Theory Of Phenomenal Consciousness Research Articles

Phenomenal consciousness and moral status: taking the moral option

ABSTRACT Intuitively, there is a close link between moral status and phenomenal consciousness. Taking the link seriously can serve as the basis of a proposal that appears to have a surprising number of theoretical benefits. This proposal is the moral option, according to which moral status is partly determinative of phenomenal consciousness, and phenomenal consciousness is sufficient for possession of a moral property I refer to as “moral status.” I argue for this view on the basis of its ability to shed light on the distribution problem of determining which systems are phenomenally conscious. I explicate it by drawing on a theory of attributions of phenomenal consciousness, and considering its relationship to positions on the metaphysics of consciousness. I defend it against a series of objections, including three based on previous theories of the link between phenomenal consciousness and moral status. The moral option should, in my view, be a serious contender among theories of phenomenal consciousness.

A HOROR Theory for Introspective Consciousness

Higher-order theories of consciousness typically account for introspection in terms of one's higher-order thoughts being conscious, which would require a third-order thought — i.e.a thought about a thought about a mental state. In this work, we offer an alternative account of introspection that builds on the recent HigherOrder Representation of a Representation (HOROR) theory of phenomenal consciousness. According to HOROR theory, phenomenal consciousness consists in having the right kind of higher-order representation. We claim that this theory can be extended to introspection by recognizing that there is a distinctive kind of consciousness — i.e. introspective consciousness — which can be accounted for as the theory does for phenomenal consciousness generally. We call this novel view: Higher-Order Representation Intentionally For Introspective Consciousness (HORIFIC). We argue that there are independent reasons for thinking that introspective consciousness can be either 'stimuli-induced' or 'self-triggered' and that one of the benefits of the view we develop is that it can embrace a pluralist approach. Our view also accounts for what specific mental state is represented by a particular higher-order representation, and for the way in which we are aware of changes, transitions, and boundaries between mental states in specific cases of introspective consciousness.

Additional Resources for Sparse Theories of Phenomenal Consciousness

The phenomenal overflow debate is a debate about the richness of phenomenal consciousness. There are two candidate views: the rich view and the sparse view. The rich view says phenomenal consciousness outstrips access consciousness and the contents of working memory. The sparse view denies this. Moreover, according to some conceptions of the sparse view, the subjective impression of richness depends on scene statistics and the refrigerator-light illusion. The purpose of this paper is to show there are additional resources available to the sparse view in accommodating intuitions of richness that have yet to be fully appreciated by participants in the debate. To this end, research pertaining to feature binding and activity-silent working memory will be discussed.

Deceptive worlds, skepticism, and axiarchism

ABSTRACT Axiarchism holds that fundamental concrete reality is necessarily ordered toward goodness. I argue that it is not fully rational to reject axiarchism while also rejecting radical skepticism. A key premise in the argument is that among conceivable worlds that contain one’s internal duplicate, ‘epistemically inhospitable’ worlds (i.e. worlds where all or most of one’s internal duplicates are radically deceived) are predominant. This predominance of inhospitable worlds provides a prima facie reason for thinking that the actual world is probably inhospitable. To avoid skepticism, this prima facie support for inhospitableness must be countered by a good reason to think that the actual world is probably epistemically hospitable. I argue that opponents of axiarchism lack any such reason. I consider various non-axiarchic ways of dismissing the inhospitable world hypothesis, including appeals to simplicity considerations and to a certain ‘representationalist’ theory of phenomenal consciousness, and find them wanting.

Neural Computations Underlying Phenomenal Consciousness: A Higher Order Syntactic Thought Theory.

Problems are raised with the global workspace hypothesis of consciousness, for example about exactly how global the workspace needs to be for consciousness to suddenly be present. Problems are also raised with Carruthers’s (2019) version that excludes conceptual (categorical or discrete) representations, and in which phenomenal consciousness can be reduced to physical processes, with instead a different levels of explanation approach to the relation between the brain and the mind advocated. A different theory of phenomenal consciousness is described, in which there is a particular computational system involved in which Higher Order Syntactic Thoughts are used to perform credit assignment on first order thoughts of multiple step plans to correct them by manipulating symbols in a syntactic type of working memory. This provides a good evolutionary reason for the evolution of this kind of computational module, with which, it is proposed, phenomenal consciousness is associated. Some advantages of this HOST approach to phenomenal consciousness are then described with reference not only to the global workspace approach, but also to Higher Order Thought (HOT) theories. It is hypothesized that the HOST system which requires the ability to manipulate first order symbols in working memory might utilize parts of the prefrontal cortex implicated in working memory, and especially the left inferior frontal gyrus, which is involved in language and probably syntactical processing. Overall, the approach advocated is to identify the computations that are linked to consciousness, and to analyze the neural bases of those computations.

Downgraded phenomenology: how conscious overflow lost its richness.

Our in-the-moment experience of the world can feel vivid and rich, even when we cannot describe our experience due to limitations of attention, memory or other cognitive processes. But the nature of visual awareness is quite sparse, as suggested by the phenomena of failures of awareness, such as change blindness and inattentional blindness. I will argue that once failures of memory or failures of comparison are ruled out as explanations for these phenomena, they present strong evidence against rich awareness. To accommodate and explain these massive failures of awareness, any theory of phenomenal consciousness must downgrade phenomenology to a degree where it is functionless or, ironically, does not reflect what we experience.This article is part of the theme issue 'Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access'.

Schelling und der Selbstrepräsentationalismus über phänomenales Bewusstsein

Abstract This paper explores Schelling’s theory of phenomenal consciousness in the System of Transcendental Idealism. It is shown that Schelling’s description and explanation of phenomenal consciousness is in accord with contemporary self-representationalist accounts of phenomenal consciousness. Thus, it is argued that Schelling develops a self-representationalist approach of phenomenal consciousness. Furthermore, it is demonstrated on the basis of Schelling’s account that analytic self-representationalism fails to completely explain phenomenal consciousness. Finally, however, a fundamental critique of Schelling’s theory of phenomenal consciousness is presented. Thus the central theses of the paper are, on the one hand, that Schelling is of systematic importance for contemporary debates, on the other hand, that his account is not convincing.

Anti-Individualism and Perceptual Representation: Interview With Tyler Burge

Tyler Burge's anti-individualism – the view that individuating many of a creature's mental kinds is necessarily dependent on relations that the creature bears to the physical, or in some cases social, environment – backs his theory of perceptual representation, i.e. perceptual anti-individualism. Perceptual anti-individualism articulates a framework that, according to Burge, perceptual psychology assumed without articulation. In this interview, Burge talks about the main tenets and underpinnings of perceptual anti-individualism in relation to classic representational theories of perceptual experience, reductive theories of mental content, theories of phenomenal consciousness, and other associated topics.

The ontology of creature consciousness: A challenge for philosophy

I appeal to Merker's theory to motivate a hypothesis about the ontology of consciousness: Creature consciousness is (at least partially) constitutive of phenomenal consciousness. Rather than elaborating theories of phenomenal consciousness couched solely in terms of state consciousness, as philosophers are fond of doing, a correct approach to phenomenal consciousness should begin with an account of creature consciousness.

An Argument Against Dispositionalist HOT Theory

In this paper we present a two-stage argument against Peter Carruthers’ theory of phenomenal consciousness. The first stage shows that Carruthers’ main argument against first-order representational theories of phenomenal consciousness applies with equal force against his own theory. The second stage shows that if Carruthers can escape his own argument against first-order theories, it will come at the cost of wedding his theory to certain unwelcome implausibilities. §1 discusses Carruthers’ argument against first-order representationalism. §2 presents Carruthers’ theory of consciousness. §3 presents our argument against Carruthers’ theory. §4 sums up.

Suffering without subjectivity

This paper argues that it is possible for suffering to occur in the absence of phenomenal consciousness – in the absence of a certain sort of experiential subjectivity, that is. (‘‘Phenomenal’’ consciousness is the property that some mental states possess, when it is like something to undergo them, or when they have subjective feels, or possess qualia.) So even if theories of phenomenal consciousness that would withhold such consciousness from most species of non-human animal are correct, this needn’t mean that those animals don’t suffer, and aren’t appropriate objects of sympathy and concern.

PANIC theory and the prospects for a representational theory of phenomenal consciousness

Michael Tye has recently argued that the phenomenal character of conscious experiences is "one and the same as" (1) Poised (2) (3) Non-conceptual (4) Intentional Content (PANIC). Tye argues extensively that PANIC Theory accounts for differences in phenomenal character in representational terms. But another task of a theory of phenomenal consciousness is to account for the difference between those mental states that have phenomenal character at all and those that do not. By going through each of the four qualifiers of PANIC, we argue that PANIC Theory fails to account for this difference in genuinely representational terms. We suggest, furthermore, that the reasons it fails are likely to be endemic to all representational theories of phenomenal consciousness.

Consciousness as action: The eliminativist sirens are calling

The sensorimotor theory of vision successfully blends in with the currently developing action-oriented account of cognition. As a theory of phenomenal consciousness, however, it suffers from the same shortcomings as the theories O'Regan & Noë (O&N) criticize. This is mainly due to the failure to avoid the explanatory gap by rejecting one notion of qualia while retaining the concept of experience with qualitative features in general.

Consciousness, higher-order thought, and stimulus reinforcement

Rolls defends a higher-order thought theory of phenomenal consciousness, mapping the distinction between conscious and non-conscious states onto a distinction between two types of action and corresponding neural pathways. Only one type of action involves higher-order thought and consequently consciousness. This account of consciousness has implausible consequences for the nature of stimulus-reinforcement learning.