# Core Question
Is consciousness an intrinsic physical network property (Phi), or does it require active functional processing?

# Description
This cluster probes the physical substrate of experience, independent of external behavior or language output. It forces theories to define where a conscious system begins and ends, and whether internal causal integration ($\Phi$) alone guarantees awareness.

# Explananda
## Perturbational Complexity Index (PCI)
### Description
The “Zap and Zip” method. A coil sends a magnetic pulse into the brain (“zap”), and an EEG measures how that energy ripples across the cortex. If the ripples are complex and widespread, it indicates a high level of conscious capability; if the ripples die out instantly or remain localized, it suggests an absence of consciousness.

### Challenge
Under this theory, provide a mechanism or explanation for the Perturbational Complexity Index. Specify, in your theory’s own terms, what property of the perturbation response is supposed to correspond to your theory’s basis for consciousness, and explain why tracking the response to a content-free, task-free probe like the TMS “zap” should track conscious capacity at all.

## Minimal Conscious States
### Description
States where sensory inputs, motor outputs, and verbal reports are completely absent or radically altered, yet internal experiential states vary wildly.

### Challenge
This contrasts theories requiring cognitive function with those requiring structural integration. GWT and HOTT struggle more with states that lack reportability or metacognition, often classifying them as unconscious. IIT remains entirely independent of behavior: if a brain under anesthesia or psychedelics retains high, complex internal cause-effect power ϕ, it is highly conscious, even if it is completely locked in and unable to interact with the world.

## Severe Hydrocephalus
### Description
Some individuals with severe congenital hydrocephalus retain apparently normal conscious awareness and cognition despite extreme compression and apparent reduction of cortical tissue.

### Challenge
Why conscious experience remains intact despite dramatic alterations in brain structure. Identifies what aspect of the remaining neural organization is essential, and why the observed cases are consistent with the theory.

## Boundary Filter
### Description
How does non-conscious matter become conscious?

### Challenge
It must have a definition for which systems are conscious. Suppose we perfectly build the architecture described by its theory. Is it conscious? It would be interesting to discuss about two systems with identical behavior. Do they have different consciousness? (p-zombie)