Footnote 1. Bandyopadhyay has developed a sophisticated approach to resonance chains in a broad theory of consciousness he calls the Fractal Integrated Information (FIT) theory of consciousness (Bandyopadhyay 2019). Resonance in GRT is similar to its role in FIT, but GRT adopts a metaphysically foundational role for resonance through its general congruence with Whitehead’s process philosophy and the “actual entities” that are the “final real things” that comprise the world (Whitehead 1929, Hunt and Schooler 2019, Hunt 2019).
Footnote 2. Information is generally defined as a subjective aspect of the physical world, whereas energy is an objective aspect; but in this context I am using these terms interchangeably because I define information as aspects of energy that we can measure. As such, all physical dynamics consist of nothing more than energy flows, but those energy flows that we can measure may be labeled “information” and quantified under established information theoretic concepts. I will, however, refer to “information/energy flows” simply as “information flows” from now on in this paper, for simplicity’s sake.
The rest of this paper provides a heuristic for calculating the spatial and temporal boundaries of candidate conscious entities, as well as the capacity for phenomenal consciousness.
2. Calculating spatial boundaries and phenomenal capacity in General Resonance Theory
         Step 1: Inductively identify candidates for the combination of consciousness 
The first step in calculating the spatial boundaries of a candidate complex conscious entity is to consider, inductively, what constituents are likely to be resonating synchronously and, as such, to be candidates for a structure that combines micro-conscious entities into a particular macro-conscious entity. We label such a candidate for combined consciousness a “putative combined consciousness” or PCC. Inductive judgments about what may constitute a PCC will necessarily be based on the human experience of consciousness and what structures we can, accordingly, expect to enjoy some degree of consciousness, based on observed behavior similar to what we see in humans and other creatures that most humans would agree are conscious. We can label these types of behaviors the “behavioral correlates of consciousness” (Tononi and Koch 2015; Hunt 2019b).
Definition 1. CC \(\equiv\) a combined consciousness, any group of two or more conscious entities that combine to produce a higher-level consciousness.
Definition 2. CCL \(\equiv\) the largest combined consciousness in the relevant context.
Definition 3. PCC \(\equiv\) a putative combined consciousness, based on inductive judgments about the human experience of consciousness
Some examples for applying this inductive methodology for identifying a PCC include (without pre-judging whether any of these combinations are, in fact, conscious):
In each example, we may consider, as the first step in our suggested heuristic, whether the collection of entities examined may, inductively, be likely to enjoy some variety of combined consciousness. Inductive judgments about what should be considered a PCC will change over time as more data becomes available with respect to the presence of consciousness in various entities in nature and even possibly in human creations such as artificial intelligence.
            Step 2: Calculate the primary resonance frequencies in the putative combined consciousness
The second step is to calculate the primary resonance frequencies of whatever information flows (chemical, electrochemical, electrical, etc.) are present in the PCC. For example, in human brains it appears that electrical and electrochemical information pathways/resonance chains are the most significant, though other pathways may also be significant (Koch 2004; Hunt and Schooler 2019; Hameroff and Penrose 2014).
The highest bandwidth information flow will generally be most relevant, but the slowest shared resonance frequency of the highest bandwidth resonance chain (“slowest shared resonance” or SSR) will define the boundaries of the largest combined consciousness , CCL, at least with respect to that particular resonance chain. This is the case for two reasons:
1) Faster shared resonance frequencies will lead to nested CCs that have their own more localized awareness. In this manner, it is the “lowest common denominator” effect that leads the slowest shared resonance frequency to be the limiting factor of the CCL.
2) Each resonance cycle is a snapshot that incorporates available information within each cycle, and each resonating structure at least partially resets after each cycle. Fries 2015 states: “In the absence of coherence [resonance], inputs arrive at random phases of the excitability cycle and will have a lower effective connectivity.” Conversely, inputs that arrive synced to the same excitability cycle will propagate faster and with greater bandwidth. Slower frequencies will generally travel faster (Dehaene 2014, p. 137). In the present framework, these principles apply to all resonating structures (i.e. all physical structures), not just neurons.
Accordingly, the speed at which new information can be incorporated, within each cycle, is the limiting factor for the spatial extent (boundary) of the PCC . Restating this as a principle:
Principle 1. The slowest shared resonance frequency (SSR) defines the spatial boundaries of the largest combined consciousness (CCL) for each information pathway
The CCL may also be described as the dominant consciousness , because its intentions and desires will supersede (without extinguishing) those of any subsidiary consciousness(es) that is present. The boundaries of the CCL will generally change in each resonance cycle, sometimes subtly and sometimes substantially, as we can observe in introspecting about the features of our individual human consciousness – a very immediate example of a CCL.
Parts of the resonating structure will display higher frequency resonances than the SSR, but those higher frequencies won’t be shared by all regions of the CCL and thus won’t define the boundaries of the CCL. Rather, they would define the boundary of a subset of the CCL. As such, in most biological-scale structures, each CCL is a nested hierarchy of various different resonating frequencies and smaller CCs (CCn, for “nested”). Each level of resonance will have its own type of consciousness, feeding up to the next level of consciousness to varying degrees.
Recent research has probed high terahertz-level oscillations in tubulin molecules that comprise the ubiquitous microtubule scaffolding of most cells (Craddock et al. 2017; Hunt 2019). These frequencies are far faster than those observed in EEG or MEG data. Cycle speeds and propagation velocity limit the boundary of the PCC, giving rise to the second principle:
Principle 2. Higher frequencies, all else equal, lead to smaller spatial boundaries for a given CCL
And the converse:
Principle 3. Slower frequencies, all else equal, lead to larger boundaries for a given CCL
It is important to highlight the fact that higher frequency resonances, such as those examined by Craddock, et al., 2017, may be present in many locations within a larger-scale CCL, allowing for those nested combinations of consciousness (CCn) to be subsumed into the larger CCL. Figure 1 illustrates these terms and principles using abstracted resonating structures combining into various CCn and ultimately into a single CCL.