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
Brian Key
The sensory horizons hypothesis as an explanation of consciousness depends on visual experience directly affecting neural activity underlying conscious model-based planning. Given that there is no known mechanism for subjective experience to generate action potentials, the sensory horizons hypothesis lacks explanatory insight into the function of consciousness. We contend that a better strategy...
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.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
June 25, 2026
Michael H Herzog, Adrien Doerig
Fleming and Michel associate consciousness with sensory horizons, model-based computations, reality monitoring, and decision termination. However, these functions can be implemented without consciousness and may make consciousness epiphenomenal. As with other current theories of consciousness, too much explanatory weight rests on a small number of explanatory factors.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
June 25, 2026
Joshua Shepherd
Determining the functions of consciousness is difficult, in part because the term "consciousness" subsumes many different sensory modalities and aspects of cognitive processing. Fleming and Michel make an excellent start by forwarding compelling arguments regarding functions for conscious vision. I consider how their picture might generalize beyond vision, by looking at two areas: conscious...
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
Ian Phillips
A central plank of Fleming and Michel's thought-provoking paper is that postdiction reveals a lower bound for the speed of consciousness, showing that perceptual awareness is slow and motivating their perceptual reality monitoring theory of consciousness. The plank cannot bear the weight: Postdiction neither demonstrates a lower bound for the speed of consciousness nor shows that awareness is...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Blake Richards, Blaise Agüera Y Arcas
Abstract We agree with Seth that consciousness is grounded in processes related to life, namely prediction, homeostasis, and autopoiesis. However, we believe he is wrong to frame these processes as non-computational. In fact, prediction, homeostasis, and autopoiesis are inherently computational, as shown by von Neumann’s Universal Constructor theory of general computation. Given this, we...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Mark Solms
Abstract There is a curious contradiction in Seth’s argument, or a degree of ambiguity which proves to be fatal. He endorses “biological naturalism,” but he says also that it is possible to engineer “real artificial consciousness.” Such an artificially consciousness system need not be carbon-based, he says, so long as it is embodied in a system that is artificially “alive.”
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Ilya Kanaev
Abstract This comment examines ecological affordances as a bridge between science and philosophy. Building on Gibson’s insights, Ko and Neuberg’s framework presents consciousness as an adaptive, generative capacity. However, it currently risks oversimplifying life stages and cultural variability. Greater attention to cultural evolution and cross-cultural variation reveals consciousness as an...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Jakob Hohwy
Abstract Seth argues in favour of strongly substrate-dependent biological naturalism. I suggest we need more reason to believe the substrates in question are consciousness-specific. Instead, the case for mortal computational biological naturalism is more promising. A self-evidencing framing helps elucidate what the consciousness-specific functional characteristics of mortal computation might...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Ron Chrisley
Abstract Seth’s argument relies on the unargued-for claim that if computational functionalism is false, conscious AI is impossible. I show why the claim is in need of support by way of an analogy. I use a different analogy, involving artificial flight, to show that even if human consciousness is ineliminably biological, this does not imply the impossibility of non-biological, computational AI.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Shane Legg
Abstract Is efficient intelligence enough to produce consciousness, or do we need a system to be in some way “alive” in order for it to be conscious? While I don’t know the answer, I suspect the former is likely to be closer to the mark.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Michael Levin
Abstract Seth’s insightful discussion must be extended in light of the field of Diverse Intelligence. A broader understanding of embodiment in unconventional spaces, of hybrids between evolved and engineered materials, and of unexpected competencies in very minimal systems makes it currently impossible place convincing limits on the possible substrates of consciousness. Doing so risks...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Nick Lane
Abstract Seth provides a nuanced but compelling case for consciousness being substrate dependent: a product of living processes rather than computation. Here, I offer a biological underpinning for these arguments grounded in the wetware of metabolism in single-celled organisms. Fluctuations in membrane potential give an integrated real-time readout of metabolic state in relation to the...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Luke Roelofs
Abstract Seth opposes computational views of consciousness to views that emphasise biology, because they imply different verdicts about hypothetical AIs that replicate information-processing without being biologically alive. But if we accept a background theory like panpsychism, on which consciousness is abundant in nature, this opposition becomes less central: even if a non-biological system...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Anil K. Seth
Abstract I was delighted, challenged, and somewhat overwhelmed by the breadth and depth of the commentaries elicited by the target article. I am very grateful to every one of my commentators for offering such thoughtful perspectives. Here, I attempt to isolate some common themes and offer some thoughts in response. One conclusion is immediately evident: it is increasingly urgent to think...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Wanja Wiese
Abstract Does the free energy principle support the view that consciousness is substrate-dependent? Based on previous work (Wiese, 2024), I argue that the free energy principle can be used to clarify conditions under which a system realises, rather than merely simulates, a causally relevant property (such as consciousness). This helps to address a weakness in Seth’s argument.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Colin Allen
Abstract No one is in a position to say what really matters for consciousness, or whether only living systems can instantiate the complexity needed for conscious feelings. Seth’s attempt to connect life to consciousness through the mathematics of active inference and free energy minimization plays one hunch, but it is too soon to say whether it is the best hunch.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Tobias Schlicht
Abstract I argue that we are not epistemically justified to judge whether the neurobiological details of computational mechanisms are relevant to consciousness or not. It is unclear how the medium independence of neural computation required for Computational Functionalism could be established. But it is also unclear whether predictive processing depends on life-sustaining biological processes...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Iain McGilchrist
Abstract Distinctions can be made between information-processing, different kinds of knowledge, and understanding (intelligence). AI may be incapable of the type of understanding/intelligence known to humans. On the origins of consciousness, panpsychism may be a more rationally satisfying explanation than emergence. Some brief reflections are included on the relation between matter and...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Gualtiero Piccinini
Abstract I argue that creature consciousness depends on specific neurobiophysical properties that constitute the medium for phenomenally conscious states. Such properties are not medium flexible in the way required by computational functionalism. Therefore, computational functionalism fails, and one of the following holds: biological naturalism, a nonbiological yet noncomputational version of...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Simon Bowes
Abstract Digital computation may not be sufficient for consciousness, but this does not warrant biological naturalism. Rejecting coarse-grained Turing-computational functionalism and adopting a broader computationalism with no built-in syntax/semantics distinction, undermines the motivation for biological naturalism. Substrate-dependent processes of the kind found in living things may be...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2026
Jonathan Birch
Abstract Seth’s case for biological naturalism rests on a worryingly speculative foundation: the free energy principle. Arguments for computational functionalism are likewise speculative. Yet I am optimistic that the clash can be resolved empirically. Alleged dependencies of consciousness markers on biological properties can be tested comparatively, and a pattern of failed predictions would...