The Italian Way of Universe

'Consciousness is fundamental,' Mr Faggin said.

I just listened to an interview with Federico Faggin, a widely respected engineer who built the first commercial microprocessor and has received numerous prestigious awards. A year ago he released a book where he postulates that consciousness is fundamental. Because he is who he is, I felt obliged to actually listen to what he has to say.

One of Mr Faggin’s core theses is that quantum mechanics itself is the ultimate evidence of free will. He teamed up with a renowned quantum physicist and derived some interesting math suggesting that no quantum bit is truly identical, and that is basically how he draws the parallel to our will. Another claim he makes is that machines will never become conscious because they are built on discrete patterns, 1 and 0, which are inherently not quantum and therefore not conscious. If you didn’t fully get that, it’s ok: he is essentially reassuring us that they will forever be machines and we humans will always be special.

He ties the basis for his theory to a personal revelation he had in life, where he felt what he describes as an overwhelming form of love; something so strong it felt physically elevating. From there he concluded that it had to originate from something deeper than material processes.

I think some of his points have merit, but there are core issues with what he is claiming.

First, he talks about computers being 1 and 0 and therefore just symbolic abstractions that cannot be quantum. That argument falls apart, because if everything is quantum - which is our current best understanding - then it doesn’t matter if computers are built from bits. The bits themselves are implemented in quantum matter, and everything built on top of them obeys the same underlying physics. By quantum I mean what underlies classical physics: quantum mechanics is the most fundamental layer we know. It doesn’t make sense that computers would somehow be excluded from the same mechanisms we humans are built from, even if they operate in a more classical regime.

Second, our DNA is composed of only A, T, C and G; a small symbolic alphabet that encodes everything about us. The very fundamentals of our genome are discrete and symbolic, in a way not entirely unlike how a computer’s CPU operates. So the argument that discreteness alone prevents consciousness isn’t very convincing.

Third, if consciousness is fundamental, then why did it need 13.8 billion years of evolution to get to us? If consciousness was already there at the quantum level, already possessing agency and will, the entire chain of development - from hydrogen clouds to stellar fusion to planetary accretion to single-celled life to primates - would be unnecessary. The timeline itself is the argument. Thirteen point eight billion years of increasing complexity is exactly what you’d expect if consciousness is emergent. It’s hard to reconcile if consciousness is already fully fundamental and agentic at the base layer.

Mr Faggin mentions Leibniz, a philosopher known for his work on Monads; entities he posited the universe is made of, small windows that we individuals among others occupy. His logic is that Monads are miniature versions of the universe that we experience from within. And these ultimately come from God.

If you have read my previous posts you can probably predict what I felt while watching his interview. But let me try to steelman his point of view. I think where we actually converge is on the underlying force that drives everything in the universe. He calls it consciousness, Schopenhauer called it Will, and I look at physics and call it energy. In that sense, I think he is pointing at something real. But based on what we know today, I just can’t buy into the claim that consciousness itself is fundamental.

And there is another Italian I find myself closer to: Carlo Rovelli. He talks about how everything at the quantum level is relational. I claim something similar but in the classical world. It’s all a relative play between energy concentrations that create layers of complexity from which new patterns emerge. The fundamental principle is simple: just as the sun dissipates energy through fusion, the earth dissipates it through complex structures. Certain conditions favour complexity more than others. I’ll write more on this, but if you want a sense of my worldview, start with my manifesto.

I don’t understand why such a brilliant mind would turn away from science; he kept calling it “scientism”, when it’s actually possible to derive a deeper and more consistent framework from what humanity collectively knows today, one that even has predictive power. Federico promised that he will prove his point by showing that trees are conscious. Even if that were demonstrated, it still wouldn’t convince me of the broader theory he’s proposing.

And while I understand the comforting effect his ideas have on many people, I’ll personally stick to physics and postulate:

The sense of ‘me’ is irreversible mass pinning causality to a bounded system.

At least I’m giving you space to tell me why I’m wrong.