We explore definite theoretical assertions about consciousness, starting from
a non-reductive psycho-informational solution of David Chalmers's 'hard
problem', based on the hypothesis that a fundamental property of 'information'
is its experience by the supporting 'system'. The kind of information involved
in consciousness needs to be quantum for multiple reasons, including its
intrinsic privacy and its power of building up thoughts by entangling qualia
states. As a result we reach a quantum-information-based panpsychism, with
classical physics supervening on quantum physics, quantum physics supervening
on quantum information, and quantum information supervening on consciousness.
We then argue that the internally experienced quantum state, since it
corresponds to a definite experience-not to a random choice-must be pure, and
we call it ontic, in contrast with the state predictable from the outside (i.e.
the state describing the knowledge of the experience from the point of view of
an external observer) which we call epistemic and is generally mixed. Purity of
the ontic state requires an evolution that is purity preserving, namely a
so-called 'atomic' quantum operation. The latter is generally probabilistic,
and its particular outcome is interpreted as the free will, which is
unpredictable even in principle since quantum probability cannot be interpreted
as lack of knowledge. The same purity of state and evolution allows solving the
'combination problem' of panpsychism. Quantum state evolution accounts for a
short-term buffer of experience and contains itself quantum-to-classical and
classical-to-quantum information transfers. Long term memory, on the other
hand, is classical, and needs memorization and recall processes that are
quantum-to-classical and classical-to-quantum, respectively...