Head to head
Chalmers’s Panpsychism vs Dennett’s Illusionism
Chalmers’s Panpsychism and Dennett’s Illusionism, compared field by field from their entries in the Atlas.
At a glance
- Chalmers’s Panpsychism belongs to the Panpsychism family in Kuhn's Landscape of Consciousness, Dennett’s Illusionism to Materialism.
- Chalmers’s Panpsychism treats consciousness as fundamental; Dennett’s Illusionism treats it as emergent.
- They give the same kind of answer on AI consciousness.
- On life after death, Chalmers’s Panpsychism says “Uncertain” and Dennett’s Illusionism says “No”.
- On meaning and purpose, Chalmers’s Panpsychism says “Uncertain” and Dennett’s Illusionism says “Humanistic only”.
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The claim
In brief
Chalmers’s PanpsychismDavid Chalmers argues that consciousness may be a fundamental feature of physical reality, carried by the intrinsic properties of its most basic entities. He treats panpsychism, and its cousin panprotopsychism, as a synthesis of materialism and dualism, and holds that it would become the most promising answer to the mind-body problem if someone solves the combination problem.
Dennett’s IllusionismDaniel Dennett argues that qualia, conceived as intrinsic, ineffable, private, and immediately known properties of experience, do not exist; they are philosophers’ inventions. Experience is real, but it is not what it seems from the inside: the brain’s unconscious processes produce a benign ‘user illusion’, and there is nothing to consciousness beyond the functions and dispositions involved.
What consciousness is
Chalmers’s PanpsychismChalmers identifies consciousness with the intrinsic properties of fundamental physical entities, the categorical bases of the dispositions that physics describes. Physics tells us what basic entities do; on this view, phenomenal or protophenomenal properties are what they are.
Dennett’s IllusionismConsciousness is the functional activity of the brain, which presents itself to us as a user illusion. ‘There are no qualia.’
Big questions
Can AI be conscious?Both agree
Chalmers’s PanpsychismConditionalSince every physical system has phenomenal or protophenomenal properties at its base, an AI is built from the same ingredients as a brain. Whether it forms a unified conscious subject depends on how the unsolved combination problem is answered.
Dennett’s IllusionismPossibleSince consciousness is nothing beyond functions and dispositions, a machine with the right functional organization could have it; Dennett does not take this up here.
Chalmers’s PanpsychismUncertainThe fundamental properties outlast any body, but nothing in the view says whether the particular combined subject survives once the brain's structure breaks down.
Dennett’s IllusionismNoSince consciousness is a product of the brain’s processes, it ends when they end.
Chalmers’s PanpsychismUncertainAn upload would be made of the same fundamental properties, but whether it reconstitutes the same subject turns on the unsolved combination problem.
Dennett’s IllusionismNo position
Chalmers’s PanpsychismUncertainPlacing experience in the basic fabric of nature gives it a cosmic footing, but Chalmers draws no conclusions about meaning or purpose.
Dennett’s IllusionismHumanistic onlyDennett’s materialism, and his place among the New Atheists, leave no room for cosmic purpose.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Chalmers’s PanpsychismPanpsychism (Russellian monism)
Dennett’s IllusionismPhysicalism (illusionist)
Mind and body
Chalmers’s PanpsychismMind and matter are two sides of one fundamental stuff that has both physical and phenomenal properties. Chalmers places this ‘monism’ in the sixth of his six classes of views, the nonreductive ones that expand or reconceive physical ontology.
Dennett’s IllusionismConsciousness is wholly a product of the brain’s unconscious processes. Dennett rejects any inner, non-physical domain of felt properties.
Fundamental or emergent
Chalmers’s PanpsychismPrimitive
Dennett’s IllusionismEmergent
Qualia
Chalmers’s PanpsychismQualia are real and irreducible. In the panpsychist version they exist in simple form at the fundamental level; in the panprotopsychist version, basic entities have protophenomenal properties that are not themselves experiences but can ground them.
Dennett’s IllusionismThere are no qualia in the traditional sense. Dennett calls the supposed intrinsic, ineffable, private properties ‘nothing but philosophers’ inventions’.
How it works
Mechanism
Chalmers’s PanpsychismChalmers reasons dialectically. Materialism (thesis) meets dualism (antithesis) and yields panpsychism; panprotopsychism challenges it and yields Russellian monism; the combination problem then challenges Russellian monism, with no settled resolution yet.
Dennett’s IllusionismThe user illusion. As a computer’s desktop icons stand in for complex underlying processes, the brain presents itself to us in a simplified form we mistake for an inner world of qualities.
Where it is
Chalmers’s PanpsychismThroughout physical reality, at the level of its most basic entities.
Dennett’s IllusionismIn the brain’s unconscious processes, with no inner theater.
What it does
Chalmers’s PanpsychismBecause phenomenal or protophenomenal properties are the categorical bases of physical dispositions, consciousness sits at the base of physical causation itself.
Dennett’s IllusionismThe user illusion is benign: it lets us manage ourselves without access to the brain’s underlying complexity.
Evidence and criticism
Testability
Chalmers’s PanpsychismConceptually testable
Dennett’s IllusionismConceptually testable
Tests so far
Chalmers’s PanpsychismNot stated
Dennett’s IllusionismNot stated
Criticisms
Chalmers’s PanpsychismThe combination problem is the central difficulty, and Chalmers concedes it is unsolved. He also calls panpsychism initially counterintuitive, holding that the sense of oddity fades on reflection.
Dennett’s IllusionismDennett is often read as denying that experience exists, and critics reply that an illusion of experience would itself be an experience. Dennett resisted the eliminativist label, though many philosophers apply it to his rejection of qualia.
Sources
Key sources
Chalmers’s Panpsychism
- Chalmers’s Panpsychism, David Chalmers (Landscape of Consciousness entry)
Dennett’s Illusionism
- Consciousness Explained, Daniel Dennett
- I've Been Thinking, Daniel Dennett (2023)
- Dennett’s Illusionism (Landscape of Consciousness), Daniel Dennett (1992)