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<\/div>Is consciousness a collection of discrete states that we flip between?<\/p>\n
PM Images\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n
WHAT is consciousness?<\/a> This is arguably the biggest remaining mystery of the human brain. No wonder it is known as \u201cthe hard problem\u201d<\/a>. We can\u2019t even agree whether consciousness is one thing or a variety of different states. However, new ways of exploring that question shed some intriguing light on this most elusive of concepts.<\/p>\n Though we use language like \u201closing consciousness\u201d for fainting or falling asleep, researchers have long understood that consciousness is more complicated than just flipping a metaphorical switch from \u201con\u201d to \u201coff\u201d. However, there is still much debate over whether it is a single phenomenon with many continuous shades, which you might picture as a dimmer switch, or a collection of discrete states, like separate television channels<\/a>.<\/p>\n Thinking about consciousness from the perspective of a physicist may help resolve the question. That\u2019s because the brain constantly shifts between states defined by patterns of electrical signals, and physicists have metrics for examining such busy, ever-changing systems. In 2014, Robin Carhart-Harris<\/a> at the University of California, San Francisco, and his colleagues hypothesised that entropy may be a particularly useful one<\/a>.<\/p>\n