observables, namely an informationally complete set of
measurements such as all three Pauli matrices for a single consciousness qubit,
would allow us to make a quantum tomography [36] of the qubit state, assuming
this is reprepared many times, e.g. through an intense prolonged attention. To our
knowledge, the feasibility assessment of such a kind of experiment is of a difficulty
comparable to that of a nonlocality experiment.
Finally, apart from proving the quantumness of experience, we can at least ex-
perimentally infer some theoretical parameters in the quantum theoretical approach
consistent with observations. This is the case e.g. of the experiment already men-
tioned in discussing the upper bound (15) in memory-recall fidelity, which can be
used in inferring an effective dimension 𝑑 of the system involved in consciousness in
very focused restricted experiences, as for masking conscious perception [40]. We
believe that memory-recall experiments versus variables such as attention, memory-
recovery delay, and variable types of qualia, may be helpful to make a preliminary
mapping of the dimensionality of the spaces of conscious systems involved.
We conclude with a few considerations about the feasibility of a simulation of
a conscious process like the ones proposed here. As already mentioned, due to
the purity of the ontic process, a simulation just needs multiplications of generally
rectangular matrices, which for matrices with the same dimension 𝑑 is essentially a
Θ(𝑑 3 ) process. For sparse matrices (as it is often the case in a quantum simulation)
the process can be speeded up considerably. However, to determine the probability
distribution of each ontic step, one needs to evaluate the conditional probability
23 A paradigmatic case of superposition between incompatible 3D views is that of the Necker cube,
which some authors regard as neuro-physiological transformation leading to perceptual reversal
controlled by the principles of quantum mechanics [43]. However, the 3D experience of the Necker
cube does not require binocular disparity since monocular vision also produces the same effect.
for the output state of the previous step, and this needs the multiplication for all
possible outcomes (the free will) of the corresponding Kraus operator of the last
ontic transformation. With a RAM of the order of Gbytes one could definitely
operate with a dozen qubits at a time. This should be compared with 53 qubits of
the Google or IBM quantum computer, the largest currently available, likely to share
classical information in tandem with a large classical computer. However, it is not
excluded that some special phenomena could be already discovered/analyzed with a
laptop.
8 Philosophic implications
We have presented a theory of consciousness, based on principles, assumptions, and

key concepts that we consider crucial for the robustness of the theory and the removal
of the limitations of most panpsychist theories [41]. We believe that conferring inner
reality and agency to quantum systems in pure quantum state, with conversion
of information from classical to quantum and vice versa, is unprecedented, with
major philosophical and scientific consequences. In the present approach free will
and consciousness go hand in hand, allowing a system to act based on its qualia
experience by converting quantum to classical information, and thus giving causal
power to subjectivity–something that until now has been highly controversial, if not
considered impossible.
The theory provides that a conscious agent may intentionally convert quantum
information into a specific classical information to express its free will, a classical
output that is in principle unpredictable due to its quantum origin. The theory would
be incoherent without the identification of the conscious system in terms of purity and
inseparability of the quantum state, which is identified with the systems experience.
The purity of non-deterministic quantum evolution identifies consciousness with
agency through its outcome.
Metaphysically the proposed interpretation that a pure, non-separable quantum
state is a state of consciousness, could be turned on its head by assuming the on-
tology of consciousness and agency as primary, whereas physics is emergent from
consciousness and agency. This same interpretation would then consider classi-
cal physics the full reification (objectification) of quantum reality as quantum-to-
classical agency corresponding to the free will of conscious entities existing entirely
in the quantum realm. The ontology deriving by the acceptance of consciousness as
fundamental, would be that objectivity and classical physics supervene on quantum
physics, quantum physics supervenes on quantum information, and quantum infor-
mation supervenes on consciousness. If we were to accept this speculative view,
physics could then be understood as describing an open-ended future not yet existing
because the free will choices of the conscious agents have yet to be made. In this
perspective, we, as conscious beings, are the co-creators of our physical world. We
do so individually and collectively, instant after instant and without realizing it, by
our free-will choices.
Appendices about general OPTs
In these appendices we provide the general operational probabilistic framework for

future post-quantum explorations for a theory of consciousness. We report just a
short illustration of what is an operational probabilistic theory (OPT), of which
Quantum Theory and Classical Theory are the most relevant istances. As the reader
may appreciate, the OPT provides a framework much reacher, general, flexible, and
mathematically rigorous as compared to other theoretical frameworks, such as the
causal approach of Tononi [46].
The operational probabilistic theory (OPT) framework
It is not an overstatement to say that the OPT framework represents a new Galilean
revolution for the scientific method. In fact, it is the first time that a theory-
independent set of rules is established on how to build up a theory in physics
and possibly in other sciences. Such rules constitute what is called the operational
framework. Its rigour is established by the simple fact that the OPT is just "meta-
mathematics", since it is a chapter of category theory [47, 48]. To be precise the
largest class of OPTs corresponds to a monoidal braided category. The fact that the
same categoric framework is used in computer science [49, 50, 51, 52, 53] gives an
idea of the thoroughness and range of applicability of the rules of the OPT.
Lucien Hardy in several seminal papers [54, 55, 56] introduced a heuristic frame-
work that can be regarded as a forerunner of the OPT, which made its first appearance
in Refs. [9, 8], and soon was connected to the categorical approach in computer sci-
ence [20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 21]. As already mentioned, both QT and CT are OPTs
[10], but one can build up other OPTs, such as variations of QT e.g. fermionic QT
[57], or QT on real Hilbert space [10], or QT with only qubits, but also CT with
entanglement [58] or without local discriminability [59]. Also other toy-theories,
such as the PR-Boxes, are believed to be completable to OPTs (see e.g. [60]).
The connection of OPT with computer science reflects the spirit of the OPT,
which essentially was born on top of the new field of quantum information. Indeed,
the OPT framework is the formalization of the rules for building up quantum circuits
and for attaching to them a joint probability: in such a way the OPT literally becomes
an extension of probability theory.
The general idea
How does an OPT works? It associates to each joint probability of multiple events
a closed directed acyclic graph (CDAG) of input-output relations as in Fig. 7. Each
event (e.g. E 𝑚 in figure) is an elementÍ of a complete test ({E 𝑚 } 𝑚∈M in figure)
with normalized marginal probability 𝑚∈M 𝑝(E 𝑚 ) = 1. The graph tells us that the
marginal probability distribution of any set of tests still depends on the marginal-
ized set, e.g. the marginal probability distribution of test {E 𝑚 } 𝑚∈M depends on the
full graph of tests to which it is connected, although it has been partially or fully
marginalised. As a rule, disconnected graphs (as 𝛾1 and 𝛾2 in Fig. 7) are statistically
independent, namely their probability distributions factorize. The oriented wires de-
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<latexit sha1_base64="jjlMrGv2oUThaNtQ+X+2ggdLmis=">AAACCXicbVDLSsNAFJ3UV42vqEs3Q4sgCCWpC10WuxHcVLAPaEqYTKftkMkkzEyEELJ149bPcONCEbf+gbv+jZO2C209cOFwzr3ce48fMyqVbU+N0tr6xuZWedvc2d3bP7AOjzoySgQmbRyxSPR8JAmjnLQVVYz0YkFQ6DPS9YNm4XcfiJA04vcqjckgRGNORxQjpSXPgqabuSFSE4xY1sy9wM29LHApz1wRwts896yqXbNngKvEWZBqo+KeP08bacuzvt1hhJOQcIUZkrLv2LEaZEgoihnJTTeRJEY4QGPS15SjkMhBNvskh6daGcJRJHRxBWfq74kMhVKmoa87i6PlsleI/3n9RI2uBhnlcaIIx/NFo4RBFcEiFjikgmDFUk0QFlTfCvEECYSVDs/UITjLL6+STr3mXNTqdzqNazBHGZyACjgDDrgEDXADWqANMHgEL+ANvBtPxqvxYXzOW0vGYuYY/IHx9QP+wp2C</latexit>
E
{Dl }l2K
<latexit sha1_base64="BuU2qgPYBIiDHF18zsXI8sHtEBQ=">AAACCXicbVDLSsNAFJ3UV62vqEs3Q4sgCCWpC10WdSG4qWAf0IQwmU7aoZNJmJkIIWTrxq2f4caFIm79A3f9GydtF9p64MLhnHu59x4/ZlQqy5oYpZXVtfWN8mZla3tnd8/cP+jIKBGYtHHEItHzkSSMctJWVDHSiwVBoc9I1x9fFX73gQhJI36v0pi4IRpyGlCMlJY8E1aczAmRGmHEsuvcY07uZcyhPHNECG/z3DNrVt2aAi4Te05qzapz+jxppi3P/HYGEU5CwhVmSMq+bcXKzZBQFDOSV5xEkhjhMRqSvqYchUS62fSTHB5rZQCDSOjiCk7V3xMZCqVMQ193FkfLRa8Q//P6iQou3IzyOFGE49miIGFQRbCIBQ6oIFixVBOEBdW3QjxCAmGlw6voEOzFl5dJp1G3z+qNO53GJZihDI5AFZwAG5yDJrgBLdAGGDyCF/AG3o0n49X4MD5nrSVjPnMI/sD4+gEDi52F</latexit>
{Hz }z2Z
<latexit sha1_base64="hFkRQvoh42rt9ehTeyXFkF+ms+w=">AAACCXicbVDLSsNAFJ3UV42vqks3Q4sgCCWpC10W3XRZwT6wCWEynbRDJ5MwMxHakK0bt36GGxeKuPUP3PVvnLRdaOuBC4dz7uXee/yYUaksa2oU1tY3NreK2+bO7t7+QenwqC2jRGDSwhGLRNdHkjDKSUtRxUg3FgSFPiMdf3ST+50HIiSN+J0ax8QN0YDTgGKktOSVoOmkTojUECOWNjJv4mReOnEoTx0Rwvss80oVq2rNAFeJvSCVetk5f57Wx02v9O30I5yEhCvMkJQ924qVmyKhKGYkM51EkhjhERqQnqYchUS66eyTDJ5qpQ+DSOjiCs7U3xMpCqUch77uzI+Wy14u/uf1EhVcuSnlcaIIx/NFQcKgimAeC+xTQbBiY00QFlTfCvEQCYSVDs/UIdjLL6+Sdq1qX1RrtzqNazBHEZyAMjgDNrgEddAATdACGDyCF/AG3o0n49X4MD7nrQVjMXMM/sD4+gFMq520</latexit>
Fig. 7 An OPT associates to each joint probability distribution of multiple tests/events a

closed directed acyclic graph (CDAG) of output-input relations (see text). As a rule, uncon-
nected graph components are statistically independent, e.g. in the case in the figure, one has
𝑝 ( A𝑖 , E 𝑚 , . . . , X𝑟 , . . . |𝛾1 ∪ 𝛾2 ) = 𝑝 ( A𝑖 , E 𝑚 , . . . |𝛾1 , ) 𝑝 ( X𝑟 , . . . |𝛾2 ).
noting output-input connections between the tests (labeled by Roman letters in figure
7), are the so called systems of the theory.
A paradigmatic quantum example
A paradigmatic example of OPT graph is given in Fig.8. There, we have a source of

particles all with spin up (namely in the state 𝜌 = | ↑ih↑ |). At the output we have
two von Neumann measurements24 in cascade, the first one Σ 𝛼 measuring 𝜎𝛼 , and
24 A von Neumann measurement of e.g. 𝜎𝑧 has two outcomes "up" and "down", and the output
particle will be in the corresponding eigenstate of 𝜎𝑧 .
the second one Θ𝛽 measuring 𝜎𝛽 , where 𝛼 and 𝛽 can assume either of the two values
𝑥, 𝑧. The setup is represented by the graph shown in the figure, where A represents
the system corresponding to the particle spin, 𝑒 the deterministic test that simply
discards the particle, and the two tests Σ 𝛼 , Θ𝛽 (𝛼, 𝛽 = 𝑥, 𝑧) the two von Neuman
measurements. Now, clearly, for 𝛼 = 𝑧 one has the marginal probability distribution
𝑝(Σ𝑧 ) = (1, 0) and 𝑝(Σ 𝑥 ) ( 12 , 12 ) independently of the choice of the test Θ𝛽 . On the
other hand, for the second test one has marginal probability 𝑝(Θ 𝑥 ) = (1, 0) for Σ𝑧
and 𝑝(Θ 𝑥 ) = ( 12 , 12 ) for Σ 𝑥 . We conclude that the marginal probability of Σ 𝛼 is
independent of the choice of the test Θ𝛽 , whereas the marginal probability of Θ𝛽
depends of the choice of Σ 𝛼 . Thus, the marginal probability of Θ𝛽 generally depends
on the choice of Σ 𝛼 , and this concept goes beyond the content of joint probability, and
needs the OPT graph. Theoretically, we conclude that there is "something flying"
from test Σ 𝛼 to test Θ𝛽 (although we cannot see it!): this is what we theoretical
describe as a spinning particle! This well illustrates the notion of system: a theoretical
connection between tested events.
A A A
| "ih" |
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⌃↵
<latexit sha1_base64="djjd9/7Mu931/L0CKKOs4DyOPXw=">AAAB9HicbVBNSwMxEM3Wr1q/qh69BIvgqexWQY9FLx4r2g/oLmU2zbahSXZNsoWy9Hd48aCIV3+MN/+NabsHbX0w8Hhvhpl5YcKZNq777RTW1jc2t4rbpZ3dvf2D8uFRS8epIrRJYh6rTgiaciZp0zDDaSdRFETIaTsc3c789pgqzWL5aCYJDQQMJIsYAWOlwH9gAwE9H3gyhF654lbdOfAq8XJSQTkavfKX349JKqg0hIPWXc9NTJCBMoxwOi35qaYJkBEMaNdSCYLqIJsfPcVnVunjKFa2pMFz9fdEBkLriQhtpwAz1MveTPzP66Ymug4yJpPUUEkWi6KUYxPjWQK4zxQlhk8sAaKYvRWTISggxuZUsiF4yy+vklat6l1Ua/eXlfpNHkcRnaBTdI48dIXq6A41UBMR9ISe0St6c8bOi/PufCxaC04+c4z+wPn8AbRZkg4=</latexit>
⇥
<latexit sha1_base64="7WdJcX17Gd2GCNm9r0ARIjzRP6k=">AAAB83icbVBNS8NAEN3Ur1q/qh69BIvgqSRV0GPRi8cK/YImlM120i7dbMLuRCihf8OLB0W8+me8+W/ctDlo64MZHu/NsLMvSATX6DjfVmljc2t7p7xb2ds/ODyqHp90dZwqBh0Wi1j1A6pBcAkd5CignyigUSCgF0zvc7/3BErzWLZxloAf0bHkIWcUjeR57QkgHXpB3qs1p+4sYK8TtyA1UqA1rH55o5ilEUhkgmo9cJ0E/Ywq5EzAvOKlGhLKpnQMA0MljUD72eLmuX1hlJEdxsqURHuh/t7IaKT1LArMZERxole9XPzPG6QY3voZl0mKINnyoTAVNsZ2HoA94goYipkhlClubrXZhCrK0MRUMSG4q19eJ91G3b2qNx6va827Io4yOSPn5JK45IY0yQNpkQ5hJCHP5JW8Wan1Yr1bH8vRklXsnJI/sD5/APGqkZ8=</latexit>
Fig. 8 A simple OPT graph. A paradigmatic example for the sake of illustration and for motivation
(see text).
C A B D
A!B C!D Ci
Ci Mj = U E1 V E2
Pj
A A A A
a a
Y Y B
B 6= Y0 Bapproach
A black-box , 6= Y0 B
b b
C C
ci
Finally, the OPT is a black-box approach, where each test is described by a mathe-
A B Y B A
matical object
Ci which
= can U e
be "actually achieved" by(4)
a very specific physical device.
A B
However, nobody forbids to provide a more detailed OPT realisation of the test, e.g.
as in Fig. 9. A B
A B =
Ti U
s F E Zi
A A
ai
Y B A
bk
A A A A
{Aa }a2A {Cc }c2C
B B U B B
{Bb }b2B {Dd }d2D
A A A A
ai a0j
Fig. 9 OPT B finerBandU coarser
B descriptions.
B The OPT is a black-box approach. It can be made
bk
more or less detailed, b0l box on the left, and even at so fine a level that it is equivalent to a
as in in the
field-theoretical description, as in the right figure.
A A
ai
Y B A
bk
A B Cl C D
Aj En
E F G Gq
Yi Dm
H L M N
Bk Fp
O P
BGMP
Yi , A j , Bk , Dm Cl , En , F p , Gq
Notice that although any graph can be represented in 2D (e.g. using crossing of
wires), one can more suitably design it in 3D (2D + in-out), as in Fig. 10.
Fig. 10 An (open) DAG whose topology is suitably representable in 3D.
The OPT and the goal of science
One can soon realise that the OPT framework precisely allows to express the most
general goal of science, namely to connect objective facts happening (the events),
devising a theory of such "connections" (the systems), thus allowing making predic-
tions for future occurrences in terms of joint probabilities of events depending on
their connections.
One of the main methodologically relevant features of the OPT is that it makes
perfectly distinct what is the "objective datum" from what is "a theoretical element".
What is objective is which tests are performed, and what is the outcome of each
test. What is theoretical is the graph of connections between the tests, along with
the mathematical representations of both systems and tests. The OPT framework
dictates the rules that the mathematical description should satisfy, and the specific
OPT gives the particular mathematical representation of systems and tests/events
and of their compositions (in sequence and in parallel) to build up the CDAG.
The OPT and the scientific method
One of the main rules of the scientific method is to have a clearcut distinction
between what is experimental and what is theoretical. Though this would seem a
trivial statement, such a confusion happens to be often the source of disagreement
between scientists. Though the description of the apparatus is generally intermingled
with theoretical notions, the pure experimental datum must have a conventionally
defined "objectivity status", corresponding to "openly known" information, namely

shareable by any number of different observers. Then both the theoretical language
and the framework must reflect the theory-experiment distinction, by indicating
explicitly which notions are assigned the objectivity status. Logic, with the Boolean
calculus of events, is an essential part of the language, and Probability Theory can
be regarded as an extension of logic, assigning probabilities to events. The notion
that is promoted to the objectivity status is that of "outcome of a test", announcing
which event of a given test has occurred. The OPT framework thus represents an
extension of probability theory, providing a theoretical connectivity between events,
the other theoretical ingredients being the mathematical descriptions of systems and
tests.
The OPT as a general information theory
A F
{Em }m2M
{Ai }i2I
A
{Mp }p2P
{Ai }i2I {Em }m2M
F
G P
G B
{Bj }j2J
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{Pu }u2U
{Fn }n2N
{Mp }p2P
B <latexit sha1_base64="qR39pdwHwRGZOspzxcgQM1+Grjw=">AAACCXicbVC7TsMwFHXKq6Q8AowsFgWJqUrKAGMFCwtSkehDaqLIcZ3WquNEtlOpirKy8CssDFSItX/AxofAjPsYoOVIVzo6517de0+QMCqVbX8ahbX1jc2t4rZZ2tnd27cODpsyTgUmDRyzWLQDJAmjnDQUVYy0E0FQFDDSCgY3U781JELSmD+oUUK8CPU4DSlGSku+BU03cyOk+hix7C73Ezf3s8SlPHNFBOt57ltlu2LPAFeJsyDl2unXeDIsfdd968PtxjiNCFeYISk7jp0oL0NCUcxIbrqpJAnCA9QjHU05ioj0stknOTzTSheGsdDFFZypvycyFEk5igLdOT1aLntT8T+vk6rwyssoT1JFOJ4vClMGVQynscAuFQQrNtIEYUH1rRD3kUBY6fBMHYKz/PIqaVYrzkWleq/TuAZzFMExOAHnwAGXoAZuQR00AAaP4Bm8grHxZLwYb8b7vLVgLGaOwB8Ykx/NHJ7V</latexit>
P H O
{Bj }j2J {Fn```
}n2N
H <latexit sha1_base64="ppK/horOIwAda2Evm8fmhs7cuMg=">AAACCXicbVC7TsMwFHV4lpZHgJHFoiAxVUkZYKzKgpiKRB9SE0WO67RuHSeynUpVlJWFX2FhoEKs/QM2PgRm3McALUe60tE59+ree/yYUaks69NYW9/Y3NrO7eQLu3v7B+bhUUNGicCkjiMWiZaPJGGUk7qiipFWLAgKfUaa/uBm6jeHREga8Qc1iokboi6nAcVIackzYd5JnRCpHkYsrWZe38m8tO9QnjoihHdZ5plFq2TNAFeJvSDFytnXeDIsfNc888PpRDgJCVeYISnbthUrN0VCUcxIlncSSWKEB6hL2ppyFBLpprNPMniulQ4MIqGLKzhTf0+kKJRyFPq6c3q0XPam4n9eO1HBtZtSHieKcDxfFCQMqghOY4EdKghWbKQJwoLqWyHuIYGw0uHldQj28surpFEu2Zel8r1OowrmyIETcAougA2uQAXcghqoAwwewTN4BWPjyXgx3oz3eeuasZg5Bn9gTH4An6meuA==</latexit>
<latexit sha1_base64="ppK/horOIwAda2Evm8fmhs7cuMg=">AAACCXicbVC7TsMwFHV4lpZHgJHFoiAxVUkZYKzKgpiKRB9SE0WO67RuHSeynUpVlJWFX2FhoEKs/QM2PgRm3McALUe60tE59+ree/yYUaks69NYW9/Y3NrO7eQLu3v7B+bhUUNGicCkjiMWiZaPJGGUk7qiipFWLAgKfUaa/uBm6jeHREga8Qc1iokboi6nAcVIackzYd5JnRCpHkYsrWZe38m8tO9QnjoihHdZ5plFq2TNAFeJvSDFytnXeDIsfNc888PpRDgJCVeYISnbthUrN0VCUcxIlncSSWKEB6hL2ppyFBLpprNPMniulQ4MIqGLKzhTf0+kKJRyFPq6c3q0XPam4n9eO1HBtZtSHieKcDxfFCQMqghOY4EdKghWbKQJwoLqWyHuIYGw0uHldQj28surpFEu2Zel8r1OowrmyIETcAougA2uQAXcghqoAwwewTN4BWPjyXgx3oz3eeuasZg5Bn9gTH4An6meuA==</latexit>
{Pu }u2U
<latexit sha1_base64="qWJY73wKGC6CSWevrtM0nsDx1lA=">AAACCXicbVDLSsNAFJ3UV42vqEs3Q4sgCCWpC10W3bisYNpCE8JkOmmHTiZhZiKEkK0bt36GGxeKuPUP3PVvnD4W2nrgwuGce7n3njBlVCrbnhiVtfWNza3qtrmzu7d/YB0edWSSCUxcnLBE9EIkCaOcuIoqRnqpICgOGemG45up330gQtKE36s8JX6MhpxGFCOlpcCCpld4MVIjjFjRLoPMK4Mi8ygvPBFDtywDq2437BngKnEWpN6qeefPk1beDqxvb5DgLCZcYYak7Dt2qvwCCUUxI6XpZZKkCI/RkPQ15Sgm0i9mn5TwVCsDGCVCF1dwpv6eKFAsZR6HunN6tFz2puJ/Xj9T0ZVfUJ5minA8XxRlDKoETmOBAyoIVizXBGFB9a0Qj5BAWOnwTB2Cs/zyKuk0G85Fo3mn07gGc1TBCaiBM+CAS9ACt6ANXIDBI3gBb+DdeDJejQ/jc95aMRYzx+APjK8fQhadrQ==</latexit>
{Nq }q2Q
O
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C L N
{Ck }k2K
L {Nq }q2Q
N
C
{Gh }h2H
{Gh }h2H
D {Qv }v2V
{Qv }v2V
{Ck }k2K
M D
{Dl }l2K
E
{Dl }l2K
{Hz }z2Z
E M
{Hz }z2Z
Fig. 11 Equivalence between the CDAG and the quantum information circuit or, equivalently, any
run-diagram of a program.
We can immediately realise that a CDAG is exactly the same graph of a quantum
circuit as it is drawn in quantum information science. The quantum circuit, in turn,
can be interpreted as the run-diagram of a program, where each test represents
a subroutine, and the wires represent the registers through which the subroutines
communicate data. Indeed, the OPT can be regarded as the proper framework for
information science in general.
For a recent complete presentation of the OPT framework, the reader is addressed
to the the work [9, 10] or the more recent thorough presentation [19].
Notation and abbreviations
Bnd+ ( H) bounded positive operators over H

CP6 trace-non increasing completely positive map
CP= trace-preserving completely positive map
H Hilbert space over C
Cone ( S) conic hull of S
Cone61 ( S) convex hull of {S ∪ 0}
Conv ( S) convex hull of S
Eff (A) set of effects of system A
Eff 1 (A) set of deterministic effects of system A
Mrkv6 normalization-non-incressing right-stochastic Markov matrices
Mrkv1 normalization-preserving right-stochastic Markov matrices
Prm(𝑛) 𝑛 × 𝑛 permutation matrices
+
(R𝑛 ) 61 {x ∈ R𝑛A |x ≥ 0, x 6 1}: simplex S𝑛A +1
(R𝑛 ) 1+ {x ∈ R𝑛A |x ≥ 0, ||x || 1 = 1}: simplex S𝑛A
St(A) set of states of system A
St1 (A) set of deterministic states of system A
T( H) trace-class operators over H
T+ ( H) trace-class positive operators over H
T+61 ( H) positive sub-unit-trace operators over H
T+=1 ( H) positive unit-trace operators over H
Trn(A → B) set of transformations from system A to system B
Trn1 (A → B) set of deterministic transformations from system A to system B
U( H) unitary group over H
Special cases corollaries
T(C) = C, T+ (C) = R+ , T+61 (C) = [0, 1], T+=1 (C) = {1}
CP(T( H) → T(C)) = P(T( H) → T(C)) = {Tr[·𝐸 ], 𝐸 ∈ Bnd+ ( H) }
CP(T(C) → T( H)) = P(T(C) → T( H)) = T+ ( H)
CP6 (T(C) → T( H)) ≡ T+61 ( H)
CP6 (T( H) → T(C)) ≡ { 𝜖 ( ·) = Tr[·𝐸 ], 0 6 𝐸 6 𝐼 }
Mrkv6 (𝑛, 1) = (R𝑛 ) 61+
Mrkv1 (𝑛, 1) = (R ) =1
𝑛 +
Abbreviations
CT Classical Theory
OPT Operational Probabilistic Theory
PR boxes Popescu-Rohrlich boxes
QT Quantum Theory
Table 2 Notation, special-cases corollaries, and common abbreviations.
Quantum theory
A minimal mathematical axiomatisation of Quantum Theory as an OPT is provided

in Table 3. For an OPT we need to provide the mathematical description of systems,
their composition, and transformations from one system to another. Then all rules
of compositions of transformations and their respective systems are provided by the
OPT framework. The reader who is not familiar with such framework can simply
use the intuitive construction of quantum circuits. In Table 4 we report the main
theorems following from the axioms. The reader interested in the motivations for the
present axiomatization is addressed to Ref. [61].
Quantum Theory
system A HA
system composition AB HAB = HA ⊗ HB
transformation T ∈ Trn(A → B) T ∈ CP6 (T( HA ) → T( HB ))
Born rule 𝑝 ( T) = Tr T T ∈ Trn(I → A)
Table 3 Mathematical axiomatisation of Quantum Theory. As given in the table, in Quantum

Theory to each system A we associate a Hilbert space over the complex field HA . To the compo-
sition of systems A and B we associate the tensor product of Hilbert spaces HAB = HA ⊗ HB .
Transformations from system A to B are described by trace-nonincreasing completely positive (CP)
maps from traceclass operators on HA to traceclass operators on HB . Special cases of transforma-
tions are those with input trivial system I corresponding to states, whose trace is the preparation
probability, the latter providing an efficient Born rule from which one can derive all joint probabil-
ities of any combination of transformations. Everything else is simply special-case corollaries and
one realisation theorem: these are reported in Table 4.
Quantum theorems
trivial system I HI = C
reversible transf. U = 𝑈 · 𝑈† 𝑈 ∈ U( HA )
determ. transformation T ∈ Trn1 (A → B) T ∈ CP61 (T( HA ) → T( HB ))
parallel composition T1 ∈ Trn(A → B), T2 ∈ Trn(C → D) T1 ⊗ T2
sequential composition T1 ∈ Trn(A → B), T2 ∈ Trn(B → C) T2 T1
𝜌 ∈ St(A) ≡ Trn(I → A) 𝜌 ∈ T+61 ( HA )
states 𝜌 ∈ St1 (A) ≡ Trn1 (I → A) 𝜌 ∈ T+=1 ( HA )
𝜌 ∈ St(I) ≡ Trn(I → I) 𝜌 ∈ [0, 1]
𝜌 ∈ St1 (I) ≡ Trn(I → I) 𝜌=1
𝜖 ∈ Eff (A) ≡ Trn(A → I) 𝜖 ( ·) = TrA [·𝐸 ], 0 6 𝐸 6 𝐼 𝐴
effects
𝜖 ∈ Eff 1 (A) ≡ Trn1 (A → I) 𝜖 = TrA
Transformations as
unitary interaction
A B
+
von Neumann-Luders A T𝑖 B = U T𝑖 𝜌 = TrE [𝑈 (𝜌 ⊗ 𝜎)𝑈 † (𝐼B ⊗ 𝑃𝑖 ) ]
𝜎 F E
P𝑖
Table 4 Corollaries and a theorem of Quantum Theory, starting from Table 3 axiomatization.
The first corollary states that the trivial system I in order to satisfy the composition rule IA = AI = A
must be associated to the one-dimensional Hilbert space HI = C, since it is the only Hilbert space
which trivializes the Hilbert space tensor product. The second corollary states that the reversible
transformations are the unitary ones. The third corollary states that the deterministic transforma-
tions are the trace-preserving ones. Then the fourth and fifth corollaries give the composition of
transformations in terms of compositions of maps. We then have four corollaries about states: 1)
states are transformations starting from the trivial system and, as such, are positive operators on
the system Hilbert space, having trace bounded by one; 2) the deterministic states correspond to
unit-trace positive operator; 3) the states of trivial system are just probabilities; 4) The only trivial
system deterministic state is the number 1. We then have two corollaries for effects, as special cases
of transformation toward the trivial system: 1) the effect is represented by the partial trace over the
system Hilbert space of the multiplication with a positive operator bounded by the identity over the
system Hilbert space; 2) the only deterministic effect is the partial trace over the system Hilbert
space. Finally, we have the realization theorem for transformations in terms of unitary interaction
U = 𝑈 · 𝑈 † with an environment F and a projective effect-test { P𝑖 } over environment E, with
P𝑖 = 𝑃𝑖 · 𝑃𝑖 , {𝑃𝑖 } being a complete set of orthogonal projectors.
Classical theory
Classical Theory
system A R𝑛A
system composition AB R𝑛AB = R𝑛A ⊗ R𝑛B
transformation T ∈ Trn(A → B) T ∈ Mrkv6 (R𝑛A , R𝑛B )
Table 5 Mathematical axiomatisation of Classical Theory. To each system A we associate a

real Euclidean space R𝑛A . To composition of systems A and B we associate the tensor product
spaces R𝑛A ⊗ R𝑛B . Transformations from system A to system B are described by substochastic
Markov matrices from the input space to the output space. Everything else are simple special-case
corollaries: these are reported in Table 6.
Classical theorems
trivial system I HI = R
reversible transformations P P ∈ Prm(𝑛A )
transformation T ∈ Trn6 (A → B) T ∈ Mrkv6 (R𝑛A , R𝑛B )
determ. transformation T ∈ Trn1 (A → B) T ∈ Mrkv1 (R𝑛A , R𝑛B )
parallel composition T1 ∈ Trn(A → B), T2 ∈ Trn(C → D) T1 ⊗ T2
sequential composition T1 ∈ Trn(A → B), T2 ∈ Trn(B → C) T2 T1
x ∈ St(A) ≡ Trn(I → A) +
x ∈ (R𝑛A ) 61
x ∈ St1 (A) ≡ Trn1 (I → A) +
x ∈ (R𝑛A ) =1
states
𝑝 ∈ St(I) ≡ Trn(I → I) 𝑝 ∈ [0, 1]
𝑝 ∈ St1 (I) ≡ Trn(I → I) 𝑝=1
𝜖 ∈ Eff (A) ≡ Trn(A → I) 𝜖 ( ·) = ·x, 0 6 x 6 1
effects
𝜖 ∈ Eff 1 (A) ≡ Trn1 (A → I) 𝜖 = ·1
Table 6 Main theorems of Classical Theory, starting from axioms in Table 5. The first corollary
states that the trivial system I in order to satisfy the composition rule IA = AI = A must be
associated to the one-dimensional space R, since it is the only real linear space that trivialises the
tensor product. The second corollary states that the reversible transformations are the permutation
matrices. The third states that transformations are substochastic Markov matrices. The fourth states
that the deterministic transformations are stochastic Markov matrices. Then the fifth and sixth
corollaries give the composition of transformations in terms of composition of matrices. We then
have four corollaries about states: 1) states are transformations starting from the trivial system and,
as such, are sub-normalized probability vectors (vectors in the positive octant with sum of elements
bounded by one; 2) the deterministic states correspond to normalised probability vectors; 3) the
case of trivial output-system correspond to just probabilities; 4) The only trivial output-system
deterministic state is the number 1. We then have two corollaries for effects, as special cases of
transformation toward the trivial system: 1) the effect is represented by scalar product with a vector
with components in the unit interval; 2) the only deterministic effect is the scalar product with the
vector with all unit components.
Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge helpful conversations and encouragement by Don

Hoffman, and interesting discussions with Chris Fields. Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano acknowledges
interesting discussions with Ramon Guevarra Erra.
This work has been sponsored by Elvia and Federico Faggin foundation through Silicon Valley
Community Foundation, Grant 2020-214365 The observer: an operational theoretical approach.
For oral sources see also the Oxford podcast http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/mauro-dariano-awareness-
operational-theoretical-approach.
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Hard Problem and Free Will:

Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano and Federico Faggin

Abstract We explore definite theoretical assertions about consciousness, starting

Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano

An effective paradigm for comprehending the conceptual gap between “experience”

2 A non-reductive psycho-informational solution: general

P2’: Quantumness of experience: The information theory of consciousness is quan-

c({ri }i2X ) := S(rX )

about the coin having two possible states. In synthesis:

Let’s now state our fourth principle, which is theory independent:

3 Qualia: the role of entanglement

I(X : Y ) := H(pXY ||pX pY ) =

I(X : Y ) := H(pXY ||pX pY ) =

c({ri }i2X ) := S(rX )

c({ri }i2X ) := S(rX )

I(X : Y ) := H(pXY ||pX pY ) =

4 Evolution of Consciousness and Free Will

Circuit symbol Symbol Map Operator domain-codomain

Let’s consider now the general scenario of a conscious composite system in an

9 As we will see, memory is classical.

oyalsocietypublishing.org Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 0000000

Since the quantum state of consciousness

At (t,xt ) At+1 At+1

The epistemic transformation

𝑋 ∈ Bnd(H𝑖𝑛 → H𝑜𝑢𝑡 ), 𝑋 † 𝑋 6 𝑃𝑆𝑋 6 𝐼𝑖𝑛 , 𝑃𝑆𝑋 := Proj Supp 𝑋. (9)

Ω𝑡 := 𝑂 𝑡 𝑂 𝑡−1 . . . 𝑂 1 , 𝑂 𝑡 := 𝑂 𝐹(𝑡𝑡,𝑥𝑡 ) , (10)

|𝜔𝑡 i = Ω𝑡 |𝜔0 i. (11)

𝑝(𝜔0 , 𝜔1 , 𝜔2 , . . . , 𝜔𝑡 ) = 𝑝(∅, 𝐹1 , . . . , 𝐹𝑡 ) = ||𝜔𝑡 || 2 = ||Ω𝑡 𝜔0 || 2 . (12)

Transferring quantum experience to classical memory

If we have quantum experiences and classical memory, we need to convert informa-

the continuum of classical information needed to communicate classically a quantum

which is the coarse graining of the infocomplete quantum test {M 𝑗 } 𝑗 ∈𝐽 , with M 𝑗 =

Transferring classical memory to quantum experience

We have seen that an infocomplete measurement is needed to (approximately) store

where 𝑑 is the dimension of the experiencing system.20

Information transfer from body to consciousness and vice versa

6 On the combination problem

Consider a futuristic “quantum teleportation experiment”, meaning that the quan-

This section has described what is necessary to form a combination of conscious

would be created and would persist for as long as a disentangling transformation

7 Theory experimentability and simulability

Proposing feasible experiments about the quantum nature of consciousness is a

About nonlocality together with complementarity, we speculate that they together

We have presented a theory of consciousness, based on principles, assumptions, and

Appendices about general OPTs

In these appendices we provide the general operational probabilistic framework for

The operational probabilistic theory (OPT) framework

The general idea

{Ck }k2K D {Qv }v2V

Fig. 7 An OPT associates to each joint probability distribution of multiple tests/events a

A paradigmatic quantum example

A paradigmatic example of OPT graph is given in Fig.8. There, we have a source of

Fig. 10 An (open) DAG whose topology is suitably representable in 3D.

The OPT and the goal of science

The OPT and the scientific method

defined "objectivity status", corresponding to "openly known" information, namely

The OPT as a general information theory

Notation and abbreviations

Bnd+ ( H) bounded positive operators over H

A minimal mathematical axiomatisation of Quantum Theory as an OPT is provided