Head to head
Recurrent Processing Theory vs Spinoza’s One Reality
Lamme's Recurrent Processing Theory and Spinoza’s One Reality: Embodied Mind and Graded Consciousness, compared field by field from their entries in the Atlas.
At a glance
- Recurrent Processing Theory belongs to the Materialism family in Kuhn's Landscape of Consciousness, Spinoza’s One Reality to Neutral Monism.
- Recurrent Processing Theory treats consciousness as emergent; Spinoza’s One Reality treats it as fundamental.
- On AI consciousness, Recurrent Processing Theory says “Likely” and Spinoza’s One Reality says “Conditional”.
- On meaning and purpose, Recurrent Processing Theory says “Humanistic only” and Spinoza’s One Reality says “Cosmic/Ultimate”.
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The claim
In brief
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.
Spinoza’s One RealityBaruch Spinoza holds that there is only one substance, God or Nature, known to us under two attributes, thought and extension. A human mind is the idea of an actually existing human body: one and the same thing as the body, conceived under thought. Because every body has a corresponding idea, mind runs through all of nature, and consciousness varies by degree with the complexity and power of the body.
What consciousness is
Recurrent Processing TheoryConsciousness is identified as a specific recurrent processing state holding within relevant neural circuitry, such as the visual system.
Spinoza’s One RealityThe mind is the idea of the body, the same individual conceived under the attribute of thought rather than extension. Spinoza does not single out phenomenal consciousness as a category; his interpreters read consciousness as higher-order awareness, cognitive access, power or complexity of thinking, or affective awareness.
Big questions
Can AI be conscious?Differ
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.
Spinoza’s One RealityConditionalSince every body has a corresponding mind whose richness tracks the body's complexity and power, a sufficiently complex artificial body would have a correspondingly rich mind; whether that mind would be conscious in the human sense is contested.
Recurrent Processing TheoryNoConsciousness is tied to physical brain activity and specific neural circuitry (recurrent processing states), suggesting cessation upon bodily death.
Spinoza’s One RealityNo 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.
Spinoza’s One RealityNo position
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.
Spinoza’s One RealityCosmic/UltimateMinds are modes of God or Nature, and freedom lies in understanding the causal order of Nature through more adequate ideas.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Recurrent Processing TheoryPhysicalism
Spinoza’s One RealitySubstance monism (dual-attribute)
Mind and body
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.
Spinoza’s One RealityMind and body neither interact nor merely correlate; they are one thing under two descriptions. ‘The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things’ (Ethics 2p7), so thought is explained only through thought and extension only through extension.
Fundamental or emergent
Recurrent Processing TheoryEmergent
Spinoza’s One RealityPrimitive
Qualia
Recurrent Processing TheoryQualia are generated when a certain recurrent processing state holds of the relevant visual circuitry, making the visual state conscious.
Spinoza’s One RealitySpinoza has no explicit theory of phenomenal character. Interpreters reconstruct it from his accounts of sensation, imagination and affect, where an affect is both a change in the body's power of acting and the idea of that change.
How it works
Mechanism
Recurrent Processing TheoryRecurrent processing (feedback connections) in sensory and post-sensory areas (Stage 3) is considered sufficient for consciousness.
Spinoza’s One RealityPsychophysical identity under parallel attributes: whatever happens in the body as extension happens in the mind as an idea, so no causal bridge between them is needed.
Where it is
Recurrent Processing TheoryLocalized in sensory and post-sensory areas, specifically recurrent activations in the 'back of the head'.
Spinoza’s One RealityMentality is everywhere in nature, since all individuals are ‘animate’ in some degree (2p13s). Whether this means every physical thing has phenomenal experience is contested, and Spinoza does not treat God or Nature as one human-like conscious subject.
What it 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.
Spinoza’s One RealityMind never causes bodily motion and body never causes thought. Affects make ideas matter to behavior by increasing, decreasing or fixing the mind's striving, and freedom comes from forming more adequate ideas of the causes acting on us.
Evidence and criticism
Testability
Recurrent Processing TheoryEmpirically testable
Spinoza’s One RealitySpeculative
Tests so far
Recurrent Processing TheoryNot stated
Spinoza’s One RealityNot stated
Criticisms
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'.
Spinoza’s One RealityThe identity formula says mind and body are one thing but not what makes the thought side felt. The ideas-of-ideas reading makes every idea conscious, which Bennett called absurdly excessive, and LeBuffe notes that a mind's overall power and the power of its ideas can diverge, giving odd verdicts on degrees.
Sources
Key sources
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)
Spinoza’s One Reality
- Ethics, Baruch Spinoza (E. Curley, Ed. and Trans., The Collected Works of Spinoza) (1677)
- Spinoza’s Metaphysics: An Essay in Interpretation, E. Curley (1969)
- A Study of Spinoza's Ethics, J. Bennett (1984)