Abstract

Davis, Allen, and Newman raise significant empirical questions. I agree with Davis that the operational definition of unconsciousness is criterion-dependent, and that the criterion can be set more conservatively than I did here. Contrastive analysis would still work if we compared clearly "conscious" to "much less conscious" phenomena. I agree with Velmans and Mangan that contrastive analysis involves the subject's first-person perspective --- that is why we study consciousness, after all --- but a rigorous physicalist could equally well trace the logic from behaviorally defined operations to the first-person perspective. There is no principled disconnect between these two perspectives on the evidence, and we know from almost two centuries of psychophysical research that there is rarely any mismatch in scientific practice. I am very encouraged by the ease of communication in these commentaries. Bringsjord's challenge seems to involve a difference of views on what are the most interesting questions.