A landscape of consciousness: Toward a taxonomy of explanations and implications.

Diverse explanations or theories of consciousness are arrayed on a roughly physicalist-to-nonphysicalist landscape of essences and mechanisms. Categories: Materialism Theories (philosophical, neurobiological, electromagnetic field, computational and informational, homeostatic and affective, embodied and enactive, relational, representational, language, phylogenetic evolution); Non-Reductive Physicalism; Quantum Theories; Integrated Information Theory; Panpsychisms; Monisms; Dualisms; Idealisms; Paranormal and Altered States Theories; Challenge Theories. There are many subcategories, especially for Materialism Theories. Each explanation is self-described by its adherents, critique is minimal and only for clarification, and there is no attempt to adjudicate among the theories. The implications of consciousness categories of explanations or theories are assessed with respect to: meaning/purpose/value (if any); AI consciousness; virtual immortality; and survival beyond death. A landscape of consciousness, I suggest, offers perspective.

• Publication year

  2024

• Venue

  Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology

• Publication date

  2024-01-01

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Philosophy

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2023.12.003PMID 38281544
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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