Don't let all the physiology distract you from the HN-relevant information theory(?) in the `Consciousness and Integrated Information` section near the end:

  A recent theory suggests a principled reason: information and integration may be the very essence of consciousness. Classically, information is the reduction of uncertainty among alternatives: when a coin falls on one of its two sides, it provides 1 bit of information, whereas a die falling on one of six faces provides ~2.6 bits. But then having any conscious experience, even one of pure darkness, must be extraordinarily informative, since we could have had countless other experiences instead (think of all the frames of every possible movie). Having any experience is like throwing a die with a trillion faces and identifying which number came up. On the other hand, every experience is an integrated whole that cannot be subdivided into independent components.

  Less metaphorically, the theory claims that the level of consciousness of a physical system is related to the repertoire of different states (information) that can be discriminated by the system as a whole (integration). A measure of integrated information, called phi (Φ), can be used to quantify the information generated when a system enters one particular state of its repertoire, above and beyond the information generated independently by its parts. In practice, Φ can only be measured rigorously for small, simulated systems. However, empirical measures could be devised to evaluate integrated information on the basis of EEG data, resting functional connectivity, or TMS-evoked responses.