Head to head
Chalmers’s Panpsychism vs Higher-Order Thought Theory
Chalmers’s Panpsychism and Rosenthal’s Higher-Order Thought, 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, Higher-Order Thought Theory to Materialism.
- Chalmers’s Panpsychism treats consciousness as fundamental; Higher-Order Thought Theory treats it as emergent.
- They give the same kind of answer on AI consciousness.
- On life after death, Chalmers’s Panpsychism says “Uncertain” and Higher-Order Thought Theory says “No”.
- On mind uploading, Chalmers’s Panpsychism says “Uncertain” and Higher-Order Thought Theory says “Possible”.
- On meaning and purpose, Chalmers’s Panpsychism says “Uncertain” and Higher-Order Thought 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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryDavid Rosenthal holds that a mental state is conscious when its subject has a higher-order thought that he or she is in that state, a thought that need not itself be conscious and does not seem to rest on inference. Mental qualities such as the redness of a sensation exist whether or not they are conscious; Rosenthal explains them separately, by how they map the perceptible properties we can discriminate.
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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryA state’s being conscious consists in the subject being aware of it by way of a suitable higher-order thought that one is in that state.
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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryPossibleSince consciousness depends on having suitable higher-order thoughts about one’s own states, a system able to form such thoughts would meet the condition in principle.
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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryNoConscious states are natural states of an organism, so nothing remains conscious once those states stop occurring.
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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryPossibleIf the relevant first-order states and higher-order thoughts were reproduced, the view gives no principled reason the copy would lack consciousness.
Chalmers’s PanpsychismUncertainPlacing experience in the basic fabric of nature gives it a cosmic footing, but Chalmers draws no conclusions about meaning or purpose.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryHumanistic onlyThe theory is a naturalistic account of mental states and carries no cosmic purpose.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Chalmers’s PanpsychismPanpsychism (Russellian monism)
Higher-Order Thought TheoryPhysicalism (naturalistic functionalism)
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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryMental states, their qualities, and the higher-order thoughts that make them conscious are all natural states of the organism; Rosenthal expects neural correlates of consciousness to be whatever mechanism produces the higher-order awareness.
Fundamental or emergent
Chalmers’s PanpsychismPrimitive
Higher-Order Thought 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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryMental qualities are fixed by their role in perceptual discrimination and occupy a ‘quality space’ that mirrors the similarities among perceptible properties. Because these qualities do not depend on consciousness, a sensation can have qualitative character without being conscious, as in subliminal perception.
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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryA non-inferential higher-order thought that one is in a given state, which makes that first-order state conscious even when the thought itself is unconscious.
Where it is
Chalmers’s PanpsychismThroughout physical reality, at the level of its most basic entities.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryNot stated
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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryNot stated
Evidence and criticism
Testability
Chalmers’s PanpsychismConceptually testable
Higher-Order Thought TheoryConceptually testable
Tests so far
Chalmers’s PanpsychismNot stated
Higher-Order Thought 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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryFirst-order theorists argue that higher-order awareness is an unneeded extra ingredient, and deflationists say being aware of a conscious state is like ‘smiling a smile’. Rosenthal replies that a deflated awareness cannot explain the contrast between conscious and unconscious states.
Sources
Key sources
Chalmers’s Panpsychism
- Chalmers’s Panpsychism, David Chalmers (Landscape of Consciousness entry)
Higher-Order Thought Theory
- Rosenthal’s Higher-Order Thought, Landscape of Consciousness, David Rosenthal (2005)