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{{note|This page has not yet reached minimally viable contentis an initial draft and needs to be improved and extended. Please You're cordially invited to help improve the page and remove this note when appropriatedoing so.}}This page lists various connotations of the term "consciousness" in use in scientific research today. The fact that so many different conceptions of this term are being applied highlights the striking contrast between the conceptual exposition and the familiarity of consciousness.<ref name="MetzingerLexikon">Metzinger, Encyclopedia entry ''Bewusstsein'', 2008</ref>

The fact that so many different conceptions of this term are being applied highlights the striking contrast between the conceptual exposition and the familiarity of consciousness.<ref name="MetzingerLexikon">Metzinger, Encyclopedia entry ''Bewusstsein'', 2009, in H.-J. Sandkühler (Editor), ''Enzyklopädie der Philosophie''. Hamburg: Meiner. </ref> Some of the distinctions below are from inspired by (Metzinger, 20082009).<ref name="MetzingerLexikon"/>

=== Unary predicate of organisms individual beings ===

''Example:'' Consciousness in this sense could refer to whether a person is in a state of [[consciousness#wakefullnessWakefulness|wakefulness]], cf. below.

This is closely related to [[consciousness#Access consciousness|access consciousness]], cf. below.

According to a second general variant of the unary predicate of mental states connotation of consciousnessconception, mental states are conscious ''if we experience'' [[consciousness#'What it is like to be' consciousness|what it is like to be]] in the respective state, or ''alternatively'' if ''there is something'' [[what consciousness#'What it is like to be' consciousness|it is like to be]] in that state. A third, closely related but distinct notion would be to define a mental state as conscious if we ''know '' of the mental state's qualitative features ("Kenntnis der Erlebnisqualitäten" in German<ref name="MetzingerLexikon"/>).

=== Binary predicate of organisms individual beings ===

The term "conscious" is also being used as a binary predicate, i.e. a predicate which takes two "variables". In one way of using the term, one of the variables refers to individual beings such as persons or organisms, and the other refers to objects of perception or thinking, cf. [[add LINKconsciousness#Consciousness in the intentional sense|consciousness in the intentional sense]]below.

This is the case, e.g., if "consciousness" is taken to denote the [[attention]] of a person on his/her own mental states. Cf. [[add LINKconsciousness#Introspective consciousness|introspective consciousness]]or [[consciousness#Attentive consciousness|attentive consciousness]] below.

In what follows, we aim to list and distinguish the various types of meaning of the term "consciousness" that are being considered in the literature. Many While many overlap in their respective meaning or reference to some extent, it is important to note that they are all different when it comes to details. A few have already been mentioned above as examples Thus a theory or empirical study which addresses one of the various logical structuresthem may be misleading if interpreted to apply to another.

The above is defines a binary predicate referring to subjects, on the one hand, and phenomenal properties (<math>p</math>) on the other. It  Alternatively, access consciousness can be defined as a unary predicate referring to mental states, where a mental state is (access) conscious if its content is available for rational thought and control of behavior. Intentional mental states can be conscious according to this conception, but also beliefs or sensory states such as sensations.<ref name="MetzingerLexikon" />

;Definition: "Introspective consciousness is a perception-like awareness of current states and activities in our own mind. The current activities will include sense-perception, which (...) is the awareness of current states and activities of our environment and our body."<refname="Guel">Güven Güzeldere; ''Is consciousness the perception of what passes in one's own mind?'', 1995, citing Amstrong D. ''The nature of mind and other essays'', 1980.</ref>

== Conscious mechanism Attentive consciousness ==Some publications talk about a brain ''mechanism'' being conscious or not. This may be taken to implicitly refer to the [[neural correlates of consciousness]] (NCC), where a mechanism "is conscious" if it is part of the NCC.

The term consciousness is also used to describe a person being [[attention|attentionally]] aware of her mental states.<ref name== Attention =="MetzingerLexikon" /> Consciousness understood in this sense can be both pre-conceptual or conceptually structured. This conception is related to [[consciousness#introspective consciousness|introspective consciousness]] as well as to higher order knowledge of one's own mental states.

This connotation of consciousness can be both pre-conceptual or conceptual<ref name="MetzingerLexikon" />.  == 'What it is like to be ' consciousness ==Cf. the page [[what it is like to be]]. This can be applied, e.g., to mental states: Mental states are conscious ''if we experience'' [[what it is like to be]] in the respective state, or ''alternatively'' if ''there is something'' [[what it is like to be|it is like to be]] in that state. A third, closely related but distinct notion would be to define a mental state as conscious if we know of the mental state's qualitative features ("Kenntnis der Erlebnisqualitäten" in German<ref name="MetzingerLexikon"/>).

=== Intentionality General definition ===The general sense of the term from phenomenology, cf. the page [[Phenomenal_consciousness#Meaning from phenomenology|phenomenal consciousness, meaning from phenomenology]].

This connotation of consciousness includes both pre-conceptual [[attention]] of external objects or states of one's body, as well as conceptually structured consciousness of objects (e.g. == Consciousness in a description).<ref namethe intentional sense =="MetzingerLexikon" /> It is an ''intentional'' notion of consciousness, as according to this notion, consciousness is always about something.

=== Chalmers' axiomatization ===A notion defined Consciousness in (Chalmers 1996)<ref>Chalmers, David J. The conscious mind: In search the intentional sense refers to the relation of a fundamental theoryperson with objects of perception or thinking. Oxford university pressThis connotation of consciousness includes both pre-conceptual [[attention]] of external objects or states of one's body, 1996as well as conceptually structured consciousness of objects (e.g. in a description).<ref name="MetzingerLexikon" /ref>It is an ''intentional'' notion of consciousness because according to this notion, cf. [[Phenomenal_consciousness#Chalmers' definition|phenomenal consciousness - Chalmers' definition]]is always about something.

=== Pure subjective experience ===This can roughly be paraphrased as "pure subjectiveexperience"<ref>Thomas Metzinger. The problem of consciousness. In Thomas Metzinger, editor, Con-scious experience, pages 3–37. Imprint Academic, 1995.</ref>

Similar to the [[consciousness#conscious mechanism|conscious mechanism]] conception of consciousness, some papers distinguish conscious (neural) processing from unconscious (neural) processing. This can probably also be fleshed out in terms of the [[neural correlate of consciousness]] and seems to be intimately bound to the [[consciousness#conscious perception of a stimulus|conscious perception of a stimulus]] conception of consciousness. == System State vs. creature consciousness == Creature consciousness,<ref>Rosenthal, ''Why are verbally expressed thoughts conscious?'', 1990.</ref> also called ''individual consciousness'',<ref name="Guel" /> refers to the [[consciousness#wakefulness|wakefulness]] conception of consciousness when applied to individual beings. State consciousness generally denotes a notion of consciousness which is a [[consciousness#unary predicate of mental states|unary predicate of mental states]].It thus "classifies one's (mental) states as of one type or another"<ref name="Guel"/> and "functions as a type-identifier for mental states". It is likely that here, too, (Rosenthal, 2002)<ref>Rosenthal, ''Explaining Consciousness'', 2002.</ref> and (Güzeldere, 1995)<ref name="Guel"/> refer to the [[consciousness#wakefulness|wakefulness]] conception of consciousness, though it can be interpreted also to refer to some of the other connotations of consciousness introduced above.

The term consciousness is often used to denote a person/organism being in a state of wakefulness, capable of processing and reacting to stimuli.This is also circumscribed by the terms "awake" and "alert".<ref name="Guel"/>

There are many different connotations of qualia, some of which can be applied to several different connotations of the term consciousness. Cf. the page [[qualia]].

This conception of consciousness is utilized in formal model building, such as [[Integrated Information Theory]]. There are at least two different conceptions thereof. === Of ... of an individual being === The first conception is a further development of the [[consciousness#wakefulness|wakefulness]] conception of conscious experience. Whereas the latter is a predicate, i.e. a function symbol which takes values <math>0</math> or <math>1</math>, depending on whether an individual being is conscious in this sense or not, the level of consciousness conception of consciousness attempts to introduce more fine-grained distinctions. It describes various different states of consciousness (of an individual being as a whole), including coma, sleep, drowsiness and full wakefulness, among many others. The individual being conception of the level of consciousness is often modeled as a real number, with a lower number indicating a lower state of consciousness of the person/organism/system ===in question. However, it is questionable whether this mathematical structure is appropriate. If one demands a operational grounding of the mathematical structure, a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preorder preorder] might be more appropriate.

=== Of The level of consciousness conception can arguably also be applied to constituents of, or aspects of, conscious experience in order to describe how intense a part particular constituent or aspect of experience is being experienced within the whole of conscious experience ===. This is being done, e.g., in IIT 3.0, where the constituents are called 'concepts' and where the <math>\varphi(M)</math> of a mechanism <math>M</math> that constitutes a concept is a real number which arguably serves this purpose.