To demonstrate that a fallacy is committed, Block needs to convince us of two things: first, that the concept of phenomenal consciousness is distinct from that of access consciousness, and second, that it picks out a different property from that of access consciousness. I raise doubt about both of these claims, suggesting that the concept of a phenomenal property is the concept of a property to which we have a special sort of access.

Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different "consciousnesses." Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state. The mark of access-consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning and rationally guiding speech and action. These concepts are often partly or totally conflated, with bad results. This target article uses as an example a form of reasoning about a function of "consciousness" based on (...) the phenomenon of blindsight. Some information about stimuli in the blind field is represented in the brains of blindsight patients, as shown by their correct "guesses," but they cannot harness this information in the service of action, and this is said to show that a function of phenomenal consciousness is somehow to enable information represented in the brain to guide action. But stimuli in the blind field are BOTH access-unconscious and phenomenally unconscious. The fallacy is: an obvious function of the machinery of access-consciousness is illicitly transferred to phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

With some help from the commentators, a few adjustments to the characterizations of A-consciousness and P-consciousness can avoid some trivial cases of one without the other. But it still seems that the case for the existence of P without A is stronger than that for A without P. If indeed there can be P without A, but not A without P, this would be a remarkable result that would need explanation.

Additional experiments show that P-consciousness and A consciousness can be empirically dissociated for the theoretically so phisticated observer. Phenomenal consciousness can have several degrees that are indirectly measurable.

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.

Although information-processing theories cannot provide a full explanatory account of P-consciousness, there is less conflation and confusion in cognitive psychology than Block suspects. Some of the reasoning that Block criticises can be interpreted plausibly in the light of a folk psychological view of the relation between P-consciousness and A-consciousness.

Block's distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness is accepted, and it is agreed that one may be found without the other, but his account of the distinction is challenged. Phenomenal consciousness is perceptual consciousness, and it is a matter of gaining information of a detailed, nonverbal sort about the subject's body and environment. Access consciousness is good, old-fashioned introspection.

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.

Some cases of prosopagnosia involve a highly circumscribed loss of A-consciousness. When seen in this way they offer further support for the arguments made in Block's target article.

Block has attempted to reduce the confusion and controversy concerning the term “consciousness” by suggesting that there are two forms or types of consciousness, each of which has several characteristics or properties. This suggestion appears to further becloud the topic, however. Perhaps consciousness cannot be defined adequately and should not be considered as a topic that can be studied scientifically.

Blocks distinction between “phenomenal feel” consciousness and “thought/cognition” consciousness is a cultural construction. Consciousness (and its “subspecies”) is not a natural kind. Some crosscultural data are presented to support this.

It is argued that there is no fallacy in the reasoning in the example of the thirsty blindsight subject, on one reconstruction of that reasoning. Neither the case of orgasm nor the case of a visual versus an auditory experience as of something overheard shows that phenomenal content is not representational.

In this paper, it is argued that “higher states of consciousness”–or mystical experiences–have two main sources: they can be caused by a disruption of the normal homeostasis of the human organism and also by an intensification of the “consciousness-energy” that constitutes our being. . The author investigates examples of both types of experience, and compares and contrasts them. It is concluded that the second type of experience is the only one which is truly positive and which can become a fully (...) integrated and permanent higher state of consciousness. (shrink)

In response to widespread doubts among professional philosophers (Russell, Horwich, Dietrich, McGinn, Chalmers), Stoljar argues for a ‘reasonable optimism’ about progress in philosophy. He defends the large and surprising claim that ‘there is progress on all or reasonably many of the big questions.’ However, Stoljar’s caveats and admitted avoidance of historical evidence permits overlooking persistent controversies in philosophy of mind and cognitive science that are essentially unchanged since the 17th Century. Stoljar suggests that his claims are commonplace in philosophy departments (...) and, indeed, the evidence I adduce constitutes an indictment of the widely shared view among professional analytic philosophers. (shrink)

If phenomenal consciousness is distinct from the computationally based access-consciousness that controls overt behavior, how can I tell which things (other than myself) enjoy phenomenal consciousness? And if phenomenal consciousness 'plays no role in controlling overt behavior, how do human bodies come to write target articles arguing for the existence of phenomenal consciousness?

Block's P-/A-consciousness distinction rules out P's involving a specific kind of cognitive access and commits him to a “strong” Pconsciousness. This not only confounds plausible research in the area but betrays an anosognosia about Wittgenstein's diagnosis about our philosophical “introspection” of mysterious inner processes.

I criticize Block's examples of P-consciousness and A-consciousness for being flawed and the notion of A-consciousness for not being a notion of consciousness at all. I argue that an empirically important distinction can be made between behavior that is supported by an underlying conscious experience and behavior that is brought about by nonconscious action-control mechanisms. This distinction is different from that made by Block.

A-consciousness may be regarded as the visibility of information that is the output of a process within a community of other processes. The most prominent function of “public” dissemination of information is giving access to it to processes whose relevance is not clear at the moment of dissemination. The function of P-consciousness may be outside the realm of cognition.

In response to the objection that his “access-consciousness” is not really consciousness but a matter of the availability of certain information for certain kinds of processing, Block will probably have to argue that consciousness in a more basic, familiar, traditional sense is an essential component of any instance of access-consciousness and thus justifies the name.

In common sense consciousness has a fairly determinate content – the (single) way an experience feels, the (single) line of thought being consciously followed. The determinacy of the object may be achieved by linking Block's two concepts, so that as long as we hold on to the determinacy of content we are unable to separate P and A.

Wenn überhaupt in einem Gebiet Wahrheit und Existenz unabhängig von unseren Erkenntnisfähigkeiten sind, dann in der Metaphysik – etwa bei der Frage, ob es Gott gibt oder eine Seele, die unseren Tod überdauert. Die metaphysica specialis schreit geradezu nach metaphysischem Realismus und dem zugehörigen Wahrheitsbegriff. Von diesem Ausgangspunkt gerät man allerdings schnell in Verlegenheit, wenn man fragt: Nach welchen Kriterien sollen wir uns richten, wenn wir uns über Gott oder Unsterblichkeit ein Urteil bilden wollen? Mit den Mitteln der Naturwissenschaft und (...) deren rationaler Methodologie (in der es um Empirie, Einfachheit, Sparsamkeit usw. geht) kommen wir bei Themen wie Gott oder Unsterblichkeit immer nur bis zum Patt. Genauso steht es bei der Frage, ob wir in unseren Entscheidungen frei sind. Urteilsenthaltung können wir uns nicht erlauben, dafür sind die metaphysischen Fragen zu wichtig; Auslosen kommt auch nicht infrage. Statt erkenntnistheoretisch zu kapitulieren, schlage ich programmatisch vor, die Erkenntnislehre auf weichere Weise weiterzubetreiben. Emotion, Intuition, Moral – das sind einige der zusätzlichen außerrationalen Hilfsmittel, mit deren Hilfe wir weiterkommen können. Ich zeige, dass diese Hilfsmittel respektabler und gewichtiger sind, als kühle, rationale Erkenntnistheoretiker zugeben wollen. Diese Hilfsmittel führen zu guten Postulaten aus Unvernunft (und zwar nicht nur in der Metaphysik). Wie schlimm es für den Realismus ist, dass diese Postulate immer noch falsch sein könnten, diese Frage werde ich im vorliegenden Aufsatz nicht mehr klären. (shrink)

Block contends that the concept of consciousness is a mongrel concept and that researchers go astray by conflating different notions of “consciousness.” This is certainly true. In fact, it is truer than Block acknowledges, because his own notion of P-consciousness runs together two, or arguably three, quite different and separable features of a sensory state.

The information processing that constitutes accessconsciousness is not sufficient to make a representational state conscious in any sense. Standard examples of computation without consciousness undermine A-consciousness, and Block's cases seem to derive their plausibility from a lurking phenomenal awareness. That is, people and other minded systems seem to have access-consciousness only insofar as the state accessed is a phenomenal one, or the state resulting from access is phenomenal, or both.

Basically agreeing with Block regarding the need for a distinction between P- and A-consciousness, I characterize the problem somewhat diflerently, relating it more directly to the explanatory gap. I also speculate on the relation between the two forms of consciousness, arguing that some notion of access is essentially involved in phenomenal experience.

Block's cases of superblindsight, the pneumatic drill, and the Sperling experiments do not show that P-consciousness and Aconsciousness can come apart. On certain tendentious but not implausible construals of the concepts of P- and A-consciousness, they refer to the same psychological phenomenon.

This commentary offers two criticisms of Block's account of phenomenal consciousness and a brief sketch of a rival account. The negative points are that monitoring consciousness also involves the possession of certain states and that phenomenal consciousness inevitably involves some sort of monitoring. My positive suggestion is that “phenomenal consciousness” may refer to our ability to monitor the rich but preconceptual states that retain perceptual information for complex processing.

One can share Block's aim of distinguishing “phenomenal” experience from cognitive function and agree with much in his views, yet hold that the inclusion of representational content within phenomenal content, if only in certain spatial cases, obscures this distinction. It may also exclude some modular theories, although it is interestingly suggestive of what may be the limits of the phenomenal penetration of the representational mind.

In English we use the word “invention” in two ways. First, to mean a new device or process developed by experimentation, and designed to fulfill a practical goal. Second, to mean a mental fabrication, especially a falsehood, designed to please or persuade. In this paper I argue that human consciousness is an invention in both respects. First, it is a cognitive faculty, evolved by natural selection, designed to help us make sense of ourselves and our surroundings. But then, second, it (...) is a fantasy, conjured up by the brain, designed to change the value we place on our existence. (shrink)

Block's notion of P-consciousness catches too much in its net. He would do better to exclude all states that do not have a sensory component. I question what he says about my work with the “blind” monkey, Helen.

A “fallacy” is something like the sense-datum fallacy, involving a logically invalid argument. A “conflation” is something like Block's conflation of the (alleged) raw feel of an experience with what it is like to have the experience. Trivially, a self is conscious of something only if it accesses it. Substantive issues concern the nature of the conscious self and the nature of access.

Should we distinguish between access and phenomenal consciousness? Block says yes and that various pathologies of consciousness support and clarify the distinction. The commentary charge that the distinction is neither supported nor clarified by the clinical data. It recommends an alternative reading of the data and urges Block to clarify the distinction.

Although not the main point of his target article, Block defends the view that perception and awareness of perception could be functions of different brain systems. I will argue that the available data do not support this view, and that Block's defense of the view rests on problematic eonstruals of the “executive system” and of the components of information-processing models.

Propositions as to the nature of consciousness, based on disorders of perception that result from brain damage, and taking insufficient account of the numerous ways in which normal subjects may deviate from that “usual” sequence of events (input → subjective awareness → output) risk increasing rather than diminishing any existing confusion about the function of consciousness.

This entry concerns dualism in the philosophy of mind. The term ‘dualism’ has a variety of uses in the history of thought. In general, the idea is that, for some particular domain, there are two fundamental kinds or categories of things or principles. In theology, for example a ‘dualist’ is someone who believes that Good and Evil — or God and the Devil — are independent and more or less equal forces in the world. Dualism contrasts with monism, which is (...) the theory that there is only one fundamental kind, category of thing or principle; and, rather less commonly, with pluralism, which is the view that there are many kinds or categories. In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the theory that the mental and the physical — or mind and body or mind and brain — are, in some sense, radically different kinds of thing. Because common sense tells us that there are physical bodies, and because there is intellectual pressure towards producing a unified view of the world, one could say that materialist monism is the ‘default option’. Discussion about dualism, therefore, tends to start from the assumption of the reality of the physical world, and then to consider arguments for why the mind cannot be treated as simply part of that world. (shrink)

Qualitative states are no threat to physicalism. They have a causal effect upon the world in virtue of their qualitative nature. This effect is exploited in biological mechanisms for representing the world. Representation requires differential responsiveness to different perceived properties of things. Qualia are taken to be tagged properties of internal representation models. These properties are properties for-the-organism. Such for-the-organism properties are to be expected in beings which perceive the world and interact with it intelligently. Consciousness presents a problem for (...) science. Human beings are conscious of the world and of themselves. In so far as science has the ambition of explaining everything consciousness is another unexplained phenomenon. However some claim that it is distinctive and different in kind from other problems which science hopes to solve using methods which have been successful up until now. It may indeed be so different that we have to adopt a dualistic metaphysics and accept that there is more to the world than physics knows. In this paper I intend to outline how the physicalist should fight back. (shrink)

The identity of conscious states and brain states must remain a mystery until we find a way of characterising both sides of the equation in terms that have the same ‘dimensions’. In this paper I stress the need for ‘dual currency concepts’ that not only are but can be seen to be as appropriate for talking about, say, the experience of pain as for talking about the corresponding working of the brain. In the light of evolutionary theory I make a (...) radically new proposal for what the common dimension is, centred on the idea of ‘authorship’. (shrink)

Among worldviews, in addition to the options of materialist atheism, pantheism and personal theism, there exists a fourth, “local emergentism”. It holds that there are no gods, nor does the universe overall have divine aspects or any purpose. But locally, in our region of space and time, the properties of matter have given rise to entities which are completely different from matter in kind and to a degree god-like: consciousnesses with rational powers and intrinsic worth. The emergentist option is compared (...) with the standard alternatives and the arguments for and against it are laid out. It is argued that, among options in the philosophy of religion, it involves the minimal reworking of the manifest image of common sense. Hence it deserves a place at the table in arguments as to the overall nature of the universe. (shrink)