LanCog seminar: Jeremy Pober on the substrate of consciousness
Ricardo Santos
SEMINAR SERIES IN ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY
2025-26: Session 2
The Substrate Flexibility of Consciousness
Jeremy Pober (LanCog, University of Lisbon)
3 October 2025, 16:00 (Lisbon Time – WET)
Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa
Sala Mattos Romão [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia)
Abstract: In this joint work with Eric Schwitzgebel, we present a novel argument for the substrate flexibility of consciousness: the claim that consciousness can be instantiated in systems made of different substances (e.g., Chalmers 1996; Bostrom 2003). A common (e.g., Cao 2022; Block 2023; Seth 2025) way of investigating substrate flexibility has been by asking whether a fine-grained functional equivalent to a human brain that is somehow composed very differently, (e.g.,) of Silicon, would also be conscious. We believe the question is the wrong way to go about investigating the topic. The pull of the functional equivalence framing is that functional equivalence to us is sufficient for consciousness: a creature's being functionally equivalent to us is a good reason to attribute consciousness to it. Functional equivalence is not, however, necessary, and therefore not the only good reason to attribute consciousness to a creature. We provide independent reason to attribute consciousness to creatures with different substrates: the Copernican Principle of Consciousness (Schwitzgebel and Pober, under review).This principle states that we should not assume ourselves as humans special with respect to consciousness among creatures of equivalent behavioral (or functional) sophistication. As long as the extent to which a creature exhibits sophistication is not somehow essentially linked to its substrate, we have no reason to think that consciousness is substrate inflexible.
All are welcome, in-person!