Theories of consciousness:Beyond the first/higher-order distinction by Jonathan Birch

【Title】 Theories of consciousness: beyond the first/higher-order distinction

【Speaker】Jonathan Birch, Associate Professor
London School of Economics

【Slides】

【Abstract】
Theories of consciousness are commonly grouped into "first-order" and "higher-order" families. As conventional wisdom has it, many more animals are likely to be conscious if a first-order theory is correct. But two recent developments have put pressure on the first/higher-order distinction. One is the argument (from Shea and Frith) that an effective global workspace mechanism must involve a form of metacognition. The second is Lau's "perceptual reality monitoring" (PRM) theory, a member of the "higher-order" family in which conscious sensory content is not re-represented, only tagged with a temporal index and marked as reliable. I argue that the first/higher-order distinction has become so blurred that it is no longer particularly useful. Moreover, the conventional wisdom about animals should not be trusted. It could be, for example, that the distribution of PRM in the animal kingdom is wider than the distribution of global broadcasting.

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[victorbarcellos]

It seems to me that the tagging is related to the contents of conscious representations, i. e., transitive creature consciousness, rather than conscious experience itself.

[shaikhraisuddin]

Phenomenal consciousness are elastic wave patterns.

Inertia of physical system is subjectivity.