I’m not sure if you only want answers from people who are familiar with all of these, but at least for me, I don’t know the difference between most of the options off the top of my head. It’s unclear to me what the difference is between these options:
Illusionism (strong/weak): matter is fundamental; consciousness either doesn’t exist or only exists as an abstraction.
Reductionist Functionalism: consciousness is inherently tied to [movements of matter that implement algorithms]; causal effects of consciousness happen within the laws of physics.
Dualism + Epiphenomenalism: matter is fundamental and can give rise to consciousness; consciousness has no causal power.
Panpsychism: consciousness is inherently tied to matter; causal effects of consciousness happen within the laws of physics.
I want everyone to answer. In your case, I’d say “Unsure” is the correct pick.
Trying to explain the difference briefly:
illusionism (at least strong illusionism) says consciousness doesn’t exist at all, that makes it different from any other one.
epiphenomenalism is different because it says consciousness doesn’t do anything. So e.g. an epiphenomenalist doesn’t get to say “I talk about consciousness because I am conscious” since that would be a causal effect.
the other two are similar. The difference is that panpyschism says consciousness is about matter, whereas RF says it’s about computation. So panpyschism would say a rock is conscious (however slightly) and RF would strongly reject this since the rock isn’t computing anything. Conversely, RF would probably say a distributed digital simulation of a human brain is conscious.
I must be a splitter, because I find more than four claims there. In particular, there is a distinction between reductive materialism and functionalism. Functionalism holds that consciousness is just the performance of certain functions by whatever....it’s substrate neutral. Reductive materialism can holds that the substrate matters (ie No Chinese rooms or blockheads).
The characteristic claim of panpsychism is that everything is at least a little bit conscious. Rafael brings that out in the comment below. As well as believing that nothing material is unconsciousnes (contra physicalists), they also believe that nothing conscious is immaterial, (contra idealism and substance dualism).
I’m not sure if you only want answers from people who are familiar with all of these, but at least for me, I don’t know the difference between most of the options off the top of my head. It’s unclear to me what the difference is between these options:
All of these descriptions sound the same to me?
I want everyone to answer. In your case, I’d say “Unsure” is the correct pick.
Trying to explain the difference briefly:
illusionism (at least strong illusionism) says consciousness doesn’t exist at all, that makes it different from any other one.
epiphenomenalism is different because it says consciousness doesn’t do anything. So e.g. an epiphenomenalist doesn’t get to say “I talk about consciousness because I am conscious” since that would be a causal effect.
the other two are similar. The difference is that panpyschism says consciousness is about matter, whereas RF says it’s about computation. So panpyschism would say a rock is conscious (however slightly) and RF would strongly reject this since the rock isn’t computing anything. Conversely, RF would probably say a distributed digital simulation of a human brain is conscious.
I must be a splitter, because I find more than four claims there. In particular, there is a distinction between reductive materialism and functionalism. Functionalism holds that consciousness is just the performance of certain functions by whatever....it’s substrate neutral. Reductive materialism can holds that the substrate matters (ie No Chinese rooms or blockheads).
The characteristic claim of panpsychism is that everything is at least a little bit conscious. Rafael brings that out in the comment below. As well as believing that nothing material is unconsciousnes (contra physicalists), they also believe that nothing conscious is immaterial, (contra idealism and substance dualism).