12 The CEMI Field Theory: Seven Clues to the Nature of Consciousness

Summary. In this chapter I examine seven clues to the nature of consciousness and explore what they reveal about the underlying physical substrate of conscious-ness. The consciousness clues are: it impacts upon the world; it is a property of living brains but no other structure; brain activity may be conscious or uncon-scious; the conscious mind appears to be serial; learning requires consciousness but recall doesn’t; conscious information is bound; and consciousness correlates with synchronous firing of neurons. I discuss field theories of consciousness and introduce the conscious electromagnetic field (CEMI) theory that suggests that consciousness is a product of the brain’s electromagnetic field. I show that the CEMI field theory successfully accounts for each of the seven clues to the nature of consciousness. Fi-nally, I show that although current quantum mechanical theories of consciousness are also field theories, they are physical untenable and should be discarded. 12.1 Why Do we Need a Theory of Consciousness? A theory of consciousness is only necessary if there is something that needs to be explained. With several journals, hundreds of books and ruminations o