Difference between revisions of "Conscious Experience"

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;Definition: We define ''conscious experience'' to refer to the totality of impressions, feelings, thoughts, perceptions, etc. which an experiencing subject lives through at a particular instant of time.
 
;Definition: We define ''conscious experience'' to refer to the totality of impressions, feelings, thoughts, perceptions, etc. which an experiencing subject lives through at a particular instant of time.
  
The definition is thus relative to experiencing subjects and the reference changes with time.
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The definition is thus relative to experiencing subjects and the reference changes with time. Another, possibly more useful way of stating the same idea would be:<ref>Van Gulick, ''Understanding the Phenomenal Mind: Are We all Just Armadillos?'', 1993</ref>
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;Definition: Phenomenal experience is not merely a succession of qualitatively distinguished sensory ideas, but rather the organized cognitive experience of a world of objects and of ourselves as subject within that world.
  
 
== Relation to other connotations of consciousness ==
 
== Relation to other connotations of consciousness ==

Revision as of 11:18, 22 August 2020

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Various different connotation of consciousness exist, cf. the page on consciousness. This page provides a general definition of conscious experience and seeks to describe the relation to other connotation of consciousness. The general definition is inspired by the phenomenological reading of phenomenal consciousness.

Definition

In informal terms, the goal of the following definition is to refer to the totality of how "the world" appears to us at a particular instant of time. One could also paraphrase this as referring to how we find ourselves at a particular instant of time, or as referring to the experience which reveals itself at a particular instant of time. 'Instant' can be taken as a variable that refers either to a psychological or to a physical conception thereof.

Definition
We define conscious experience to refer to the totality of impressions, feelings, thoughts, perceptions, etc. which an experiencing subject lives through at a particular instant of time.

The definition is thus relative to experiencing subjects and the reference changes with time. Another, possibly more useful way of stating the same idea would be:[1]

Definition
Phenomenal experience is not merely a succession of qualitatively distinguished sensory ideas, but rather the organized cognitive experience of a world of objects and of ourselves as subject within that world.

Relation to other connotations of consciousness

The following sections mirror the distinctions of the various concepts on the page consciousness.

Conscious perception of a stimulus

Conscious mechanism

Phenomenal consciousness

General

Chalmers definition

Access consciousness

Conscious and unconscious processing

Qualia

Level of consciousness

  1. Van Gulick, Understanding the Phenomenal Mind: Are We all Just Armadillos?, 1993