Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Alex Maier on why consciousness science needs mathematical formalization - in particular, a structuralist approach like that in integrated information theory
Show notes: braininspired.co/podcast/228
Patreon (full episodes, archive, Discord, more): patreon.com/braininspired
Apple podcasts: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/brain-inspired/id1428880766?mt=2
Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/2UZj8c8Ap5oc2gh2rJxLLe
Music by @dunovank
The Transmitter is an online publication that aims to deliver useful information, insights and tools to build bridges across neuroscience and advance research. Visit thetransmitter.org to explore the latest neuroscience news and perspectives, written by journalists and scientists.
Read more about our partnership: thetransmitter.org/partners
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Alex is an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University where he heads the Maier Lab. His work in neuroscience spans vision, visual perception, and cognition, studying the neurophysiology of cortical columns, and other related topics. Today, he is here to discuss where his focus has shifted over the past few years, the neuroscience of consciousness. I should say shifted back, since that was his original love, which you'll hear about.
I've known Alex since my own time at Vanderbilt, where I was a postdoc and he was a new faculty member, and I remember being impressed with him then. I was at a talk he gave - job talk or early talk - where it was immediately obvious how passionate and articulate he is about what he does, and I remember he even showed off some of his telescope photography - good pictures of the moon, I remember. Anyway, we always had fun interactions, even if sometimes it was a quick hello as he ran up stairs and down hallways to get wherever he was going, always in a hurry.
Today we discuss why Alex sees integration information theory as the most viable current prospect for explaining consciousness. That is mainly because IIT has developed a formalized mathematical account that hopes to do for consciousness what other math has done for physics, that is, give us what we know as laws of nature. So basically our discussion revolves around everything related to that, like philosophy of science, distinguishing mathematics from "the mathematical", some of the tools he is finding valuable, like category theory, and some of his work measuring the level of consciousness IIT says a whole soccer team has, not just the individuals that comprise the team.
0:00 - Intro
4:27 - Discovering consciousness science
11:23 - Laws of perception
15:48 - Integrated information theory and mathematical formalism
23:54 - Theories of consciousness without math
28:18 - Computation metaphor
34:44 - Formalized mathematics is the way
36:56 - Category theory
41:42 - Structuralism
51:09 - The mathematical
54:33 - Metaphysics of the mathematical
59:52 - Yoneda Lemma
1:12:05 - What's real
1:26:22 - Measuring consciousness of a soccer team
1:35:03 - Assumptions and approximations of IIT
1:43:13 - Open science
Alex Maier on why consciousness science needs mathematical formalization - in particular, a structuralist approach like that in integrated information theory
Show notes: braininspired.co/podcast/228
Patreon (full episodes, archive, Discord, more): patreon.com/braininspired
Apple podcasts: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/brain-inspired/id1428880766?mt=2
Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/2UZj8c8Ap5oc2gh2rJxLLe
Music by @dunovank
The Transmitter is an online publication that aims to deliver useful information, insights and tools to build bridges across neuroscience and advance research. Visit thetransmitter.org to explore the latest neuroscience news and perspectives, written by journalists and scientists.
Read more about our partnership: thetransmitter.org/partners
Sign up for the “Brain Inspired” email alerts to be notified every time a new “Brain Inspired” episode is released: thetransmitter.org/newsletters
To explore more neuroscience news and perspectives, visit thetransmitter.org.
Alex is an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University where he heads the Maier Lab. His work in neuroscience spans vision, visual perception, and cognition, studying the neurophysiology of cortical columns, and other related topics. Today, he is here to discuss where his focus has shifted over the past few years, the neuroscience of consciousness. I should say shifted back, since that was his original love, which you'll hear about.
I've known Alex since my own time at Vanderbilt, where I was a postdoc and he was a new faculty member, and I remember being impressed with him then. I was at a talk he gave - job talk or early talk - where it was immediately obvious how passionate and articulate he is about what he does, and I remember he even showed off some of his telescope photography - good pictures of the moon, I remember. Anyway, we always had fun interactions, even if sometimes it was a quick hello as he ran up stairs and down hallways to get wherever he was going, always in a hurry.
Today we discuss why Alex sees integration information theory as the most viable current prospect for explaining consciousness. That is mainly because IIT has developed a formalized mathematical account that hopes to do for consciousness what other math has done for physics, that is, give us what we know as laws of nature. So basically our discussion revolves around everything related to that, like philosophy of science, distinguishing mathematics from "the mathematical", some of the tools he is finding valuable, like category theory, and some of his work measuring the level of consciousness IIT says a whole soccer team has, not just the individuals that comprise the team.
0:00 - Intro
4:27 - Discovering consciousness science
11:23 - Laws of perception
15:48 - Integrated information theory and mathematical formalism
23:54 - Theories of consciousness without math
28:18 - Computation metaphor
34:44 - Formalized mathematics is the way
36:56 - Category theory
41:42 - Structuralism
51:09 - The mathematical
54:33 - Metaphysics of the mathematical
59:52 - Yoneda Lemma
1:12:05 - What's real
1:26:22 - Measuring consciousness of a soccer team
1:35:03 - Assumptions and approximations of IIT
1:43:13 - Open science
