## 4 The Electromagnetic Field Theory of Consciousness
### Implications for the Construction of Artificial Consciousness  
Functionalist theories like those espoused in cognitive science have always been attractive to those who are interested in the construction of artificial consciousness, because they suggest that all one needs do to reproduce a conscious experience is reproduce whatever abstract process the experience is seen as being idential with--any instantiation of the process will do [111]. The analysis in the present paper suggests that this paradigm is fundamentally misguided. The electromagnetic field theory of consciousness posits that conscious experiences are not abstract entities, but actual things: spatially patterned electromagnetic fields. Of course biologically, these EM fields are _produced by_ neural processes (using that word in the abstract sense rather than the dendritic sense). But there is no getting around the fact that, as used in the central dogma of cognitive science and functionalism, 'process' is an abstract noun. This often overlooked fact is actually implicit in the dogma itself: \"Consciousness is a process, NOT A THING\". Thus, equating consciousness with a process is equating consciousness with an abstract entity.  
The EM field theory says that consciousness is not an abstract entity. It is a thing. It's just that, unlike material things, this kind of thing can (and routinely does) change on a time-scale of fractions of a second. It was almost certainly the fact that macroscopic material things do not change on this time scale, while consciousness clearly does, that led to the perfectly reasonable conviction that consciousness is not a material thing. The problem then was simply a failure to take the small further step of recognising that material things are not the only kinds of thing that exist. Or, if you think (as I do not) that the quantum spatial scale is of relevance to consciousness, matter fields are not the only kinds of field that exist.  
With regard to the possibility of producing artificial consciousness, it is relatively easy to produce EM fields artificially. The EM field theory of consciousness predicts that correctly configured EM fields that are produced by hardware will be just as conscious as similarly configured fields that are produced by weware. So according to this theory, artificial consciousness is definitely on the cards. However, the necessary research program underpinning this project will be fundamentally different from that is presently espoused by cognitive neuroscience.  
Two separate steps will be necessary, although at least initially these are not interdependent so they could be pursued concurrently.  
First, it will be necessary to develop techniques for generating spatially patterned EM fields using hardware instead of weware. The most obvious way of doing this in the present context would essentially be to recreate the structural anatomy of the brain in silicon. But, that would be a formidably complex project. A more intriguing method would be to use the constructive and destructive interference of a number of projected beams of radiation to create spatial patterns of EM intensity in a remote location.  
The second requirement is clearly to measure in living subjects the spatial patterns of EM intensity that need to be reproduced. A general methodology for that part of the project is outlined in the body of the present paper. Analyses such as that in reference [112] raise the possibility that the spatial resolution of the required measurements may turn out to be an order of magnitude greater than those proposed above. However, other arguments suggest that evolution has been more forgiving in this regard [72].