{"paper":{"title":"The Complex Brain Hypothesis: Resolving the Entropy-Content Conundrum in Minimal Phenomenal Experience","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"Brain complexity, not entropy, better indexes the difference between minimal and high-content phenomenal experiences.","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"q-bio.NC","authors_text":"Edmundo Lopez-Sola, Jakub Vohryzek, Jonas Mago, Karl Friston, Michael Lifshitz, Robin Carhart-Harris, Shamil Chandaria","submitted_at":"2026-05-15T16:26:46Z","abstract_excerpt":"Minimal Phenomenal Experiences (MPEs) are states of consciousness in which wakefulness is preserved but phenomenal content is low or absent. The Entropic Brain Hypothesis (EBH) is a model of conscious processes that regards the entropy of spontaneous brain activity as a marker of 'phenomenal richness', exemplified by high-content psychedelic experiences (HCPEs). Yet recent human neuroimaging studies of MPEs induced by meditation -- and possibly 5-MeO-DMT -- suggest that these states, defined by their phenomenological simplicity, also show signs of increased neurophysiological entropy. This pre"},"claims":{"count":4,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"The richness of experience differentiating MPEs from HCPEs is better indexed by complexity than by entropy; both regimes can be associated with elevated brain entropy but they diverge in phenomenology and perturbational signatures.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"That recent human neuroimaging studies of MPEs induced by meditation and possibly 5-MeO-DMT show signs of increased neurophysiological entropy while the Entropic Brain Hypothesis treats entropy as a direct marker of phenomenal richness.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"The Complex Brain Hypothesis reframes phenomenal richness as indexed by complexity modulated by inference grain, resolving why both minimal and high-content experiences can exhibit elevated brain entropy.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"headline","text":"Brain complexity, not entropy, better indexes the difference between minimal and high-content phenomenal experiences.","source":"verdict.pith_extraction.headline","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C4","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"fcf42ebf39672e8339a37eded0868d159ba0c466d62826a1a676212fe8f1f4b5"},"source":{"id":"2605.16146","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":"acfc652f-1fbf-4c4b-a6b3-50e4cadaa4c3","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-19T18:30:01.655205Z","strongest_claim":"The richness of experience differentiating MPEs from HCPEs is better indexed by complexity than by entropy; both regimes can be associated with elevated brain entropy but they diverge in phenomenology and perturbational signatures.","one_line_summary":"The Complex Brain Hypothesis reframes phenomenal richness as indexed by complexity modulated by inference grain, resolving why both minimal and high-content experiences can exhibit elevated brain entropy.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"That recent human neuroimaging studies of MPEs induced by meditation and possibly 5-MeO-DMT show signs of increased neurophysiological entropy while the Entropic Brain Hypothesis treats entropy as a direct marker of phenomenal richness.","pith_extraction_headline":"Brain complexity, not entropy, better indexes the difference between minimal and high-content phenomenal experiences."},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2605.16146/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[{"name":"doi_title_agreement","ran_at":"2026-05-19T19:01:18.944499Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"doi_compliance","ran_at":"2026-05-19T18:41:03.315951Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"cited_work_retraction","ran_at":"2026-05-19T18:22:03.326996Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"ai_meta_artifact","ran_at":"2026-05-19T17:33:31.046330Z","status":"skipped","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0},{"name":"claim_evidence","ran_at":"2026-05-19T16:41:55.449238Z","status":"completed","version":"1.0.0","findings_count":0}],"snapshot_sha256":"84e9efb5232070bd931b708eda0fd43d599fe62c0be2c4fc9cb09f5d0e49d9c2"},"references":{"count":19,"sample":[{"doi":"","year":2022,"title":"entropic brain hypothesis","work_id":"ffd9c2dd-0935-4ef0-9623-1e4ccd4dfc3c","ref_index":1,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2013,"title":"For example, the principles of efficient encoding suggest that the variational and thermodynamic free energy share the same minima (Sengupta et al., 2013, 2016)","work_id":"7c59c767-d332-4f06-b96e-be5d6d307eed","ref_index":2,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2003,"title":"In terms of consciousness studies, the close relationship leads to a dual aspect (Markovian) monism, in which the variational and thermodynamic entropy rest upon the same dynamics","work_id":"425d2060-7b85-408d-b2c8-291c78e08094","ref_index":3,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":2012,"title":"Complexity on this view scores the divergence between posterior and prior beliefs (see figure 1)","work_id":"a0824fc6-904f-4f51-8604-e8d0166665a2","ref_index":4,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false},{"doi":"","year":1993,"title":"The variational free energy F can be decomposed into a complexity term and an accuracy term","work_id":"551a0a30-99f3-4b77-a6ab-851c8bd34e86","ref_index":5,"cited_arxiv_id":"","is_internal_anchor":false}],"resolved_work":19,"snapshot_sha256":"fcbf6a91d495f758d513fc07a62c66579af0d5ef7a00e21944146acb86ce2f19","internal_anchors":1},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":2,"snapshot_sha256":"d62276b6ae14a1e8dc9ad8dc82b7bcf73e0b13005da1849ccd4eca9b67f1d1c1"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}