The Validation of Consciousness Meters: The Idiosyncratic and Intransitive Sequence of Conscious Levels

In this paper we describe a few interrelated issues for validating theories that posit levels of consciousness. First, validating levels of consciousness requires consensus about the ordering of conscious states, which cannot be easily achieved. This problem is particularly severe if we believe conscious states can be irreducibly smeared over time. Second, the relationship between conscious states is probably sometimes intransitive, which means levels of consciousness will not be amenable to a single continuous measure. Finally, even if a multidimensional approach to levels of consciousness is adopted, we argue that there are further problems for its validation.