Non‐human consciousness and the specificity problem: A modest theoretical proposal

Abstract

Most scientific theories of consciousness are challenging to apply outside the human case insofar as non-human systems (both biological and artificial) are unlikely to implement human architecture precisely, an issue I call the specificity problem . After providing some background on the theories of consciousness debate, I survey the prospects of four approaches to this problem. I then consider a fifth solution, namely the theory-light approach proposed by Jonathan Birch. I defend a modified version of this that I term the modest theoretical approach , argu-ing that it may provide insights into challenging cases that would otherwise be intractable.