Understanding the notion of innerness that we ascribe to mental items is central to understanding the problem of consciousness, and we can do so in evolutionary and physical terms.

According to illusionism, phenomenal consciousness is an introspective illusion. The illusion problem is to explain the cause of the illusion, or why we are powerfully disposed to judge—erroneously—that we are phenomenally conscious. I propose a theory to solve the illusion problem. I argue that on the basis of three hypotheses about the mind—which I call introspective opacity, the infallibility intuition, and the justification constraint—we can explain our disposition, on introspection, to draw erroneous unconscious inferences about our sensory states. (...) Being subject to the illusion of phenomenal consciousness consists in having this disposition. I explain our ‘problem intuitions’ about consciousness —that our sensory states bear phenomenal properties that are qualitatively like something with which we are directly acquainted that is ineffable, atomic, intrinsic, private, and non-physical. I also address the illusion meta-problem, which is to explain why illusionism seems especially counterintuitive. (shrink)

The problem of consciousness is taken to concern items which are internal to the mind, and phenomenal, subjective, and private. Understanding the notion of innerness in this enables us to understand the rest in physical terms.

We explore the integrated structure of consciousness by examining the “phenomenological axioms” of the “integrated information theory of consciousness ” from the perspective of Husserlian phenomenology. After clarifying the notion of phenomenological axioms by drawing on resources from Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, we develop a critique of the integration axiom by drawing on phenomenological analyses developed by Aron Gurwitsch and Merleau-Ponty. This axiom is ambiguous. It can be read either atomistically as claiming that the phenomenal content (...) of conscious experience is an integrated complex and holistically as claiming that it is an integrated Gestalt. We argue that the latter reading provides a better characterization of the internal structure of the phenomenal content. Furthermore, the integrated structure of consciousness is not confined to the phenomenal content, but it also extends into the subjective attitude. Subjective attitudes and phenomenal contents are interdependent constituents that jointly make up conscious experiences. This implies a novel theoretical challenge to the scientific component of IIT, which is to explain how to accommodate the subjective dimension of consciousness into its explanatory scope. IIT can respond in a few different ways, but most importantly, it cannot just ignore it once and for all. As one possible way to address the challenge, we propose introducing a novel construct, noetic complex, to develop a fine-grained model of the neural underpinning of consciousness. (shrink)

The human mind is constituted by inner, subjective, private, first-person conscious experiences that cannot be measured with physical devices or observed from an external, objective, public, third-person perspective. The qualitative, phenomenal nature of conscious experiences also cannot be communicated to others in the form of a message composed of classical bits of information. Because in a classical world everything physical is observable and communicable, it is a daunting task to explain how an empirically unobservable, incommunicable consciousness (...) could have any physical substrates such as neurons composed of biochemical molecules, water, and electrolytes. The challenges encountered by classical physics are exemplified by a number of thought experiments including the inverted qualia argument, the private language argument, the beetle in the box argument and the knowledge argument. These thought experiments, however, do not imply that our consciousness is nonphysical and our introspective conscious testimonies are untrustworthy. The principles of classical physics have been superseded by modern quantum physics, which contains two fundamentally different kinds of physical objects: unobservable quantum state vectors, which define what physically exists, and quantum operators (observables), which define what can physically be observed. Identifying consciousness with the unobservable quantum information contained by quantum physical brain states allows for application of quantum information theorems to resolve possible paradoxes created by the inner privacy of conscious experiences, and explains how the observable brain is constructed by accessible bits of classical information that are bound by Holevo's theorem and extracted from the physically existing quantum brain upon measurement with physical devices. (shrink)

Key Terms: Phenomenal consciousness, access consciousness, qualitative character, subjective character, intransitive self-consciousness, disposition, categorical basis, subliminal perception, blindsight.

In recent decades, the scientific study of consciousness has significantly increased our understanding of this elusive phenomenon. Yet, despite critical development in our understanding of the functional side of consciousness, we still lack a fundamental theory regarding its phenomenal aspect. There is an “explanatory gap” between our scientific knowledge of functional consciousness and its “subjective,” phenomenal aspects, referred to as the “hard problem” of consciousness. The phenomenal aspect of consciousness is the (...) first-person answer to “what it’s like” question, and it has thus far proved recalcitrant to direct scientific investigation. Naturalistic dualists argue that it is composed of a primitive, private, non-reductive element of reality that is independent from the functional and physical aspects of consciousness. Illusionists, on the other hand, argue that it is merely a cognitive illusion, and that all that exists are ultimately physical, non-phenomenal properties. We contend that both the dualist and illusionist positions are flawed because they tacitly assume consciousness to be an absolute property that doesn’t depend on the observer. We develop a conceptual and a mathematical argument for a relativistic theory of consciousness in which a system either has or doesn’t have phenomenal consciousness with respect to some observer. Phenomenal consciousness is neither private nor delusional, just relativistic. In the frame of reference of the cognitive system, it will be observable and in other frame of reference it will not. These two cognitive frames of reference are both correct, just as in the case of an observer that claims to be at rest while another will claim that the observer has constant velocity. Given that consciousness is a relativistic phenomenon, neither observer position can be privileged, as they both describe the same underlying reality. Based on relativistic phenomena in physics we developed a mathematical formalization for consciousness which bridges the explanatory gap and dissolves the hard problem. Given that the first-person cognitive frame of reference also offers legitimate observations on consciousness, we conclude by arguing that philosophers can usefully contribute to the science of consciousness by collaborating with neuroscientists to explore the neural basis of phenomenal structures. (shrink)

Classical ways of viewing the relation of consciousness to the brain and physical world make it difficult to see how consciousness can be a subject of scientific study. In contrast to physical events, it seems to be private, subjective, and viewable only from a subject's first-person perspective. But much of psychology does investigate human experience, which suggests that classical ways of viewing these relations must be wrong. An alternative, Reflexive model is outlined along with it's consequences (...) for methodology. Within this model the external phenomenal world is viewed as part-of consciousness, rather than apart-from it. Observed events are only "public" in the sense of "private experience shared." Scientific observations are only "objective" in the sense of "intersubjective." Observed phenomena are only "repeatable" in the sense that they are sufficiently similar to be taken for "tokens" of the same event "type." This closes the gap between physical and psychological phenomena. Indeed, events out-there in the world can often be regarded as either physical or psychological depending on the network of relationships under consideration. (shrink)

The current orthodoxy in the philosophy of mind can be thought of as a kind of third-person imperialism, viz. the view that consciousness, like other natural phenomena, will yield to scientific explanation at some level of analysis. Among its dissenters are a group of antireductionists and antimaterialists who advocate a kind of first-person isolationism, viz. the view that consciousness, unlike other natural phenomena, will fail to yield to scientific explanation at any level of analysis. In its various forms, (...) the latter view is based on arguments that identify first-person phenomena, such as subjectivity and qualia, that no third-person approach to consciousness can explain. ;I argue that neither subjectivity nor qualia constitute insuperable obstacles for scientific explanations of consciousness. By identifying a set of persistent ambiguities within the subjectivity-based arguments of antiphysicalists, I provide a general framework for systematically locating fallacies within them. I then examine the common antiphysicalist assumption that the meanings of phenomenal concepts are fully determined by the conscious mental states to which they refer. By showing how it results in a commitment to the existence of essentially private language, I contend that this assumption is indefensible, and that antiphysicalist arguments that rely on it are therefore unsound. ;I then argue that qualia are intrinsic, basic, and subjective properties of conscious mental states, and that, contrary to antireductionists' suggestions, this higher-order classification is compatible with qualia reduction. I show this compatibility by examining the putative higher-order properties of qualia and comparing them to the higher-order properties characteristic of connectionist models of cognitive processes. I contend that the higher-order properties characteristic of connectionist networks approximate the putative higher-order properties of qualia sufficiently well to conclude that qualia reductionism can accommodate claims that qualia are intrinsic, basic, and subjective properties, and explain the motivating intuitions for those claims generated by inverted, absent, and alien qualia thought experiments. In this way I argue that the putative higher-order classifications of qualia not only fail to defeat qualia reduction but, ironically, turn out to support it. (shrink)

This overview of Consciousness Studies examines the conditions that one has to satisfy to establish a scientific investigation of phenomenal consciousness. Written from the perspective experimental psychology, it follows a two-pronged approach in which traditional third-person methods for investigating the brain and physical world are complementary to first-person methods for investigating subjective experience allowing the possibility of finding “bridging laws” that relate such first- and third-person data to each other. Mindful of the relative sophistication of third-person (...) methods the chapter focuses on the problems of developing similarly sophisticated first-person methods. The problems are of three kinds: (1) Epistemological problems: How can one obtain public, objective knowledge about private, subjective experiences? (2) Methodological problems: Given that one cannot attach measuring instruments directly up to experiences, what psychological “instruments” and procedures are appropriate to their study? (3) The relation of the observer to the observed: The more closely coupled an observer is with an observed, the greater the potential influence of the act of observation on the nature of the observed (“observer effects”). Given this, how can one develop introspective and phenomenological methods where the observer is the observed? The chapter argues that the epistemological problems are more apparent than real, although this requires one to construe what is private versus public, and what is subjective or intersubjective versus what is objective in a slightly different way—with some enabling consequences for a science of consciousness. Methodological problems are real, but not fundamentally different to the problems traditionally faced in experimental psychological investigations of mental phenomena. The close-coupling of observer with the observed in first-person investigations can also be a problem, producing “observer effects” that are more acute than in most third-person investigations. The chapter suggests that one can either try to minimise such effects or to harness them, depending on the purpose of the investigation. (shrink)

The unity of consciousness has so far been studied only as a relation holding among the many experiences of a single subject. I investigate whether this relation could hold between the experiences of distinct subjects, considering three major arguments against the possibility of such ‘between-subjects unity’. The first argument, based on the popular idea that unity implies subsumption by a composite experience, can be deflected by allowing for limited forms of ‘experience-sharing’, in which the same token experience belongs to (...) more than one subject. The second argument, based on the phenomenological claim that unified experiences have interdependent phenomenal characters, I show to rest on an equivocation. Finally, the third argument accuses between-subjects unity of being unimaginable, or more broadly a formal possibility corresponding to nothing we can make sense of. I argue that the familiar experience of perceptual co-presentation gives us an adequate phenomenological grasp on what between-subjects unity might be like. (shrink)

Neural Darwinism (ND) is a large scale selectionist theory of brain development and function that has been hypothesized to relate to consciousness. According to ND, consciousness is entailed by reentrant interactions among neuronal populations in the thalamocortical system (the ‘dynamic core’). These interactions, which permit high-order discriminations among possible core states, confer selective advantages on organisms possessing them by linking current perceptual events to a past history of value-dependent learning. Here, we assess the consistency of ND with 16 (...) widely recognized properties of consciousness, both physiological (for example, consciousness is associated with widespread, relatively fast, low amplitude interactions in the thalamocortical system), and phenomenal (for example, consciousness involves the existence of a private flow of events available only to the experiencing subject). While no theory accounts fully for all of these properties at present, we find that ND and its recent extensions fare well. (shrink)

It’s a familiar fact that there is something it is like to see red, eat chocolate or feel pain. More recently philosophers have insisted that in addition to this objectual phenomenology there is something it is like for me to eat chocolate, and this for-me-ness is no less there than the chocolatishness. Recognizing this subjective feature of consciousness helps shape certain theories of consciousness, introspection and the self. Though it does this heavy philosophical work, and it is (...) supposed to be relatively obvious to anyone who introspects, it is rather difficult to see just what this phenomenal me-ness is supposed to be; indeed, many philosophers deny it exists. In this paper we try to provide a clear sense of what phenomenal me-ness involves, and then then consider some arguments for the existence of phenomenal me-ness experience as well as some accounts of what gives rise to it. In the end, we argue that the plausible senses of me-ness are a good deal thinner than what often seems to be claimed. (shrink)

This is the second of four online Companions to Velmans, M. (ed.) (2018) Consciousness (Critical Concepts in Psychology), a 4-volume collection of Major Works on Consciousness commissioned by Routledge, London. -/- The Companion to Volume 2 Part 1 focuses on the detailed relationship of phenomenal consciousness to mental processing described either functionally (as human information processing) or in terms of neural activity, in the ways typically explored by cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Beginning with reviews of (...) functional differences between unconscious, preconscious and conscious processing and the different senses in which mental processing can be said to be “conscious”, the readings turn to seminal work on blindsight and related phenomena, experimental evidence of perception without awareness, ways to combine “subjective” and “objective” measures of awareness, evidence for distinct neural pathways governing visual awareness and visual control of motor acts, and the complex ways in which consciousness of action relates to both voluntary and involuntary acts. The readings then focus on the intimate links between attention and consciousness, starting with the writings of William James and surveying the extensive work on this subject over the last 60 years that explores the relationships between and attended and non-attended processing, preconscious and conscious processing, and attention, primary (working, short-term) memory and consciousness. The readings go on to survey the evidence that attention contributes to the “neural binding” required for an integrated conscious experience and evidence that attention (in humans) is dissociable from consciousness, necessary for consciousness, but not sufficient for consciousness. The readings then turn to research on “inattentional blindness”, and conclude with a review of Baars’ global workspace theory, which integrates many theories and findings in this area into a coherent, global model. The Companion then summarises seminal readings on learning, memory and consciousness; the extensive research on mental imagery, long thought to epitomize private, subjective conscious experience—and consequently ruled out of science by reductive, materialist philosophies of mind; the complex relations of consciousness to sleep and dreaming; the development of consciousness in human infants; and the debates surrounding, and extensive evidence for consciousness in non-human animals, with attendant consequences for their humane treatment. -/- As with the other Companions to these Volumes there are many links to background resources (marked in pink) and to the selected readings themselves (marked in blue). (shrink)

This article contributes to the debate on self-consciousness, inner awareness, and subjective character. Philosophers puzzle over whether subjective character has a monadic or a relational form. But the present article deploys formal ontology to show that this is a false dichotomy. From this vantage, a common objection to non-relational views is deflated. The common objection is that one-level, non-relational views are either unexplanatory or smuggle in resources from higher-order and/or relational views. The author uses an argument from (...) formal ontology to suggest that such objections stem from a category error. The result is that first-order non-relational views need not lapse into higher order or relational views – subjective character can be a structured and intrinsic feature involved in the ontological constitution of mental acts. Ultimately, the author emphasizes the need to conceive of subjective character as the source of intentionality, and not the result of a prior intentional relation. (shrink)

How can phenomenal consciousness exist as an integral part of a physical universe? How can the technicolour phenomenology of our inner lives be created out of the complex neural activities of our brains? Many have despaired of finding answers to these questions; and many have claimed that human consciousness is inherently mysterious. Peter Carruthers argues, on the contrary, that the subjective feel of our experience is fully explicable in naturalistic terms. Drawing on a variety of interdisciplinary (...) resources, he develops and defends a novel account in terms of higher-order thought. He shows that this can explain away some of the more extravagant claims made about phenomenal consciousness, while substantively explaining the key subjectivity of our experience. Written with characteristic clarity and directness, and surveying a wide range of extant theories, this book is essential reading for all those within philosophy and psychology interested in the problem of consciousness. (shrink)

We are material beings in a material world, but we are also beings who have experiences and feelings. How can these subjective states be just a matter of matter? To defend materialism, philosophical materialists have formulated what is sometimes called "the phenomenal-concept strategy," which holds that we possess a range of special concepts for classifying the subjective aspects of our experiences. In Consciousness Revisited, the philosopher Michael Tye, until now a proponent of the the phenomenal-concept (...) strategy, argues that the strategy is mistaken. A rejection of phenomenal concepts leaves the materialist with the task of finding some other strategy for defending materialism. Tye points to four major puzzles of consciousness that arise: How is it possible for Mary, in the famous thought experiment, to make a discovery when she leaves her black-and-white room? In what does the explanatory gap consist and how can it be bridged? How can the hard problem of consciousness be solved? How are zombies possible? Tye presents solutions to these puzzles -- solutions that relieve the pressure on the materialist created by the failure of the phenomenal-concept strategy. In doing so, he discusses and makes new proposals on a wide range of issues, including the nature of perceptual content, the conditions necessary for consciousness of a given object, the proper understanding of change blindness, the nature of phenomenal character and our awareness of it, whether we have privileged access to our own experiences, and, if we do, in what such access consists. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to defend the non-reductive thesis of phenomenal consciousness. This paper will give an overview of the arguments for the non-reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness and justify why the reductionist approach is implausible in the context of explaining phenomenal subjective experience. The debate between reductionist and non-reductionist on the project of demystifying and mystifying phenomenal consciousness is driven by two fundamental assumptions-1) Reductive-Naturalistic Objectivism, 2) Phenomenal Realism. (...) There are several arguments for the irreducibility of phenomenal consciousness; this paper will focus on the inverted spectrum argument, knowledge argument, and the conceivability argument. (shrink)

What are phenomenal qualities, the qualities of conscious experiences? Are phenomenal qualities subjective, belonging to inner mental episodes of some kind, or should they be seen as objective, belonging in some way to the physical things in the world around us? Are they physical properties at all? And to what extent do experiences represent the things around us, or the states of our own bodies? Fourteen original papers, written by a team of distinguished philosophers and psychologists, explore (...) the ways in which phenomenal qualities fit in with our understanding of mind and reality. This volume offers an indispensable resource for anyone wishing to understand the nature of conscious experience. (shrink)

Given the recent interest in the subjective or phenomenal dimension of consciousness it is no wonder that many authors have once more started to speak of the need for pheno- menological considerations. Often however the term ‘phenomenology’ is being used simply as a synonym for ‘folk psychology', and in our article we argue that it would be far more fruitful to turn to the argumentation to be found within the continental tradition inaugurated by Husserl. In order to (...) exemplify this claim, we criticize Rosenthal's higher-order thought theory as well as Strawson's recent contribution in this journal, and argue that a phenomenological analysis of the nature of self-awareness can provide us with a more sophisticated and accurate model for understanding both phenomenal consciousness and the notion of self. (shrink)

Many philosophers tacitly accept the View: consciousness is necessary for being a welfare subject. That is, in order to be an eligible bearer of welfare goods and bads, an entity must be capable of phenomenal consciousness. However, this paper argues that, in the absence of a compelling rationale, we are not licensed to accept the View, because doing so amounts to fallacious reasoning in theorizing about welfare: insisting on the View when consciousness is not in fact (...) important for welfare value in a systematic and significant way is objectionably “consciousist.” As a result, the View does not advance our understanding of the value of consciousness. The paper further diagnoses why we may be attracted to the View, and what we should accept instead. (shrink)

The starting point of this paper is the thought that the phenomenal appearances that accompany mental states are somehow only there, or only real, from the standpoint of the subject of those mental states. The world differs across subjects in terms of which appearances obtain. Not only are subjects standpoints across which the world varies, subjects are standpoints that we can ‘adopt’ in our own theorizing about the world (or stand back from). The picture that is suggested by these (...) claims has an appeal but is at the same time obscure and stands in need of regimentation. This paper explores and motivates a metaphysical account of what it is for subjects to be standpoints, what it is to adopt standpoints in our representations and, most importantly, how these notions might help us better understand the subjective character of conscious mental states. Some well-known observations by Thomas Nagel serve as starting points and the paper concludes by revisiting Nagel’s argument for the inevitable incompleteness of objective accounts of mental states, which will be reframed in terms of the central commitments of the proposed framework. (shrink)

Tye's book develops a persuasive and, in many respects, original argument for the view that the qualitative side of our mental life is representational in..

The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why experiences—perceptions, sensations, emotions, and moods—are brain states. My dissertation is motivated by the thought that our current understanding of the hard problem is flawed, and one of the aims of my dissertation is to address this flaw. The other aim is to lay a foundation for a monistic view of the mind-brain relation that is distinct from physicalism. Most philosophers assume that there is only one hard problem since (...) the hard problem is the problem of explaining why there is something it is like to be in a brain state. In “Puzzles of Pain”, I argue that some experiences, e.g., pains, are such that, when we have them, we feel a certain way, while other experiences, e.g., color experiences, are such that, when we have them, something seems a certain way. This suggests that there are two hard problems, one associated with each type of experience. These problems are the subjects of my other papers. In “Knowing What Pain Is”, I argue that the hard problem for pain is reconciling our awareness and knowledge of pain with pain being a brain state. I argue that a reconciliation can’t be achieved since what we learn about pain via our awareness is that it is sui generis. In “Does Transparency Solve the Mind-Body Problem?”, I argue that the hard problem for color experience is explaining why a brain state does a certain thing, viz., make us aware of color. By examining how neuroscientists explain why brain states perform functions, I argue that the hard problem for color experience can’t be solved since a physical mechanism showing how a brain state makes us aware of color can’t be specified. Implicit in these negative conclusions is a positive view that combines the monism of physicalism with the phenomenality of dualism. The roots for such a view can be found in Russell and Eddington, and it holds promise as a worthy alternative to the usual options of physicalism and dualism. (shrink)

This article defends two theses: that a mental state is conscious if and only if it has phenomenal character, i.e., if and only if there is something it is like for the subject to be in that state, and that all state consciousness involves self-consciousness, in the sense that a mental state is conscious if and only if its possessor is, in some suitable way, conscious of being in it. Though neither of these theses is novel, there (...) is a dearth of direct arguments for them in the scholarly literature and the relationship between them has so far gone underrecognized. This article attempts to remedy this lack, advancing the claim that if all conscious states have phenomenal character, then all state consciousness involves self-consciousness. (shrink)

Recent work in neuroimaging suggests that some patients diagnosed as being in the persistent vegetative state are actually conscious. In this paper, we critically examine this new evidence. We argue that though it remains open to alternative interpretations, it strongly suggests the presence of consciousness in some patients. However, we argue that its ethical significance is less than many people seem to think. There are several different kinds of consciousness, and though all kinds of consciousness have some (...) ethical significance, different kinds underwrite different kinds of moral value. Demonstrating that patients have phenomenal consciousness — conscious states with some kind of qualitative feel to them — shows that they are moral patients, whose welfare must be taken into consideration. But only if they are subjects of a sophisticated kind of access consciousness — where access consciousness entails global availability of information to cognitive systems — are they persons, in the technical sense of the word employed by philosophers. In this sense, being a person is having the full moral status of ordinary human beings. We call for further research which might settle whether patients who manifest signs of consciousness possess the sophisticated kind of access consciousness required for personhood. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to show that phenomenal properties are contentless modes of appearances of representational properties. The essay initiates with examination of the first-person perspective of the conscious observer according to which a “reference to I” with respect to the observation of experience is determined. A distinction is then drawn between the conscious observer and experience as observed, according to which, three distinct modifications of experience are delineated. These modifications are then analyzed with respect to the (...) content of experience and from this the ground of the distinction between phenomenal and representational properties is identified. (shrink)

It would be a mistake to deny commonsense intuitions a role in developing a theory of consciousness. However, philosophers have traditionally failed to probe commonsense in a way that allows these commonsense intuitions to make a robust contribution to a theory of consciousness. In this paper, I report the results of two experiments on purportedly phenomenal states and I argue that many disputes over the philosophical notion of ‘phenomenal consciousness’ are misguided—they fail to capture the (...) interesting connection between commonsense ascriptions of pain and emotion. With this data in hand, I argue that our capacity to distinguish between ‘mere things’ and ‘subjects of moral concern’ rests, to a significant extent, on the sorts of mental states that we take a system to have. (shrink)

Despite the progress made in studying the observable exteriors of conscious processes, which are reflected in the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC), there are still no satisfactory answers to two closely related core questions. These are the question of the origin of the subjective, phenomenal aspects of consciousness, and the question of the causal mechanisms underlying the generation of specific phenomenal states. In this article, we address these questions using a novel variant of cosmopsychism, a (...) holistic form of panpsychism relying on the central idea that the universe is imbued with a ubiquitous field of consciousness (UFC). This field is understood as a foundational dual-aspect component of the cosmos, the extrinsic appearance of which is physical in nature and the intrinsic manifestation of which is phenomenological in nature. We argue that this approach brings a new perspective into play, according to which the organizational characteristics of the NCC are indicative of the brain’s interaction with and modulation of the UFC. Key insights from modern physics suggest that the modulation mechanism is identical with the fundamental mechanism underlying quantum systems, resulting in the conclusion that a coherently oscillating neural cell assembly acquires phenomenal properties by tapping into the universal pool of phenomenal nuances predetermined by the UFC, or more specifically, by entering into a temporary liaison with the UFC and extracting a subset of phenomenal tones from the phenomenal color palette inherent in the basic structure of the UFC. This hypothesis is supported by a substantial body of empirical evidence. (shrink)

According to what we will call subjectivity theories of consciousness, there is a constitutive connection between phenomenal consciousness and subjectivity: there is something it is like for a subject to have mental state M only if M is characterized by a certain mine-ness or for-me-ness. Such theories appear to face certain psychopathological counterexamples: patients appear to report conscious experiences that lack this subjective element. A subsidiary goal of this chapter is to articulate with greater precision both (...) subjectivity theories and the psychopathological challenge they face. The chapter’s central goal is to present two new approaches to defending subjectivity theories in the face of this challenge. What distinguishes these two approaches is that they go to great lengths to interpret patients’ reports at face value – greater length, at any rate, than more widespread approaches in the extant literature. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists have experimentally explored various aspects of people’s understandings of subjective experience based on their responses to questions about whether robots “see red” or “feel frustrated,” but the intelligibility of such questions may well presuppose that people understand robots as experiencers in the first place. Departing from the standard approach, I develop an experimental framework that distinguishes 20 between “phenomenal consciousness” as it is applied to a subject (an experiencer) and to an (experiential) mental state (...) and experimentally test folk understandings of both subjective experience and experiencers. My findings (1) reveal limitations in experimental approaches using “artificial experiencers” like robots, (2) indicate that the standard philosophical conception of subjective experience in terms of qualia is distinct from that of the folk, and (3) show that folk intuitions do support a conception of qualia that departs from the philosophical conception in that it is physical rather than metaphysical. These findings have implications for the “hard problem” of consciousness. (shrink)

I defend a subjective representationalist theory of phenomenal experience. On this view, phenomenal experiences are simply certain kinds of representations of subjective (i.e., suitably mind-dependent) physical properties of environmental objects or of one’s body. Chapter 1 focuses on the thoroughly spatial character of experience. Here I argue against views of experience according to which phenomenal properties – roughly, the properties which constitute “what it’s like” to have an experience – are internal to the subject’s mind. (...) If my arguments succeed, then phenomenal properties are outside the subject’s mind. Representationalists typically embrace this claim. Chapter 2 quickly recapitulates some well-known motivations for representationalism and then considers an important choice point for representationalists: are phenomenal properties objective (essentially mind-independent) or subjective (essentially mind-dependent)? I introduce a robust set of inversion intuitions and argue that subjective representationalism, which holds that some phenomenal properties are subjective, can better accommodate such intuitions than objective representationalism. Chapter 3 focuses on the familiar “explanatory gap” problem. I consider a recent version of this argument which concludes that phenomenal consciousness is not reducible to the physical. Since the version of subjective representationalism I hold is part of just such an attempt to reduce phenomenal consciousness to the physical, I spend this chapter developing the resources to respond to Chalmers’ argument. Chapter 4 considers the intuition that internal twins must have precisely the same kinds of phenomenal experiences. This intuition is widespread, powerful, and recalcitrant. But it is very likely that representationalism, especially of the highly externalist sort that I defend in Chapter 1, is incompatible with such intuitions. I argue that this intuition is unreliable and attempt to debunk it. Chapter 5 very tentatively fills in some details of the subjective representationalist account. Representationalists can be sorted into first-order and higher-order theorists. Roughly, first-order representationalists hold that a ground-level representation of a certain kind suffices for phenomenal experience, while higher-order representationalists insist that phenomenal experiences also require a higher-order representation of the ground-level representations. I am tempted by the first-order view on grounds of parsimony. In this chapter, I rebut just one recent, introspectively-based argument for higher-order representationalism. (shrink)

Phenomenal consciousness is often thought to involve a first-person perspective or point of view which makes available to the subject categorically private, first-person facts about experience, facts that are irreducible to third-person physical, functional, or representational facts. This paper seeks to show that on a representational account of consciousness, we don't have an observational perspective on experience that gives access to such facts, although our representational limitations and the phenomenal structure of consciousness make it (...) strongly seem that we do. Qualia seem intrinsic and functionally arbitrary, and thus categorically private, because they are first-order sensory representations that are not themselves directly represented. Further, the representational architecture that on this account instantiates conscious subjectivity helps to generate the intuition of observerhood, since the phenomenal subject may be construed as outside, not within, experience. Once the seemings of private phenomenal facts and the observing subject are discounted, we can understand consciousness as a certain variety of neurally instantiated, behaviour controlling content, that constituted by an integrated representation of the organism in the world. Neuroscientific research suggests that consciousness and its characteristic behavioural capacities are supported by widely distributed but highly integrated neural processes involving communication between multiple functional sub- systems in the brain. This 'global workspace' may be the brain's physical realization of the representational architecture that constitutes consciousness. (shrink)

Synchronic and diachronic unity of consciousness and their in­terrelation pose interdisciplinary problems that can only be addressed by the combined means of philosophical and scien­tific theories. In the first part of the article the author briefly reviews psychological and materialistic accounts of personal identity. Historically these accounts were introduced to solve the problem of diachronic identity of persons, i.e., the problem of their persistence through time. She argues that they don’t explain how synchronic unity of consciousness, subjectively experienced (...) as the unity of the phenomenal field, correlates with diachronic identity of persons. In the second part of the article the author reviews Tim Bayne’s “virtual phenomenalism”. In the third part of the article she formulates two questions that virtual phenomenalism has to answer in order to solve the problems that face both the psychological and the materialistic accounts of personal identity. The first question concerns some cognitive and neurobiological characteristics of consciousness that Bayne invokes in order to propose an original solution of the problem of the synchronic unity of consciousness. It might be asked whether the same characteristics can undermine Bayne’s solution of the problem of the diachronic unity of consciousness. The second question is a development of Bernard Williams’ arguments against psychological accounts of personal identity. The author suggests that similar arguments can be used against virtual phenomenalism. (shrink)

Phenomenal intentionality is a kind of intentionality, or aboutness, that is grounded in phenomenal consciousness, the subjective, experiential feature of certain mental states. The phenomenal intentionality theory (PIT), is a theory of intentionality according to which there is phenomenal intentionality, and all other kinds of intentionality at least partly derive from it. In recent years, PIT has increasingly been seen as one of the main approaches to intentionality.

Some mental states seem to be "of" or "about" things, or to "say" something. For example, a thought might represent that grass is green, and a visual experience might represent a blue cup. This is intentionality. The aim of this book is to explain this phenomenon. -/- Once we understand intentionality as a phenomenon to be explained, rather than a posit in a theory explaining something else, we can see that there are glaring empirical and in principle difficulties with currently (...) popular tracking and functional role theories of intentionality, which aim to account for intentionality in terms of tracking relations and functional roles. -/- This book develops an alternative theory, the phenomenal intentionality theory (PIT), on which the source of intentionality is none other than phenomenal consciousness, the subjective, felt, or qualitative aspect of mental life. While PIT avoids the problems that plague tracking and functional role theories, it faces its own challenges in accounting for the rich and complex contents of thoughts and the contents of nonconscious states. In responding to these challenges, this book proposes a novel version of PIT, on which all intentionality is phenomenal intentionality, though we in some sense represent many non-phenomenal contents by ascribing them to ourselves. This book further argues that phenomenal consciousness is an intrinsic feature of mental life, resulting in a view that is radically internalistic in spirit: Our phenomenally represented contents are literally in our heads, and any non-phenomenal contents we in some sense represent are expressly targeted by us. (shrink)

Block seems to propose untested answers to empirical questions. Whether consciousness is a “mongrel problem,” rather than a single core fact with many facets, is an empirical issue. Likewise, the intimate relationship between personal consciousness and global access functions cannot be decided pretheoretically. This point is demonstrated by the reader's private experience of foveal versus parafoveal vision, and for conscious versus unconscious representation of the many meanings of common words.

Upshot: Douglas Robinson argues for a revision of the extended mind theory that incorporates intersubjectivity and qualia. Robinson argues that “material extendedness” is less important than accounting for the subjective experience of what he terms “body-becoming-mind,” and that this experience, rather than mere computational equivalence between intra- and transcranial cognition, is the strongest argument in favour of the EMT.

(for online upload) The readings in Investigating Phenomenal Consciousness (2000) were developed from an International Symposium on Methodologies for the Study of Consciousness: A new Synthesis,” that I organised in April, 1996, funded and hosted by the Fetzer Institute, Wisconsin, USA, with the aim of fostering the development of first-person methods that could be used in conjunction with already well-developed third-person methods for investigating phenomenal consciousness. In this Introduction, we briefly survey the state of the (...) art at that time, the reasons for a resurgence of interest in consciousness, the available methodologies, the reasons for increasing dissatisfaction with the adequacy of reductive third-person methods, various difficulties facing the development of rigorous first-person methods, and various creative approaches to solving these difficulties. Suggestions are also made about how to heal the fragmentation in consciousness studies, by placing different approaches to the study of consciousness into a broader context, establishing their domain of applicability and providing some bases for synthesis. (shrink)

This Target paper is about the hard problem of phenomenal consciousness (i.e., how is subjective experience possible given the scientific presumption that everything from molecules to minerals to minds is wholly physical?). I first argue that one of the most valuable tools in the scientific arsenal (metaphor) cannot be recruited to address the hard problem due to the inability to forge connections between the stubborn fact of subjective experience and physically grounded models of scientific explanation. I (...) then argue that adherence to the physicalist tenets of contemporary science has a limiting effect on a full appreciation of the phenomenon under discussion. (shrink)

The chief themes of this discussion are as follows. First, we need a theory of the grounds of moral status that could guide practical considerations regarding how to treat the wide range of potentially conscious entities with which we are acquainted – injured humans, cerebral organoids, chimeras, artificially intelligent machines, and non-human animals. I offer an account of phenomenal value that focuses on the structure and sophistication of phenomenally conscious states at a time and over time in the mental (...) lives of conscious subjects. Second, we need to map a theory of moral status onto practical considerations. I prefer the precautionary framework proposed by many, and fruitfully precisified recently by Birch. I have suggested that in addition to further discussion surrounding the evidential bar for attributing consciousness to different types of entities, more discussion is needed regarding how value and moral status may vary across different entity-types, and regarding the sources of value in an entity’s mental life. (shrink)

This paper concerns the role that reference to subjects of experience can play in individuating streams of consciousness, and the relationship between the subjective and the objective structure of consciousness. A critique of Tim Bayne’s recent book indicates certain crucial choices that works on the unity of consciousness must make. If one identifies the subject of experience with something whose consciousness is necessarily unified, then one cannot offer an account of the objective structure of (...) class='Hi'>consciousness. Alternatively, identifying the subject of experience with an animal means forgoing the conceptual connection between being a subject of experience and having a single phenomenal perspective. (shrink)

Phenomenal consciousness or the subjective experience of feeling sensory stimuli is fundamental to human existence. Because of the ubiquity of their subjective experiences, humans seem to readily accept the anthropomorphic extension of these mental states to other animals. Humans will typically extrapolate feelings of pain to animals if they respond physiologically and behaviourally to noxious stimuli. The alternative view that fish instead respond to noxious stimuli reflexly and with a limited behavioural repertoire is defended within the (...) context of our current understanding of the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of mental states. Consequently, a set of fundamental properties of neural tissue necessary for feeling pain or experiencing affective states in vertebrates is proposed. While mammals and birds possess the prerequisite neural architecture for phenomenal consciousness, it is concluded that fish lack these essential characteristics and hence do not feel pain. (shrink)

This article is about the special, subjective concepts we apply to experience, called “phenomenal concepts”. They are of special interest in a number of ways. First, they refer to phenomenal experiences, and the qualitative character of those experiences whose metaphysical status is hotly debated. Conscious experience strike many philosophers as philosophically problematic and difficult to accommodate within a physicalistic metaphysics. Second, PCs are widely thought to be special and unique among concepts. The sense that there is something (...) special about PCs is very closely tied up with features of the epistemic access they afford to qualia. When we deploy phenomenal concepts introspectively to some phenomenally conscious experience as it occurs, we are said to be acquainted with our own conscious experiences. Accounts of PCs either have to explain the acquaintance relation, or acquaintance with our phenomenal experiences has to be denied. PCs have received much attention in recent philosophy of mind mainly because they figure in arguments for dualism and in physicalist responses to these arguments. The main topic of this paper is to explore different accounts of phenomenal concepts and their role in recent debates over the metaphysical status of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

Both Block and the commentators who accepted his P versus A distinction readily recognize examples of P without A but not vice versa. As an example of A without P, Block hypothesized a computationally like a human but without subjectivity. This would appear to describe the disconnected right hemisphere of the split-brain subject, unless one alternatively opts for two parallel mechanisms for P?

In Feeling of Knowing cases, subjects have a form of consciousness about the presence of a content (such as an item of information) without having access to it. If this phenomenon can be correctly interpreted as having to do with consciousness, then there would be a P-conscious mental experience which is dissociated from access.