Head to head
Chalmers’s Panpsychism vs Searle’s Biological Naturalism
Chalmers’s Panpsychism and Searle’s Biological Naturalism, 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, Searle’s Biological Naturalism to Materialism.
- Chalmers’s Panpsychism treats consciousness as fundamental; Searle’s Biological Naturalism treats it as emergent.
- They give the same kind of answer on AI consciousness.
- On life after death, Chalmers’s Panpsychism says “Uncertain” and Searle’s Biological Naturalism says “No”.
- On mind uploading, Chalmers’s Panpsychism says “Uncertain” and Searle’s Biological Naturalism says “Yes”.
- On meaning and purpose, Chalmers’s Panpsychism says “Uncertain” and Searle’s Biological Naturalism 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.
Searle’s Biological NaturalismBiological Naturalism posits that consciousness is a real, irreducible, subjective biological feature of the brain, entirely caused by lower-level neurobiological processes and realized as higher-level system features. This approach seeks to solve the mind-body problem by accepting the scientific worldview while acknowledging the first-person ontology of conscious experience.
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.
Searle’s Biological NaturalismConscious states are identified as real parts of the real world that are higher-level, system features of the brain, defined as states of awareness, sentience, or feeling that persist during wakefulness.
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.
Searle’s Biological NaturalismConditionalSearle rejects consciousness via simulation (Chinese Room Argument) but argues that if the causally sufficient biological mechanism is known, an artificial machine that implements that same mechanism could be conscious, as consciousness does not strictly require biological neurons, only sufficient causal power.
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.
Searle’s Biological NaturalismNoConsciousness is entirely physical and solely the product of biological brains; therefore, death of the brain and body means irrevocable, permanent non-existence.
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.
Searle’s Biological NaturalismYesIf consciousness is entirely explainable by physical/biological states, then duplicating those states (and their causal relations) in a non-biological medium would, in principle, allow for the uploading and continuation of the first-person mental self.
Chalmers’s PanpsychismUncertainPlacing experience in the basic fabric of nature gives it a cosmic footing, but Chalmers draws no conclusions about meaning or purpose.
Searle’s Biological NaturalismHumanistic onlyAs a materialist theory, Biological Naturalism struggles to rationalize ultimate cosmic meaning or purpose, though humanistic meaning created by ourselves remains possible.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Chalmers’s PanpsychismPanpsychism (Russellian monism)
Searle’s Biological NaturalismPhysicalism (Biological Naturalism). It holds that consciousness is part of nature as a subjective, qualitative biological property, rejecting attempts to 'naturalize' it by denying its subjective ontology.
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.
Searle’s Biological NaturalismConscious states are causally reduced to lower-level brain processes (causal reducibility), but are ontologically irreducible to these processes because consciousness has a subjective (first-person) ontology while its basis has an objective (third-person) ontology.
Fundamental or emergent
Chalmers’s PanpsychismPrimitive
Searle’s Biological NaturalismEmergent
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.
Searle’s Biological NaturalismConscious states are inherently qualitative, in the sense that there is a distinct qualitative feel to being in any particular conscious state, and this qualitative feel is a real and irreducible part of the world.
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.
Searle’s Biological NaturalismThe principle is that all conscious states are reliably and universally caused by lower-level brain processes and realized as system features, functioning as a real biological machine.
Where it is
Chalmers’s PanpsychismThroughout physical reality, at the level of its most basic entities.
Searle’s Biological NaturalismLocalized in the biological brain, specifically realized in the brain as higher-level or system features.
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.
Searle’s Biological NaturalismConscious states function causally (causal efficacy) as real parts of the real world, providing a basis for intentional action and interaction with the environment.
Evidence and criticism
Testability
Chalmers’s PanpsychismConceptually testable
Searle’s Biological NaturalismEmpirically testable in principle, as the theory requires finding the exact causal details of how lower-level brain processes cause consciousness.
Tests so far
Chalmers’s PanpsychismNot stated
Searle’s Biological NaturalismThe theory is generally supported by empirical evidence from neuroscience showing the link between consciousness and brain activity (e.g., brain impairment, brain stimulation).
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.
Searle’s Biological NaturalismCritics dispute the claim that the causal connection between brain states and consciousness is fully established. Tension exists in maintaining materialism while arguing consciousness is ontologically subjective and irreducible to objective physical processes.
Sources
Key sources
Chalmers’s Panpsychism
- Chalmers’s Panpsychism, David Chalmers (Landscape of Consciousness entry)
Searle’s Biological Naturalism
- The Rediscovery of Mind (1992)
- Biological naturalism (2007)
- What things are conscious? (2007)
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