The Conscious Electromagnetic Information (CEMI) Field Theory

The CEMI field proposes that the brain’s (conscious) EM field can itself influence neuronal firing. Radio sets and TVs are designed to be sensitive to the electromagnetic fields of radio waves; but in fact all electrical phenomena are sensitive to the surrounding EM field. Neurons are fired by specific structures, known as voltage-gated ion channels that respond to the external EM field. Mostly they are gated in such a way that only massive changes to the brain’s EM field are likely to influence neuron firing. However, in a busy brain there will be many neurons teetering on the brink of firing and these undecided neurons  may be exquisitely sensitive to the EM field. The CEMI field – our consciousness – will come into play when the brain is poised to make delicate decisions. Several recent papers have indeed demonstrated exactly this phenomenon, for example, in their 2011 paper ‘Ephaptic coupling of cortical neurons‘, Christof Koch’s group at Caltech demonstrated that weak EM fields, of similar strength to natural brain EM field, synchronize neuron firing patterns. Similarly, in their 2010 paper ‘Endogenous Electric Fields May Guide Neocortical Network Activity‘ David McCormick’s group at  Yale demonstrated that brain-strength EM field influence neural firing in the brain. There’s also a nice Scientific American article on McCormick’s paper.

That concept of information encoded as an electromagnetic field is actually a very familiar one. We routinely encode complex images and sounds in EM fields that we transmit to our TV and radio sets. What McFadden is proposing is that our brain is both the transmitter and the receiver of its own electromagnetic signals in a feedback loop that generates the conscious EM field as a kind of informational sink. This informational transfer, through the CEMI field, may provide distinct advantages over neuronal computing, in rapidly integrating and processing information distributed in different parts of the brain. It may also provide an additional level of computation that is wave-mechanical, rather than digital; one that drives our free will. This is the advantage that consciousness provides: the capacity to make decisions.

Johnjoe McFadden has written a number of engaging books that included extensive discussions of consciousness and his own theories, including in 2001 'Quantum Evolution: The New Science of Life', and 13 years later, with Jim Al-Khalili, the 2014 'Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology'. He first proposed the CEMI field theory, that electromagnetic fields in the brain integrate our thoughts to generate our conscious mind, in his book, 'Quantum Evolution'.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/cL8uz0QBaBw