This Landscape of Consciousness website presents about 500 diverse theories (explanations) of consciousness (some 450 individual theory pages, plus additional theories grouped within the "Additional Theories," "Overview," and "Philosophical History" pages of several categories). Landscape then organizes them into a suggested taxonomy, and explores their implications for big questions, such as AI consciousness and life after death. The focus is ontological: what is the essence of our inner subjectivity, our awareness, our felt experience—what generates our perceiving, our enjoying, that which we call qualia?
The taxonomy arrays the ~500 theories into 11 consciousness categories—one of which, Materialism, has 13 subcategories. Each theory has its own page and description, and to get an overall sense of this rather vast territory, we offer five ways to visualize the Landscape and to access each theory (as well as Search and Ask AI).
All theories in all images are linked to their theory page. Just click them.
The theories skew toward contemporary and scientific theories, but I remain committed to trying to reflect the collective wisdom of humanity across time and cultures.
Eight diverse theories (explanations) of consciousness are arrayed on a roughly physicalist-to-nonphysicalist landscape of essences and mechanisms. Theory categories: Materialism (subcategories: philosophical, eliminative/illusionism, mind-brain identity, neurobiological, electromagnetic field, computational & functionalism, homeostatic & affective, embodied & enactive, relational, first-order, higher-order, language, phylogenetic/evolutionary); Non-Reductive Physicalism; Quantum & Dimensional; Information; Panpsychisms; Monisms; Dualisms; Idealisms. These are followed by three final categories—methodological, evidentiary, and challenging—respectively: Phenomenology, Anomalous & Altered States, and Challenge. Thus, Landscape has 11 primary categories.
Each theory is self-described by or in the words of its adherents; critique is minimal and only for clarification; and there is no attempt to adjudicate among theories. The implications of consciousness theories (explanations) are assessed with respect to big questions of sentience: meaning/purpose/value (if any); free will, personal identity, AI consciousness; virtual immortality; what things are conscious, and survival beyond death. These questions, I submit, cannot be understood except in the light of particular theories of consciousness. A Landscape of Consciousness, I suggest, offers perspective.
Note: For many theories added to this Landscape of Consciousness website that were not in the original Landscape of Consciousness paper, LLMs (Claude and ChatGPT, also Gemini) were used to ensure the accuracy and precision of terms and concepts. No LLMs were used in the original paper.