Panpsychism and dualism in the science of consciousness

Panpsychism and dualism are both reemerging in consciousness science because they offer simple solutions to hard problems: panpsychism integrates consciousness into physical reality, while dualism gives consciousness causal power to support free will and moral responsibility. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) exemplifies a theory that combines both commitments, but many theories of consciousness implicitly lean toward panpsychism when defining consciousness universally, and strongly emergent theories risk dualism. A remedy called bioprotopsychism, grounded in evolutionary biology, autopoiesis, and the free energy principle, proposes a minimalist approach: conscious states are weakly emergent streams of information (best guesses) from the brain's unconscious predictive processing.

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Abstract

A resurgence of panpsychism and dualism is a matter of ongoing debate in modern neuroscience. Although metaphysically hostile, panpsychism and dualism both persist in the science of consciousness because the former is proposed as a straightforward answer to the problem of integrating consciousness into the fabric of physical reality, whereas the latter proposes a simple solution to the problem of free will by endowing consciousness with causal power as a prerequisite for moral responsibility. I take the Integrated Information Theory (IIT) as a paradigmatic exemplar of a theory of consciousness (ToC) that makes its commitments to panpsychism and dualism within a unified framework. These features are not, however, unique for IIT. Many ToCs are implicitly prone to some degree of panpsychism whenever they strive to propose a universal definition of consciousness, associated with one or another known phenomenon. Yet, those ToCs that can be characterized as strongly emergent are at risk of being dualist. A remedy against both covert dualism and uncomfortable corollaries of panpsychism can be found in the evolutionary theory of life, called here “bioprotopsychism” and generalized in terms of autopoiesis and the free energy principle. Bioprotopsychism provides a biologically inspired basis for a minimalist approach to consciousness by associating the stream of weakly emergent conscious states with an amount of information (best guesses) of the brain, engaged in unconscious predictive processing.