Johnjoe McFadden
University of Surrey
Integrated information Consciousness is intrinsic causal power, measured as integrated information
Johnjoe McFadden is a theoretical biologist at the University of Surrey and the leading defender of an electromagnetic field theory of consciousness. His CEMI field theory, short for conscious electromagnetic information, holds that the brain’s endogenous EM field, the same physics that produces EEG and local field potentials, integrates information by superposition and feeds that integrated information back onto the neurons that generate it. Conscious information, on this account, is the information in the field that does causal work. The theory’s main statement appeared in Neuroscience of Consciousness in 2020, examined on this site in the CEMI analysis, and his 2023 Entropy paper compares CEMI directly with Integrated Information Theory and Global Workspace Theory, arguing that field superposition answers the combination problem the other two theories handle with added machinery.
The position’s sharpest edge for this site’s subject matter came in 2025, when McFadden extended CEMI to machines. His Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience paper argues that digital, bit-based computers may be the wrong substrate for field-integrated information and proposes electromagnetic-field computing as a route toward artificial general intelligence and conscious AI. That converts a brain theory into a hardware specification, which is why the theory matters to the AI consciousness debate. It names a physically specific difference between current digital systems and brains, and it states what an artificial substrate would have to implement.
The standing objection is the one every field theory faces. Measured fields are real, and ephaptic coupling shows they influence neurons, but why field integration should carry experience rather than merely integrate information remains the theory’s open question. McFadden’s answer places the burden on the combination problem, and the debate is live.
Known for. CEMI field theory, the brain's electromagnetic field as the substrate of consciousness, EM-field computing for conscious AI
Coverage on this site
Related researchers
- Larissa AlbantakisUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Sleep and ConsciousnessIntegrated Information Theory 4.0 and dissociating intelligence from consciousness in artificial systems
- Costas AnastassiouAllen InstituteEphaptic coupling of cortical neurons, endogenous electric fields as causal participants in neural activity, extracellular field biophysics
- Anton ArkhipovAllen Institute for Brain ScienceLarge-scale neural simulation, biophysically detailed cortical models, AIBRAIN program, State of Brain Emulation Report 2025
- Bernard J. BaarsThe Neurosciences InstituteGlobal Workspace Theory (GWT), cognitive architecture of conscious access, A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness (1988), In the Theater of Consciousness (1997)
- Adam B. BarrettSussex Centre for Consciousness Science, University of SussexContinuous field formulations of Integrated Information Theory, Measure-theoretic Phi, practical complexity measures, Granger causality
- Melanie BolyDepartment of Neurology, University of Wisconsin-MadisonCo-developer of Integrated Information Theory 4.0 (IIT 4.0), Neural Correlates of Pure Presence, EEG/fMRI consciousness biomarkers, minimal phenomenal experience
Johnjoe McFadden is listed with the other integrated information theorists, who hold that consciousness is intrinsic causal power, measured as integrated information. The theory family behind that position is set out in the index of consciousness theories. Every researcher covered on this site is indexed in the directory of consciousness researchers.