Do Computers Have the Wrong "Substrate" for Consciousness? Two Flavors of Biological Naturalism (opens in new tab)

Biological naturalists (e.g., Godfrey-Smith, Block, Searle, Seth) suggest that computers aren't made of the right kind of stuff to be conscious. Consciousness, they suggest, requires a biological substrate that computers lack. It's not always clear, however, exactly what property animal biologies have that computers lack or why that property matters. It helps, I think, to sort biological naturalism into two flavors. We can then consider what motivates each flavor and see why neither is entire...