Consciousness
This page lists the various uses of the term "consciousness" one encounters in the scientific study of consciousness. The list is not exhaustive and various connotations might overlap in their meaning or reference.
Contents
Conscious perception of a stimulus
In many neuroscientific studies, the term consciousness is understood as referring to the conscious perception (or not) of a particular stimulus. Typical examples are visual masking experiments. Arguably, this conception of consciousness underlies global neuronal workspace theory and its prediction of conscious "ignition", a sudden, late and sustained firing in GNW neurons should a stimulus be perceived consciously.[1]
Conscious mechanism
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.
Phenomenal consciousness
At least two connotations of phenomenal consciousness exist.
General
The general sense of the term from phenomenology, cf. phenomenal consciousness - meaning from phenomenology.
Chalmers definition
A notion defined in (Chalmers 1996)[2], cf. phenomenal consciousness - Chalmers' definition.
Access consciousness
The term has originally been introduced by Block[3]. Following Shea[4], it could be defined as follows:
- Definition
Subject instantiates property , being access conscious of iff
- has a mechanism for making information directly available for us in directing a wide range of behaviours; and
- M is making the information that directly available for directing a wide range of potential behvaiours of .
Conscious and unconscious processing
Qualia
Cf. qualia.
Level of consciousness
References
- ↑ Dehaene, Stanislas, Jean-Pierre Changeux, and Lionel Naccache. "The global neuronal workspace model of conscious access: from neuronal architectures to clinical applications." Characterizing consciousness: From cognition to the clinic?. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2011. 55-84.
- ↑ Chalmers, David J. The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory. Oxford university press, 1996.
- ↑ Block, Ned. "On a confusion about a function of consciousness." Behavioral and brain sciences 18.2 (1995): 227-247.
- ↑ Shea, Nicholas. "Methodological encounters with the phenomenal kind." Philosophy and phenomenological research 84.2 (2012): 307.
