Head to head
Chalmers’s Panpsychism vs Recurrent Processing Theory
Chalmers’s Panpsychism and Lamme's Recurrent Processing Theory, 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, Recurrent Processing Theory to Materialism.
- Chalmers’s Panpsychism treats consciousness as fundamental; Recurrent Processing Theory treats it as emergent.
- On AI consciousness, Chalmers’s Panpsychism says “Conditional” and Recurrent Processing Theory says “Likely”.
- On life after death, Chalmers’s Panpsychism says “Uncertain” and Recurrent Processing Theory says “No”.
- On mind uploading, Chalmers’s Panpsychism says “Uncertain” and Recurrent Processing Theory says “Yes”.
- On meaning and purpose, Chalmers’s Panpsychism says “Uncertain” and Recurrent Processing Theory 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.
Recurrent Processing TheoryLamme's Recurrent Processing Theory (RPT) posits that consciousness is both necessary and sufficient when reciprocal (recurrent) feedback connections occur among neural areas, particularly in sensory systems. This processing, which happens locally in sensory and post-sensory areas (Stage 3), generates phenomenal experience without requiring global broadcast access.
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.
Recurrent Processing TheoryConsciousness is identified as a specific recurrent processing state holding within relevant neural circuitry, such as the visual system.
Big questions
Can AI be conscious?Differ
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.
Recurrent Processing TheoryLikelyAs a Materialism Theory, AI consciousness must, in principle, be possible if the requisite pattern of recurrent processing could be artificially duplicated in a non-biological substrate.
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.
Recurrent Processing TheoryNoConsciousness is tied to physical brain activity and specific neural circuitry (recurrent processing states), suggesting cessation upon bodily death.
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.
Recurrent Processing TheoryYesSince consciousness is the recurrent processing state itself, a perfect duplication of that process onto a new medium (upload) would generate the first-person self, enabling virtual immortality.
Chalmers’s PanpsychismUncertainPlacing experience in the basic fabric of nature gives it a cosmic footing, but Chalmers draws no conclusions about meaning or purpose.
Recurrent Processing TheoryHumanistic onlyThe theory focuses on a purely physicalist, neurobiological explanation of phenomenal experience and does not support any ultimate cosmic meaning or purpose.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Chalmers’s PanpsychismPanpsychism (Russellian monism)
Recurrent Processing TheoryPhysicalism
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.
Recurrent Processing TheoryIdentity/Reductionist approach, arguing that the notion of mind must move toward that of the brain, and consciousness is identical to a recurrent processing state in physical circuitry.
Fundamental or emergent
Chalmers’s PanpsychismPrimitive
Recurrent Processing TheoryEmergent
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.
Recurrent Processing TheoryQualia are generated when a certain recurrent processing state holds of the relevant visual circuitry, making the visual state conscious.
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.
Recurrent Processing TheoryRecurrent processing (feedback connections) in sensory and post-sensory areas (Stage 3) is considered sufficient for consciousness.
Where it is
Chalmers’s PanpsychismThroughout physical reality, at the level of its most basic entities.
Recurrent Processing TheoryLocalized in sensory and post-sensory areas, specifically recurrent activations in the 'back of the head'.
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.
Recurrent Processing TheoryConsciousness is the specific recurrent processing state itself. The underlying purpose is implied to move the understanding of mind toward the brain.
Evidence and criticism
Testability
Chalmers’s PanpsychismConceptually testable
Recurrent Processing TheoryEmpirically testable
Tests so far
Chalmers’s PanpsychismNot stated
Recurrent Processing TheoryNot 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.
Recurrent Processing TheoryCritiques Global Workspace Theory (GWT) as being 'all about access but not about seeing'. Is itself criticized by Ned Block as a 'truncated form of the global workspace account'.
Sources
Key sources
Chalmers’s Panpsychism
- Chalmers’s Panpsychism, David Chalmers (Landscape of Consciousness entry)
Recurrent Processing Theory
- Towards a true neural stance on consciousness, Victor Lamme (2006)
- How neuroscience will change our view on consciousness, Victor Lamme (2010)
- Wu, 2018 (Discussing Lamme's RPT) (2018)