The question of whether phenomenal consciousness is limited to the capacity of cognitive access remains a contentious issue in philosophy. Overflow theorists argue that the capacity of conscious experience outstrips the capacity of cognitive access. This paper demonstrates a resolution to the overflow debate is found in acknowledging a difference in phenomenological timing required by both sides. It makes clear that the “no overflow” view requires subjects to, at the bare minimum, generate an unconscious visual image of previously presented items (...) if it is to explain performance in the change detection paradigm. It then demonstrates that conscious imagery should support better task performance than unconscious imagery because of a necessary difference in representational strength. However, this contradicts empirical findings, and so a new argument for overflow is presented without requiring the premise that subjects need to obtain a specific phenomenology of presented items during change detection. (shrink)

Phillips argues that Block faces a “serious internal challenge” in defending the claim that unconscious perception is of the same fundamental kind as conscious perception. This challenge is said to result from Block’s commitment to phenomenal overflow. However, in this paper, I demonstrate that Phillips’ rejection of overflow likewise renders his view on unconscious perception “internally challenged” and therefore equally problematic.