Head to head
Chalmers’s Panpsychism vs Frankish’s Illusionism
Chalmers’s Panpsychism and Frankish’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, Frankish’s Illusionism to Materialism.
- Chalmers’s Panpsychism treats consciousness as fundamental; Frankish’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 Frankish’s Illusionism says “No”.
- On meaning and purpose, Chalmers’s Panpsychism says “Uncertain” and Frankish’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.
Frankish’s IllusionismKeith Frankish holds that conscious experiences are real but not what they seem: the irreducibly subjective ‘phenomenal properties’ or qualia we ascribe to them are an introspective illusion. Introspection builds a simplified, schematic model of the brain’s complex reactions to stimulation, and we mistake that model for direct awareness of inner qualities, so the hard problem gives way to an ‘illusion problem’.
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.
Frankish’s IllusionismConscious states are complex functional states of the brain that sustain rich sensory engagement with the world and flexible control of behavior. Their distinctive features are functional, which Frankish calls quasi-phenomenal properties.
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.
Frankish’s IllusionismPossibleSince consciousness is a complex functional state, a system with the right reactive and sensory organization could have it, though Frankish does not address machines directly.
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.
Frankish’s IllusionismNoSince conscious states are functional states of a living brain, they end when the brain stops functioning.
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.
Frankish’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.
Frankish’s IllusionismHumanistic onlyFrankish grounds value in what creatures are motivated to seek or avoid and argues that illusionism widens ethical concern to other animals across a graded ‘consciousness space’.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Chalmers’s PanpsychismPanpsychism (Russellian monism)
Frankish’s IllusionismPhysicalism (strong illusionism)
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.
Frankish’s IllusionismConscious experiences are physically realized functional states. Phenomenal properties are intentional objects, represented but never instantiated, like the impossible objects Nicholas Humphrey compares them to.
Fundamental or emergent
Chalmers’s PanpsychismPrimitive
Frankish’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.
Frankish’s IllusionismQualia do not exist. Introspection misrepresents brain states, as perception misrepresents some features of the world, and introspective information bound to perception makes external things seem to carry vivid sensory qualities, such as an apple’s redness, that reflect their significance for us.
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.
Frankish’s IllusionismThe reactivity schema: introspective systems track the overall psychological impact of stimulation without representing its detail, and this simplified model is mistaken for direct acquaintance with qualities. Frankish borrows Daniel Dennett’s image of a computer’s user illusion, whose icons have no literal counterparts in the machine.
Where it is
Chalmers’s PanpsychismThroughout physical reality, at the level of its most basic entities.
Frankish’s IllusionismDistributed across the brain. The subject of the illusion is the whole organism, and the work of registering and reacting to it is shared among many unconscious subsystems, with no Cartesian 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.
Frankish’s IllusionismConscious states guide flexible, intelligent behavior. The illusion itself is made of physical representations and so has causal effects, which may be adaptive, as Nicholas Humphrey argues; this avoids the threat of epiphenomenalism.
Evidence and criticism
Testability
Chalmers’s PanpsychismConceptually testable
Frankish’s IllusionismConceptually testable
Tests so far
Chalmers’s PanpsychismNot stated
Frankish’s IllusionismFrankish holds that the reactive changes constituting experience are in principle experimentally detectable, which opens the experiences of other creatures to study.
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.
Frankish’s IllusionismThe central objection, a version of Descartes’ cogito, holds that our own phenomenal states are indubitable data. Galen Strawson argues that illusionism denies the main source of ethical value. Others object that an illusion needs an audience.
Sources
Key sources
Chalmers’s Panpsychism
- Chalmers’s Panpsychism, David Chalmers (Landscape of Consciousness entry)
Frankish’s Illusionism
- Frankish’s Illusionism (Landscape of Consciousness), Keith Frankish (2021)