Behavioral and Brain Sciences
October 2, 2026
Yi-Sheng Wong
Haueis and Colaço distinguish evaluative and generative roles for metabolic considerations in cognitive modeling. I extend this framework to the default mode network, arguing that this network's elevated aerobic glycolysis constitutes a metabolic constraint on spontaneous thought. This constraint shapes the richness of spontaneous thought across varying task demands and predicts load-dependent...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Eric Schwitzgebel
A minimally autopoietic artificial intelligence (AI) system could be designed according to current engineering principles. Although Seth suggests that standard computational systems are not autopoietic and therefore not conscious, autopoiesis is a high-level, functional concept, and nothing appears to prevent autopoietic processes in a standard computational system. Autopoietic requirements do...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Johannes Kleiner
Biological naturalism, as explicated by Seth, is indispensable for a balanced and metaphysically neutral science of AI consciousness. However, most of the properties that Seth explores might not be unique to living systems. Therefore, I argue, a biological naturalist research programme in consciousness science requires an explicit definition of biological naturalism. I discuss how such a...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Àlex Gómez-marín
I have recently suggested not to ask what science can do for consciousness but what consciousness can do for science. Here, I extend such a recommendation in the context of naturalism, the meta-ontology shared by most contrasting approaches to the problem of "conscious artificial intelligence": do not ask what naturalism can do for AI but what AI can do for naturalism.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Andy Clark
The paper assumes a fundamental difference between the study of consciousness and the study of intelligence and cognition more widely construed. I question this assumption, drawing on work by the (badly named) "illusionists." Once we see past the illusions, the landscape looks different, although Seth's core conclusions (about the importance of living organisations) might still obtain.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Karl John Friston
It is a pleasure to comment upon, which covers everything that could - and should - be said about the matter. It left me wondering whether artificial consciousness is an oxymoron. I take this opportunity to unpack the thermodynamic issues that attend mortal computation and their implications for conscious artefacts.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Thomas Metzinger
Biological naturalism may collapse into eliminative materialism, and the ethics of synthetic phenomenology will remain.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Michael Silberstein
A.I. isn't conscious because consciousness requires properties that only biological agents possess, which A.I. lacks. What A.I. lacks that is relevant for consciousness is not predictive processing or the minimization of free energy. A.I. lacks embodiment, direct coupling with the environment, multiscale complexity, and self-organization, e.g., plasticity, degeneracy, robustness, and the...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Matthew E Larkum, Jaan Aru, Christopher J. Whyte et al.
We agree that consciousness, as we know it, is inextricably biological - but not every biological detail is essential. Identifying which features are necessary, across scales, is vital for assessing the limits of computationalism. This process will reveal a richer, more biologically informed computationalism - one that future machines could, in principle, instantiate, but only after much deeper...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Ryan Rodriguez, Nita Farahany
Seth's biological naturalism claims consciousness requires living systems. We propose experiments operationalizing this debate through testable predictions about allostasis-predictive processing, autopoiesis-recurrent processing, and causal closure-global workspace relationships. Using a probabilistic framework, we show how experimental results could reduce metaphysical disagreement about...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Krzysztof Dołęga, Axel Cleeremans
We challenge Seth's claim that simulations of consciousness necessarily lack the causal powers or intrinsic properties of real consciousness. We argue that Seth's position risks begging the question against computational functionalism and faces a dilemma over the reducibility of qualia. This weakens his case, leaving open the possibility that simulations could, in principle, realize consciousness.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Manuel Baltieri, Ryota Kanai
Seth's biological naturalism builds on ideas from predictive processing, the free energy principle, and active inference to (1) argue that only (some) biological systems are in the consciousness business and to (2) refute the possibility of artificial consciousness, i.e., consciousness in AI and other artificial systems. We find this perspective problematic for a few different reasons.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Kathryn Nave
Unity is intrinsic to being both an experiencing and an embodied subject. Computational accounts of consciousness, being observer-relative, cannot account for this unity. The thermodynamics of life can, but, contra Seth's suggestion, the free energy principle fails to capture the distinctive metabolic interdependencies by virtue of which a living system constitutes itself as a unified...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Lenore Blum, Manuel Blum
We comment on Anil Seth's target article from the perspective of theoretical computer science, a branch of mathematics that considers computation under limited resources, and from our own perspective developing a formal machine model for consciousness, the Conscious Turing Machine. From these perspectives, we argue that Seth makes a case for artificial intelligence consciousness. We also...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Thomas Parr, John Broulidakis
This commentary picks up on two related themes in Seth's article - which have roots in embodiment. The first is that perceptual inference has a metabolic cost, and it is important to consider the relationship between thermodynamic and informational energies. The second is that embodied systems actively select their data over time - which may be a core feature of biological consciousness.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Eva Jablonka, Simona Ginsburg, Zohar Z Bronfman
Seth's claim that only biological or biological-like systems can be conscious leaves open the question of what renders only some organisms conscious. We address this question by pointing to the material, ontogenetic, memory, and evaluative affordances of living organisms and arguing that evolved, minimal consciousness requires complex cognitive-affective architecture for which these biological...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Kathinka Evers, Michele Farisco
In addition to arguments for scepticism concerning the technical feasibility of conscious AI, there are grounds for scepticism concerning its desirability and safety. Conscious AI created by human beings could, especially if it reflects human nature, be extremely dangerous. It could also be very different from human consciousness and thus (a) undetectable, (b) incomprehensible, and (c)...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
September 17, 2026
Morten Storm Overgaard
Seth presents several arguments for why multiple realization is not necessarily true. However, this is not a common opinion in consciousness research. He fails to provide arguments why we should believe in biological naturalism over multiple realization, which is the actual challenge to create progress.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
July 10, 2026
Giulio Ongaro
I contrast Singh's subjective functionalism with structuralist-related approaches in anthropology, where "attractors" are not isolated packages of beliefs and practices but robust relationships between such packages within cultural systems. While impressive in its synthesis, Singh's account falls short of explaining a defining feature of human culture: its holistic nature. I use shamanism as an...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
June 25, 2026
Matan Mazor
In consciousness science, theoretical predictions are often untestable, such as claims about phenomenal consciousness in other beings. This evidential underdetermination, in combination with the perceived moral significance of consciousness, puts consciousness science at risk of becoming a marketplace of rationalizations: a field that produces theories that reaffirm social practices and...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
June 25, 2026
Axel Cleeremans, Krzysztof Dołęga
Abstract Fleming and Michel’s hypothesis about the origins of consciousness not only faces multiple challenges but also overlooks phenomenal experience—the very phenomenon that needs explaining. Although we are in broad agreement with the authors’ overall perspective, we highlight challenges and suggest that consciousness evolved to attribute subjective value, enabling organisms to care about...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
June 25, 2026
Adina L. Roskies
Abstract Speed of consciousness results may contribute to the popular notion that our consciousness is inefficacious. I argue that Fleming and Michel’s claim that consciousness is slow, coupled with their idea that consciousness marks a predictive world model, instead supports a view of agency in which we are consciously engaged with the world as it unfolds, both in perception and response.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
June 25, 2026
Stephen M Fleming, Matthias Michel
Our response to commentaries further clarifies the links between visual postdictive phenomena, conscious experience, reality monitoring, and planning. We also engage with suggestions about the limits and generality of our conclusions for other sensory modalities and visually guided behavior in aquatic organisms. We conclude that the role of sensory horizons in visual consciousness offers...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
June 25, 2026
John W Krakauer, Jake Quilty-Dunn
Fleming & Michel (F&M) argue that the function of perceptual consciousness is to aid unconscious model-based planning. Unfortunately, unconscious model-based planning probably does not exist. F&M therefore face a dilemma: either perceptual consciousness is for conscious model-based planning or it is for something else. We argue that it is for something else.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
June 25, 2026
Susan Blackmore
The authors make common assumptions that I reject: that consciousness has functions distinct from those of the brain processes on which it depends, that there is a moment at which consciousness happens, and that consciousness itself can be measured. This leads to Cartesian materialism and asking such unanswerable questions as when and why consciousness evolved. An alternative view is proposed.