# Section map — Tononi & Boly 2025, "IIT: A Consciousness-First Approach to What Exists"

The primary non-mathematical source. Chapter in L. Melloni & U. Olcese (Eds.),
*The Scientific Study of Consciousness: Experimental and Theoretical Approaches*,
Springer-Nature (forthcoming). Zotero `D2WCE7JG`, key `tononiboly2025`.
File: `../fulltext/J2IRJRJD__Tononi_Boly_2025_consciousness_first.md` (4,447 lines).

This map is an index for **citing and locating passages** — never a
substitute for reading. For any substantive question the chapter is read
whole; the ranges below are for pinpointing a citation afterwards, or for a
quick factual lookup where nothing hangs on the surrounding argument.

| Lines | Section | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| 58–67 | Summary | The abstract in the authors' own words |
| 68–108 | Introduction: experience as intrinsic existence | Why consciousness-first; the Schrödinger "play before empty benches" |
| 109–288 | Section-by-section outline | **Best source for a mini-summary of IIT** — the authors' own précis of every theme |
| 289–298 | The foundations of IIT | The three-step method (axioms → postulates → identity) |
| 299–405 | **The five axioms** | Intrinsicality, information, integration, exclusion, composition — each with its conceivability argument; essential vs. accidental properties |
| 406–498 | **The five postulates** + principles | Physical = cause-effect power; realism, being, becoming, minimal existence (→ MIP), maximal existence (→ maxima), finitism, atomism |
| 499–666 | Identifying complexes | ii_s, φ_s, MIP, main complex, recursive condensation, fault lines, why posterior-central cortex, extrinsic entities, great divide of being |
| 591, 615 | Figures 2 and 3 captions | Compact walkthroughs of applying the postulates to substrate aBC |
| 668–737 | Intrinsic units | Macro units, macroing, update grains, meso hierarchies |
| 749–809 | Unfolding the cause-effect structure | Distinctions (φ_d), purviews, congruence, relations (φ_r), faces, Φ-structure; bounds 2^n−1 and 2^(2^n−1)−1 |
| 811–883 | **The explanatory identity** | Quality is structure; Φ as quantity; Φ-folds; the three points to emphasize |
| 885–1072 | Empirical validation: presence | Cortex vs. cerebellum, slow-wave sleep breakdown, PCI, exclusion and borders, prefrontal exclusion, split-brain, congruence |
| 1074–1241 | **Space is extended** | Spots; reflexivity, inclusion, connection, fusion; grids; extensions; Song et al. contraction; pure presence; the philosophical blind spot |
| 1245–1323 | **Time flows** | Moments, directedness, directed grids, flows, static present, postdiction |
| 1325–1453 | Objects | Concepts + configurations + features; hierarchy; the letter 'A'; intrinsic agnosia; blindsight |
| 1455–1560 | **Narrow qualia (color!)** | Cliques, kernels, color-opponent minicolumns, why hues resist introspection — the direct theory backing of the Color project |
| 1562–1610 | Compound contents | Pain as a compound Φ-fold |
| 1612–1656 | Meaning is intrinsic | "The meaning is the feeling"; the dream of the friend's face |
| 1658–1794 | Perception as interpretation | Connectedness, triggering coefficient, perceptual structure; construction vs. reference |
| 1701–1741 | **Box 1: Shannon vs. integrated information** | The six-point contrast; information as message vs. meaning; communicating meaning |
| 1796–1941 | Matching | Perceptual differentiation, matching, neurophysiological differentiation, interpretive/generative power, shaping |
| 1811–1843 | **Box 2: Meaning in a box** | The challenge to computational-functionalism, posed sharply |
| 1943–2043 | **Richness of experience** | Combinatorics (2-unit → 14 ibits; 1024-unit → ~10^10^307); against sparse-experience claims; phenomenal vs. functional vision |
| 2045–2126 | Introspection and pinging | Posterior lattice vs. prefrontal switchboard; introspection as pinging |
| 2128–2246 | Intrinsic powers ontology | Vs. substrate and emergentist ontologies; existence is not constitution; supervenience vs. supersedence |
| 2248–2316 | **The great divide of being** | Intrinsic vs. extrinsic entities; ontological dust; the sleeping body |
| 2318–2381 | Being is not happening / not doing | Structure vs. process; against functionalism |
| 2383–2517 | Intrinsic meanings vs. extrinsic referents | Universals, Sherlock Holmes, inter-subjectivity; **LLMs (φ_s = 0, virtual units, relaxed requirements, extrinsic meaning)** |
| 2519–2619 | Actual causation | Realization, α, 𝒜-structures, causal processes, causal plasticity; causation is not prediction |
| 2621–2832 | **Free will** | Forks in the mind not in the road; only what exists can cause; responsibility; self-changing actions; indeterminism for existence not freedom |
| 2833–2893 | Empirical tests of free will; problems and solutions | Readiness-potential reinterpreted; genuine questions and answers |
| 2895–3043 | Patients and infants | PCI, disorders of consciousness, development |
| 3045–3115 | Other species | Bees, connectomes, extrapolating Φ |
| 3117–3249 | **Machines and organoids** | Von Neumann computers functionally but not phenomenally equivalent (Findlay 2024); double dissociation of consciousness and intelligence; organoids |
| 3251–3422 | **Instructive criticisms** | Searle (observer-dependent information), functionalism labels, the unfolding argument, Aaronson's grids, emergence/dualism, panpsychism |
| 3424–3499 | Place in nature | The four displacements and their reversal |
| 3501–4058 | References | |
| 4059–4447 | **Endnotes i–lii** | Substantive clarifications keyed to superscripts in the text — often the precise answer to a technical question |

## How to use this for objections

The chapter's own "Instructive criticisms" section (3251–3422) is the model for how the
expert answers objections: state the objection accurately, then give IIT's reply from within
the theory, usually diagnosing the misreading as an unexamined extrinsic/functionalist
presupposition. Do not import outside commentary; the replies are here.