Abstract:

David Chalmers argues that conscious experience is a real but nonphysical feature of nature. However, he also believes that all particular facts about any conscious experience supervene (naturally, but not logically) on physical facts, such that physical facts fully determine any conscious experience. His principle of organizational invariance goes even further to claim that fine-grained functional organization fully determines any conscious experience (naturally, but not logically). This principle has powerful implications for artificial intelligence, allowing for the possibility of fully conscious digital computers. But the principle of organizational invariance is not compatible with the concept of a personal soul. This paper does not attempt to prove or disprove the existence of a personal soul, but defends its conceptual coherence against the challenge presented by Chalmers’ principle of organizational invariance.

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