P and A-Consciousness

The Problem

The history of philosophy, not to mention the history of some sciences, is littered with pointless debates that turned some term or phrase being used differently.

Consider, for example, a recent contribution by one of my Ethics students: "Is the fetus considered to be a human? If so, it is murder to abort. If not, then there is no moral issue here to argue. Someone explain to me how the fetus is not a human."

"Human", however, is ambiguous. If by "human" we mean of the species homo sapiens or genetically human, then no one would argue the fetus is not that. But if by "human" we mean human person, then the issue is altogether different and profoundly more difficult to answer than this student would appear to appreciate. Yet if the distinction between genetic human and human person were not drawn, confusion would quickly bring us to an impasse.

Since the issue of consciousness is at least as thorny as the issue of personhood, Block sets out in "Concepts of Consciousness" to distinguish between different kinds of consciousness. As he puts it, consciousness is a 'mongrel' concept.

Phenomenal Consciousness

Block sometimes calls Phenomenal Consciousness "P-Consciousness". No reductive definition is forthcoming, however P-Consciousness can be 'pointed to' by reflecting on the phenomenon itself.

Introspectively, there is something it is like to see and smell a rose. P-Consciousness is experience of something. It is a raw feel or qualia. It is the experience we have when we see, feel, taste, hear, or smell.

(As we will see, accounting for P-Consciousness in physical terms could well be one of the most intractable problems in science today.)

Access Consciousness

Access Consciousness, or A-Consciousness, is propositional. To have a (A-Conscious) belief that the rose is red is to experience that the rose is red, not to have the experience of the rose as red. The beliefs, desires, and intentions we employ in our deliberations antecedent to action are typically, though not always, A-Conscious.

Why P-Consciousness is Distinct from A-Consciousness, and What Goes Wrong if We Don't Keep that in Mind

Distinctions between P-Consciousness and A-Consciousness

A-Consciousness is representational, P-Consciousness is phenomenal.

A-Consciousness is functional, P-Consciousness is non-functional.

A-Conscious states never fall into certain types, P-Conscious states do.

Note that, according to Block, Machine Functionalism presupposes that there is no distinction between A and P-Consciousness. That is, the informational content of A-Conscious states exhausts any P-Conscious states. So if A and P-Consciousness are distinct and Block is correct, then Machine Functionalism cannot be true. To show that A and P-Consciousness are distinct, Block argues that it is possible to have one without the other.

• A-Consciousness without P-Consciousness
  • The Phenomenal Zombie
  • The SuperBlindSighter
• P-Consciousness without A-Consciousness
  • The Brain-Damaged Person that Cannot Reason
  • "Discovering" You've Been Hearing a Drill

Other Kinds of Consciousness

• Self-Consciousness
• Monitoring-Consciousness