Pith Number

pith:4X7K2QLW

pith:2026:4X7K2QLWHOQNPJ2FMMELE3C3Q2

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The Complex Brain Hypothesis: Resolving the Entropy-Content Conundrum in Minimal Phenomenal Experience

Edmundo Lopez-Sola, Jakub Vohryzek, Jonas Mago, Karl Friston, Michael Lifshitz, Robin Carhart-Harris, Shamil Chandaria

Brain complexity, not entropy, better indexes the difference between minimal and high-content phenomenal experiences.

arxiv:2605.16146 v1 · 2026-05-15 · q-bio.NC

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\pithnumber{4X7K2QLWHOQNPJ2FMMELE3C3Q2}

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4 Citations open

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The bundle contains the canonical record plus signed events. A mirror can host it anywhere and recompute the same current state with the deterministic merge algorithm.

Claims

C1strongest 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.

C2weakest 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.

C3one 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.

References

19 extracted · 19 resolved · 1 Pith anchors

[1] entropic brain hypothesis 2022

[2] For example, the principles of efficient encoding suggest that the variational and thermodynamic free energy share the same minima (Sengupta et al., 2013, 2016) 2013

[3] 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 2003

[4] Complexity on this view scores the divergence between posterior and prior beliefs (see figure 1) 2012

[5] The variational free energy F can be decomposed into a complexity term and an accuracy term 1993

Formal links

2 machine-checked theorem links

Receipt and verification

First computed	2026-05-20T00:01:55.016412Z
Builder	pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1
Signature	Pith Ed25519 (`pith-v1-2026-05`) · public key
Schema	pith-number/v1.0

Canonical hash

e5fead41763ba0d7a7456308b26c5b8688b20d9f79bd8505c6b1c10dba23baca

Aliases

arxiv: 2605.16146 · arxiv_version: 2605.16146v1 · doi: 10.48550/arxiv.2605.16146 · pith_short_12: 4X7K2QLWHOQN · pith_short_16: 4X7K2QLWHOQNPJ2F · pith_short_8: 4X7K2QLW

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Verify this Pith Number yourself

curl -sH 'Accept: application/ld+json' https://pith.science/pith/4X7K2QLWHOQNPJ2FMMELE3C3Q2 \
  | jq -c '.canonical_record' \
  | python3 -c "import sys,json,hashlib; b=json.dumps(json.loads(sys.stdin.read()), sort_keys=True, separators=(',',':'), ensure_ascii=False).encode(); print(hashlib.sha256(b).hexdigest())"
# expect: e5fead41763ba0d7a7456308b26c5b8688b20d9f79bd8505c6b1c10dba23baca

Canonical record JSON

{
  "metadata": {
    "abstract_canon_sha256": "03dba4dcc155218a99161859d326d50eea3cb1307cb18bd8e54d9760e96e1733",
    "cross_cats_sorted": [],
    "license": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
    "primary_cat": "q-bio.NC",
    "submitted_at": "2026-05-15T16:26:46Z",
    "title_canon_sha256": "a2a649f11c0d4335dd0f614abba227a1591c670dbfc0e04677c0752f925608e2"
  },
  "schema_version": "1.0",
  "source": {
    "id": "2605.16146",
    "kind": "arxiv",
    "version": 1
  }
}