Head to head
Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos vs Higher-Order Thought Theory
Nagel's Mind and Cosmos and Rosenthal’s Higher-Order Thought, compared field by field from their entries in the Atlas.
At a glance
- Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos belongs to the Challenge family in Kuhn's Landscape of Consciousness, Higher-Order Thought Theory to Materialism.
- Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos treats consciousness as fundamental; Higher-Order Thought Theory treats it as emergent.
- On AI consciousness, Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos says “Uncertain” and Higher-Order Thought Theory says “Possible”.
- On life after death, Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos says “Conditional” and Higher-Order Thought Theory says “No”.
- On mind uploading, Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos says “Unlikely” and Higher-Order Thought Theory says “Possible”.
- On meaning and purpose, Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos says “Cosmic/Ultimate” and Higher-Order Thought Theory says “Humanistic only”.
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The claim
In brief
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosThis perspective challenges the prevailing materialist Neo-Darwinian conception of nature, arguing that it fails to account for the irreducible nature of subjective experience, or 'what it is like' to be a conscious organism. It proposes that mind must be incorporated as a fundamental principle of nature itself.
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
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosConsciousness is fundamentally subjective experience—'how it is for the subject himself'—which resists reduction to purely physical, third-person descriptions.
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?Differ
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosUncertainAs a critique of functionalism and reductionism, Nagel's view suggests that purely computational entities lacking fundamental mental properties are likely philosophical zombies; outcome depends on whether future AI can instantiate the hypothesized universal mental principles.
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.
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosConditionalIf consciousness is a universal, fundamental property rather than a biological emergent, its essence may persist after bodily dissolution (inferred from panpsychist leanings), though likely without retention of personal identity.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryNoConscious states are natural states of an organism, so nothing remains conscious once those states stop occurring.
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosUnlikelyThe irreducibility of subjective experience means duplication of physical/functional patterns alone would fail to transfer the original first-person consciousness.
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.
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosCosmic/UltimateExplicitly seeks to incorporate mind as a fundamental natural principle to overcome the 'pointlessness' implied by materialism, suggesting a non-theistic, inherent cosmic purpose or value.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryHumanistic onlyThe theory is a naturalistic account of mental states and carries no cosmic purpose.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosPhilosophical Challenge (leaning towards Universal Monism/Panpsychism)
Higher-Order Thought TheoryPhysicalism (naturalistic functionalism)
Mind and body
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosCritiques the current conception of the mind-body relationship, asserting that we lack any conception of how physical and phenomenological aspects could be related or identical.
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
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosPrimitive (or fundamental)
Higher-Order Thought TheoryEmergent
Qualia
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosQualia (felt qualities) are the core of the problem, and Nagel argues that no objective or physicalist explanation currently formulated can account for their subjective reality.
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
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosPrimarily focuses on exposing the conceptual limits of physical reductionism rather than positing a definitive mechanism. Mechanistically, his solution suggests consciousness arises through the composition of fundamental, panpsychic-like elements.
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
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosUniversal/Systemic (inferred from universal monism/panpsychism leanings) or inherent in the fabric of nature.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryNot stated
What it does
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosPrimarily critical, arguing against the materialist view that consciousness is an inert epiphenomenon. If mind is a fundamental principle, it implies an irreducible, organizing role in the cosmos.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryNot stated
Evidence and criticism
Testability
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosUncertain/Primarily Conceptual. The theory's strength lies in its diagnosis of the explanatory gap, not in empirical verification. His suggested alternative (panpsychism) is highly speculative.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryConceptually testable
Tests so far
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosNot stated
Higher-Order Thought TheoryNot stated
Criticisms
Nagel’s Mind and CosmosCriticized for retreating to 'mysterianism' and for rejecting established scientific frameworks (Neo-Darwinian materialism) without offering a concrete, robust, and detailed secular ontology as an alternative.
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
Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos
- What Is It Like to Be a Bat? (1974)
- The View from Nowhere (1986)
- Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (2012)
Higher-Order Thought Theory
- Rosenthal’s Higher-Order Thought, Landscape of Consciousness, David Rosenthal (2005)