A number of philosophers endorse, without argument, the view that there’s something it’s like consciously to think that p, which is distinct from what it’s like consciously to think that q. This thesis, if true, would have important consequences for philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In this paper I offer an argument for it, and attempt to induce examples of it in the reader. The argument claims it would be impossible introspectively to distinguish conscious thoughts with respect to their (...) content if there weren’t something it’s like to think them. This argument is defended against several objections. Then I use what I call “minimal pair” experiences—sentences read without and with understanding—to induce in the reader an experience of the kind I claim exists. Further objections are considered and rebutted. (shrink)

How can we disentangle the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness from the neural machinery of the cognitive access that underlies reports of phenomenal consciousness? We see the problem in stark form if we ask how we can tell whether representations inside a Fodorian module are phenomenally conscious. The methodology would seem straightforward: Find the neural natural kinds that are the basis of phenomenal consciousness in clear cases – when subjects are completely confident and we have no reason to doubt their (...) authority – and look to see whether those neural natural kinds exist within Fodorian modules. But a puzzle arises: Do we include the machinery underlying reportability within the neural natural kinds of the clear cases? If the answer is “Yes,” then there can be no phenomenally conscious representations in Fodorian modules. But how can we know if the answer is “Yes”? The suggested methodology requires an answer to the question it was supposed to answer! This target article argues for an abstract solution to the problem and exhibits a source of empirical data that is relevant, data that show that in a certain sense phenomenal consciousness overflows cognitive accessibility. I argue that we can find a neural realizer of this overflow if we assume that the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness does not include the neural basis of cognitive accessibility and that this assumption is justified (other things being equal) by the explanations it allows. (shrink)

The distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness arises from the battle between biological and computational approaches to the mind. If P = A, the computationalists are right; but if not, the biological nature of P yields its scientific nature.

Suppose someone hears a loud noise and at the same time sees a yellow flash. It seems hard to deny that the person can experience loudness and yellowness together. However, since loudness is experienced by the auditory sense whereas yellowness is experienced by the visual sense it also seems hard to explain how.

P-Consciousness is to be understood in terms of an immediate fluctuating continuum that is a presentation of raw experiential matter against which A-consciousness acts to objectify, impose form or make determinate “thinkable” contents. A representationalises P but P is not itself representational, at least in terms of some concepts of “representation.” Block's arguments fall short of establishing that P is representational and, given the sort of cognitive science assumptions he is working with, he is unable to account for the aspect (...) of phenomenal content that he thinks goes beyond “representational” content. BBS discussion reveals the need for greater analysis and justification for a representationalist thesis of P. (shrink)

P/A (Block's phenomenal/access) confounds a logical distinction with an empirical claim. Success of P/A in its logical role has almost no bearing on its plausibility as an empirical thesis (i.e., that two kinds of consciousness exist). The advantage of P/A over a single-consciousness assumption is unclear, but one of Block's analogies for P (liquid in a hydraulic computer) may be used to clarify the notion of consciousness as cognitive “hardware.”.

Block explains the conflation of phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness by appeal to the ambiguity of the term “consciousness.” However, the nature of ambiguity is not at all clear, and the thesis that “consciousness” is ambiguous between phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness is far from obvious. Moreover, the conflation can be explained without supposing that the term is ambiguous. Block's argument can thus be strengthened by avoiding controversial issues in the semantics of “consciousness.”.

Is it possible to build a conscious machine, an artifact that has qualitative experiences such as feeling pain, seeing the redness of a flower or enjoying the taste of coffee ? What makes such experiences conscious is their phenomenal character: it is like something to have such experiences. In contemporary philosophy of mind, the question of the qualitative aspect of conscious experiences is often addressed in terms of qualia. In a pre-theoretical and intuitive sense, qualia refer to the phenomenal character (...) or “what-it’s-like-ness” of a conscious experience: the painfulness of a pain experience or the redness of a visual experience of a red object. The problem of artificial qualia is the question of the theoretical possibility of the realization of qualia by artifacts. In this work, this problem will serve as a methodological tool to address what is arguably the most fundamental question of philosophy of mind: what exactly is consciousness? (shrink)