Head to head
Spinoza’s One Reality vs Tegmark’s State of Matter
Spinoza’s One Reality: Embodied Mind and Graded Consciousness and Tegmark’s State of Matter, compared field by field from their entries in the Atlas.
At a glance
- Both belong to the Neutral Monism family in Kuhn's Landscape of Consciousness.
- Spinoza’s One Reality treats consciousness as fundamental; Tegmark’s State of Matter treats it as emergent.
- On AI consciousness, Spinoza’s One Reality says “Conditional” and Tegmark’s State of Matter says “Yes”.
- On meaning and purpose, Spinoza’s One Reality says “Cosmic/Ultimate” and Tegmark’s State of Matter says “Humanistic only”.
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The claim
In brief
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.
Tegmark’s State of MatterTegmark proposes that consciousness can be understood as a specific state of matter, coined 'perceptronium,' which is defined by distinctive information-processing abilities. Starting from the premise that all existence is physical, the theory seeks principles that distinguish conscious, complex information processing from non-conscious processing.
What consciousness is
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.
Tegmark’s State of MatterConsciousness is identified as the subjective experience or 'feeling' that arises when information is being processed in certain complex ways, constituting the state of matter termed 'perceptronium'.
Big questions
Can AI be conscious?Differ
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.
Tegmark’s State of MatterYesThe theory is strictly physicalist ('It's all physics') and defines consciousness as a state of matter achievable through complex information processing. Therefore, artificial systems can achieve this state in principle.
Spinoza’s One RealityNo position
Tegmark’s State of MatterNoConsciousness is an emergent state of matter (perceptronium) of the physical brain. The irreversible death and dissolution of the physical substrate would entail the cessation of consciousness.
Spinoza’s One RealityNo position
Tegmark’s State of MatterLikelyIf consciousness is a specific informational state of matter defined by mathematical/physical principles, that state could potentially be perfectly duplicated or uploaded into a non-biological medium by advanced technology.
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.
Tegmark’s State of MatterHumanistic onlyThe foundation in physics and mathematical structure typically suggests no ultimate cosmic purpose, consistent with deflationary physicalist views. The theory does not explicitly propose cosmic teleology.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Spinoza’s One RealitySubstance monism (dual-attribute)
Tegmark’s State of MatterPhysicalism / Monism
Mind and body
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.
Tegmark’s State of MatterAn identity relationship is implied, where subjective experience (mind) is identified as a specific physical state (a state of matter/information processing).
Fundamental or emergent
Spinoza’s One RealityPrimitive
Tegmark’s State of MatterEmergent
Qualia
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.
Tegmark’s State of MatterQualia are implicitly the 'feeling' (subjective experience) associated with perceptronium's specific information processing configurations, formalized through four principles: information, integration, independence, and dynamics.
How it works
Mechanism
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.
Tegmark’s State of MatterThe definition of perceptronium via the application of four distinct principles (information, integration, independence, and dynamics) to information processing in physical systems.
Where it is
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.
Tegmark’s State of MatterLocalized to physical systems (e.g., neural networks or arbitrary quantum systems) that achieve the specific information-processing criteria defining perceptronium.
What it does
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.
Tegmark’s State of MatterConsciousness is crucial for information assessment and is viewed as functionally important for critical needs like caring for comatose patients or communicating with advanced AI. Causation is strictly physical.
Evidence and criticism
Testability
Spinoza’s One RealitySpeculative
Tegmark’s State of MatterEmpirically testable
Tests so far
Spinoza’s One RealityNot stated
Tegmark’s State of MatterThe generalization of Integrated Information Theory implies relevance to IIT's measurement function (quantifying degrees of consciousness). The theory is intended to address concrete problems like assessing comatose patients and advanced AI.
Criticisms
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.
Tegmark’s State of MatterAs a generalization of IIT, it inherits existing critiques, such as the difficulty in explaining subjective feeling purely through physical and informational principles.
Sources
Key sources
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)
Tegmark’s State of Matter
- Consciousness is a state of matter (2015)
- Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2014)