Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (5):481--548 (2007)
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Abstract |
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 can see the problem in stark form if we ask how we could 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! The paper 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. The paper argues that we can find a neural realizer of this overflow if assume that the neural basis of phenomenal consciousness does not include the neural basis of cognitive accessibility and that this assumption is justified by the explanations it allows
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Keywords | consciousness attention |
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Reprint years | 2008 |
DOI | 10.1017/S0140525X07002786 |
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References found in this work BETA
The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory.David J. Chalmers - 1996 - Oxford University Press.
View all 238 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem.David Chalmers - 2019 - In William Seager (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism. New York: Routledge. pp. 353-373.
Perceptual Consciousness Overflows Cognitive Access.Ned Block - 2011 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15 (12):567-575.
Empirical Support for Higher-Order Theories of Conscious Awareness.Hakwan Lau & David Rosenthal - 2011 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15 (8):365-373.
Consciousness Cannot Be Separated From Function.Michael A. Cohen & Daniel C. Dennett - 2011 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 15 (8):358--364.
No-Report Paradigms: Extracting the True Neural Correlates of Consciousness.Naotsugu Tsuchiya, Melanie Wilke, Stefan Frässle & Victor A. F. Lamme - 2015 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 19 (12):757-770.
View all 266 citations / Add more citations
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