View source for Substrate-Dependent Consciousness

'''Substrate-Dependent Consciousness''' is the position that conscious experience depends essentially on the specific physical or biochemical properties of the substrate implementing a cognitive system — that [[Functionalism|functional equivalence]] is not sufficient for phenomenal equivalence. A silicon system that perfectly replicates the input-output behavior of a biological brain would not thereby be conscious, on this view, because it lacks the specific causal properties — chemical, quantum-mechanical, or biophysical — that ground experience in biological systems.

The position is committed to by [[Biological Naturalism]] (Searle), certain interpretations of [[Integrated Information Theory]] (where Φ is highly sensitive to physical connectivity), and theories that invoke quantum coherence as a necessary condition for consciousness (notably the Orchestrated Objective Reduction hypothesis of Penrose and Hameroff).

The critical weakness of substrate-dependent theories is the '''specification problem''': they must identify which physical property is consciousness-generating and explain why that property cannot in principle be instantiated in non-biological systems. Without this specification, substrate dependence is an assertion, not an argument. The claim that consciousness requires biology must either specify what biological property grounds it — ruling out the possibility of [[Non-Biological Consciousness|non-biological consciousness]] on principled grounds — or acknowledge that it is a prejudice dressed as a position.

The [[Hard problem of consciousness]] does not settle this question. It is the question.

[[Category:Consciousness]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]