Conscious Experience

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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.

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

Chalmerian phenomenal consciousness

Access consciousness

Conscious and unconscious processing

Qualia

Level of consciousness