Kallum Robinson
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Sleep and Consciousness
Integrated information Consciousness is intrinsic causal power, measured as integrated information
Kallum Robinson works within Giulio Tononi’s Center for Sleep and Consciousness group on the mathematical foundations of Integrated Information Theory. His lead-authored 2026 paper with Tononi, Naotsugu Tsuchiya, and Matteo Grasso, “The Rosetta Stone and Levels of Principled Inference to the Experience of Another Mind,” takes on the philosophical problem of other minds using category theory rather than argument alone.
The paper treats two rival structural theories, IIT and the Qualia Structure Paradigm, as candidate “Rosetta Stones” that translate subjective structure into objective mathematical description, then asks precisely what kind of correspondence, isomorphism, strong or weak adjunction, or a hard inferential limit, either theory can establish between two systems’ experiences. Robinson’s contribution formalizes this as a hierarchy rather than a single yes-or-no test, which lets the same framework be applied consistently across humans, animals, and artificial systems without requiring a prior commitment to whether any of them are conscious.
Known for. Formal comparison of structural theories of consciousness using category theory
Coverage on this site
Related researchers
- Naotsugu TsuchiyaMonash University, Turner Institute for Brain and Mental HealthFormal and mathematical approaches to the structure of conscious experience
- 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
Kallum Robinson 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.