Head to head
Eliminative Materialism vs Recurrent Processing Theory
Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism and Lamme's Recurrent Processing Theory, compared field by field from their entries in the Atlas.
At a glance
- Both belong to the Materialism family in Kuhn's Landscape of Consciousness.
- They give the same kind of answer on life after death and meaning and purpose.
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The claim
In brief
Eliminative MaterialismPaul and Patricia Churchland hold that common-sense psychology, our everyday talk of beliefs, desires, and experiences, is a radically false theory that a completed neuroscience will displace rather than smoothly reduce. Consciousness as we ordinarily conceive it is a brain-generated picture shaped by evolution, and our self-understanding, introspection included, will be rebuilt in neuroscientific terms.
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
Eliminative MaterialismWhat we call consciousness, as folk psychology describes it, does not exist in that form. The real phenomena are neural processes, which only a mature neuroscience will describe correctly.
Recurrent Processing TheoryConsciousness is identified as a specific recurrent processing state holding within relevant neural circuitry, such as the visual system.
Big questions
Eliminative MaterialismNo position
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.
Does consciousness survive death?Both agree
Eliminative MaterialismNoSince the mind is the brain, nothing mental survives the brain’s death.
Recurrent Processing TheoryNoConsciousness is tied to physical brain activity and specific neural circuitry (recurrent processing states), suggesting cessation upon bodily death.
Eliminative MaterialismNo position
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.
Does it give life meaning?Both agree
Eliminative MaterialismHumanistic onlyPatricia Churchland urges us to see ourselves as organisms in nature, understood by scientific methods, with no cosmic 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
Eliminative MaterialismPhysicalism (eliminative)
Recurrent Processing TheoryPhysicalism
Mind and body
Eliminative MaterialismThe mind is the brain. Patricia Churchland calls her program a ‘unified theory of the mind-brain’ and treats claims that mind goes beyond brain as the residue of folk myths.
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
Eliminative MaterialismNeither
Recurrent Processing TheoryEmergent
Qualia
Eliminative MaterialismQualia as folk psychology and philosophers conceive them are expected to give way to neuroscientific description; the view treats consciousness as a kind of illusion generated by the brain.
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
Eliminative MaterialismTheory displacement. Folk psychology will be replaced the way outdated scientific theories were, its principles and ontology discarded rather than mapped onto brain states.
Recurrent Processing TheoryRecurrent processing (feedback connections) in sensory and post-sensory areas (Stage 3) is considered sufficient for consciousness.
Where it is
Eliminative MaterialismIn the brain.
Recurrent Processing TheoryLocalized in sensory and post-sensory areas, specifically recurrent activations in the 'back of the head'.
What it does
Eliminative MaterialismBehavior is caused by neural processes; neuroscience is expected to explain it better than folk psychology does.
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
Eliminative MaterialismConceptually testable
Recurrent Processing TheoryEmpirically testable
Tests so far
Eliminative MaterialismThe view stakes its claim on the future course of neuroscience; whether folk categories survive in mature brain science is the long-run test.
Recurrent Processing TheoryNot stated
Criticisms
Eliminative MaterialismCritics say denying subjective experience defies both intuition and direct evidence; Galen Strawson calls the denial of experience ‘the strangest thing that has ever happened in the whole history of human thought’. There is also tension between Patricia Churchland’s talk of reduction to neurobiology and the eliminativist claim that folk psychology will be displaced rather than reduced.
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
Eliminative Materialism
- Neurophilosophy, Patricia Churchland (1986)
- Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism (Landscape of Consciousness), Patricia Churchland
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)