ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the main principles of Biological Naturalism (BN) and Biological Realism (BR), and analyzes some of their similarities and differences. It contrasts the biological approach represented by BN and BR with another currently influential approach: information theories of consciousness, especially the Information Integration Theory. John Searle appears to accept the two main components of the supervenience relationship between consciousness and the brain: there can be no difference in conscious states without a corresponding difference in the underlying brain states (the covariance principle), and the conscious states owe their existence to the underlying brain states (the principle of ontological dependency). BN fails to offer a coherent account of how the first-person ontology of consciousness is related to the third-person ontology of neurophysiology. Searle suggests that BN solves (or dissolves) the philosophical mind-body problem, but this turns out to be a mere promissory note.
