The bold framework of the Integrated Information Theory of consciousness are explored in this thesis in the context of the generalized Ising model of the brain. Small 5-node networks are simulated on the Ising model with Metropolis transitions where the fitting parameter T is fit to empirical functional connectivity matrices of healthy human subjects. Fitting to criticality, results indicate that integrated information undergoes a phase transition at the critical temperature Tc. The results are interpreted in the context of an emerging perspective of the science of complexity and perhaps even the philosophy of science; the universe as a self-organizing critical system undergoing cascades of phase transitions into complexity
