New Theory Doesn’t Limit Consciousness To The Brain

This in from Science News: "Each split second of awareness is a unified, holistic experience, completely different from any experience before or after it."

Giulio Tononi intuited a powerful new theory of consciousness, a theory based on the flow of information and his theory defines consciousness as the capacity of a system — any system — to connect and use that information.

Tononi’s idea extends beyond humans. By moving from nerve cells to the math that describes them, he has broken the theory of consciousness away from the physical brain. His equations can fit any system. With the right calculations, scientists could test whether a tornado with its innumerable dust particles circling in unison, 2050’s iPhone or the trillions of megabytes of information zooming around the Internet could have some degree of consciousness. Personally, I've always wondered whether stars or other celestial bodies could be conscious. Under this notion they certainly could be tested.