Abstract

Does consciousness differ between and within entities? What then makes one conscious experience differ from another? That has been discussed for millennia, yet the more we learn about consciousness the more it seems the differences come from other aspects of our experiences than consciousness itself. Knowing whether consciousness has categories, is degreed or is binary, affects the way we model and look for signs of consciousness and possibly find better treatments for unresponsive patients. This paper (1) examines the two most common views on the variability of consciousness, the multidimensional view and the degreed view, in regards to how consciousness could vary, (2) identifies constricting aspects for both views indicating that the variability of consciousness itself isn’t really argued for in either view, and (3) argues that consciousness is binary by providing a schematic idea of what is needed for being conscious and consciousness.