Consciousness

Question 1

Deflationary view

Answer 1

What it is like to be conscious is merely how our mental life appears to us. There is nothing special about phenomenology. Experimentally, if an individual denies experiencing anything, we should conclude the individual was not conscious of the stimulus. A state an individual is in no way aware of herself as being in is not – on any reasonable account – a conscious state

Example: Inattentional blindness
You can report everything
For you to be conscious about it you need to have a memory
Report paradigm

Question 2

Inflationary view

Answer 2

The phenomenal domain outstrips the cognitive domain: There is A LOT of it. Explaining the phenomenal domain is the real task. And it is a difficult task. The cognitive domain is driven mainly by access conciousness and the phenomenal domain is driven by phenomenal consciousness

There are things you cannot report on
E.g. flavors, “you should have been there”
We were conscious about it but we cannot report it
Example: The experiment where they have reported not seeing it but EEG showed they did
Is language the problem?

Question 3

Epiphenomenon

Answer 3

A secondary effect

Question 4

Intentionality

Answer 4

The ability of one’s mind to represent something

Question 5

Preconsciousness

Answer 5

Intense activation, yet confined to sensorimotor processors
No reportability

Question 6

Global workspace theory

Answer 6

It is a psychological construct arguing that perceptual contents, which are acted upon by localized processors, only become conscious when they are widely broadcasted to other processors across the brain

Question 7

Attentional blink

Answer 7

Testing how clearly people see T2 and report on which of the two options occurred in T1

What they find in this task is that when the duration time is short people will miss T2
If they don’t have a task in T1 they are more likely to see T2
Is report necessary for consciousness?

Question 8

Inattentional blindness

Answer 8

Since you do not attend to something you do not see it
Example: Gorilla while counting basketball passes

Question 9

Qualia

Answer 9

Instances of subjective, conscious experience

Question 10

Split brain

Answer 10

Because of split-brain patients the right hemisphere is not part of the NCC for visual experience
Can be used to argument for
Deflationary view: If they cannot report than they have not experiences it
Inflationary view: The blindness is caused by failure of reportability by other cognitive processes - there is no effect on the consciousness

Question 11

“What is it like to be a bat”

Answer 11

Thomas Nagel:
Consciousness is only there in an organism, if there is something “it is like” to be that organism

Question 12

Subliminal processing

Answer 12

The brain’s ability to perceive and react to stimuli that are below the threshold of conscious awareness. These stimuli are typically so subtle or brief that they do not reach the level of conscious perception, yet they can still influence thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

Question 13

Neural correlate of consciousness (NCC)

Answer 13

The minimal neural mechanisms that are together necessary and sufficient for experiencing any conscious percept

Question 14

Phenomenal consciousness

Answer 14

The subjective aspect of experiencing the world. Relates to the ‘feel’. Does not fit an input-output model

Question 15

Access consciousness

Answer 15

There is more in your consciousness than you can access. Availability to other systems e.g. reasoning. Fits an input-output model

Question 16

Accessible vs accessed

Answer 16

What is there and what we can actually access
Conscious, preconscious and subliminal processing

Question 17

Conscious report

Answer 17

Participants report on what they are conscious about

Question 18

Feedforward sweep

Answer 18

The rapid transfer of visual information through the visual cortex and towards motor areas producing a (potential) response. Within several milliseconds each area extracts information about shape, color, motion, position, objects and faces (see icons). Processing by the feedforward sweep is not, however, accompanied by conscious experience of the visual input

Question 19

Recurrent

Answer 19

Consciousness

Question 20

Feedforward

Answer 20

Unconscious

Question 21

Phenomenology

Answer 21

The study of experience
What is it like to have an experience?
There are things I don’t experience e.g. my body doing certain kinds of things (digestion?)

Question 22

Micro-phenomenology

Answer 22

A method of studying the phenomenal aspect of the mind
Often interviews

Question 23

Subjectivity

Answer 23

We have personal access to ourself and we know that we experience things

Question 24

Unity

Answer 24

It is one stream (I feel connected to my younger self - I am the same person throughout life)

Question 25

The cognitive domain

Answer 25

Information processing and behavior
Sometimes called access consciousness
Enables us to do things, but not necessarily experience

Question 26

The phenomenal domain

Answer 26

Peculiar phenomenal aspect of consciousness
What it is like - from the first person perspective - to be conscious

Question 27

Report paradigm

Answer 27

(not sure) If participants report than they are conscious about it

Question 28

Phenomenal overflow

Answer 28

There is more phenomenology than we can report