[Wittrs] Re: Access vs. Phenomenal Consciousness
- From: "Cayuse" <z.z7@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:27:35 +0100
BruceD wrote:
"Cayuse" wrote:
In his paper "On a confusion about the function of consciousness" (1995),
Ned Block distinguishes between what he called "access consciousness" and
"phenomenal consciousness".
Could you please make the distinction between a and p?
Ned Block:
Consciousness is a mongrel concept: there are a number of very different
"consciousnesses." Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally
conscious aspect of a state is what it is like to be in that state. The mark
of access-consciousness, by contrast, is availability for use in reasoning
and rationally guiding speech and action. These concepts are often partly or
totally conflated, with bad results. This target article uses as an example
a form of reasoning about a function of "consciousness" based on the
phenomenon of blindsight. Some information about stimuli in the blind field
is represented in the brains of blindsight patients, as shown by their
correct "guesses," but they cannot harness this information in the service
of action, and this is said to show that a function of phenomenal
consciousness is somehow to enable information represented in the brain to
guide action. But stimuli in the blind field are BOTH access-unconscious and
phenomenally unconscious. The fallacy is: an obvious function of the
machinery of access-consciousness is illicitly transferred to phenomenal
consciousness.
http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/OldArchive/bbs.block.html
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