Irruption and Absorption: A 'Black-Box' Framework for How Mind and Matter Make a Difference to Each Other

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Science
• Neuroscience
• Philosophy of Mind

Background:

• The mind-body problem presents fundamental anomalies in cognitive science, including the hard problems of consciousness, mental causation, agential efficacy, and mental content.
• Existing frameworks struggle to reconcile the observable physical world with subjective mental experiences and agency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel theoretical framework, irruption theory, to address intractable problems in the mind sciences.
• To reframe explanatory gaps as indicators of a complex, non-reducible relationship between mind and matter.

Main Methods:

• Conceptualizing the mind as a hidden 'black box' interacting with the observable body.
• Introducing two key concepts: 'irruption' (mind influencing matter) and 'absorption' (matter influencing mind).
• Aligning these concepts with information-theoretic approaches in neuroscience, such as entropy and compression.

Main Results:

• Mind and matter are proposed as unified yet distinct, interacting in non-reducible, non-observable ways.
• Irruption and absorption provide a mechanism for the mind's efficacious yet hidden influence on the body and vice versa.
• Compatibility demonstrated with information-theoretic neuroscience methods for measuring cognitive activity and subjective experience.

Conclusions:

• Irruption theory offers novel, first-principles solutions to long-standing theoretical problems in the mind sciences.
• The theory provides a framework for integrating theoretical advances with empirical findings in neuroscience.
• Irruption theory is positioned to guide future research directions in the study of mind and consciousness.