THREE MAIN FORMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Claudio Ferreira Costa*
Abstract
The proposed tripartite model distinguishes sensory
consciousness (basic
awareness of stimuli, present in animals), reflexive consciousness (meta-cognition, awareness of mental
states, found in humans and some apes), and thinking consciousness (propositional judgments integrated in
belief networks). What we call consciousness emerges from representational and
integrative functions across these domains.
Key-Words: consciousness, representation, philosophy of mind.
My aim in this paper is to distinguish three primary
forms of consciousness: sensory, reflexive, and thinking consciousness. This tripartite distinction offers a
theoretical advantage by encompassing, in the simplest terms, what we
meaningfully describe as conscious phenomena in the first place.
1. Sensory consciousness
The first form of consciousness was once vividly characterized
by John Searle as what we regain when we wake up in the morning and what we
lose when we fall into a dreamless sleep, or lapse into a coma, or die (2002: 7).
David
Armstrong employed the expression perceptual consciousness, though I
regard awareness of events as the more accurate designation (Armstrong
1980: 55-67).[1] The former term is
evocative, yet in certain respects misleading. Consider the case of a subject
experiencing a headache: she is conscious of the headache, but she does not
perceive it as one perceives an external object; rather, she feels it. The same
distinction applies to affective states such as emotions: feelings are not
perceived; they are felt. Nevertheless, I contend that feelings, taken in
isolation, cannot constitute consciousness. Consciousness requires a broader
framework within which such feelings are integrated and apprehended.
Of course,
awareness of events refers to the state of being awake, aware, and responsive
to one’s environment. It entails a basic level of cognition, encompassing the
processes of perceiving external stimuli and registering internal bodily or
mental states. In clinical contexts, physicians often describe a patient in a
coma as having lost consciousness, and historically, diagnostic methods such as
the caloric reflex test – introducing cold water into the ear canal – were employed
to assess residual responsiveness. Awareness of events can be largely indirectly
reached, derived from third-person observation and, secondarily, from
first-person access through reflexive awareness.
This form of
consciousness is considered the most primitive. Even non-human animals, such as
mice, exhibit it, as they respond to both external stimuli and internal bodily
conditions. When a mouse is sedated with chloroform, we may say that it has
lost consciousness, specifically in this sensory sense.
Yet, the
boundaries of consciousness remain problematic. If consciousness is defined
simply as perceiving the external world and internal states, then an excessive
range of organisms would qualify as conscious. Bees, ants, shrimp, and even
unicellular organisms such as paramecia demonstrate perceptual responsiveness,
but it would be misleading to attribute consciousness to them. A newspaper
headline once proclaimed: “Scientists have discovered that flies are
conscious.” Without reading further, one could reasonably doubt the claim, for
consciousness requires more than mere sensory responsiveness. As with many
psychological concepts, the term conscious is appropriately applied
only to organisms that exhibit sufficient mental and behavioural complexity.
The concept
of understanding differs fundamentally from that of perception. While it may be
said that flies or shrimps perceive aspects of the external world, it is far
less plausible to attribute to them any genuine capacity for understanding.
This is because understanding presupposes the ability to exhibit sufficiently
complex forms of behaviour. For this reason, we are not inclined to speak of
insects as possessing, losing, or regaining event consciousness, since their
perceptual experience does not approximate the richness of human
sensory-perceptual awareness. Although the boundaries of consciousness are not
sharply defined, linguistic usage reflects a kind of practical wisdom: while
the domain of sensory consciousness may reasonably extend to mammals such as
mice, it would be conceptually incoherent to extend it much further.
Moreover, the
notion of sensory consciousness underscores the fact that consciousness is a
biological phenomenon. Living organisms differ profoundly from mechanical
automatons, and it would be misguided to expect consciousness in the latter. A
camera, for instance, may produce images that correspond to states of affairs,
but it does not do so autonomously. Such images lack psychological
intentionality and biologically grounded aims; they require an interpreter to
recognize them as representations. Even when machines appear to imitate intentionality,
this imitation ultimately depends on external programming by human agents. This
consideration supports the view that non-biological machines, however
sophisticated, cannot be genuinely conscious.
2. Reflexive consciousness
The second, and more significant, form of
consciousness is what may be termed reflexive consciousness. Reflexive consciousness, which seems to
include self-consciousness, can be understood as the cognitive representation
of one’s own mental states.
It involves
the simultaneous awareness and representation of internal experiences, a
process that may be described as reflexive cognition. The objects of such
reflexive cognition include sensations, feelings, desires, perceptions, and
even higher-order states such as thoughts and beliefs. Since many first-order
mental states are themselves cognitive or representational, their second-order
reflexive cognitions are appropriately characterized as meta-cognitions or
meta-representations.
Reflexive
consciousness thus constitutes consciousness in its most robust sense. It is
typically, though not exclusively, a human phenomenon. While certain great apes
appear capable of reflexive awareness, it is absent in mice and, more
strikingly, in newborn human infants.[2] In this respect,
reflexive consciousness marks a qualitative distinction between mere sensory
awareness and the higher-order self-representational capacities that define
mature human cognition.
An
instructive example of reflexive consciousness can be found in the experience
of a persistent but faint headache. One may carry such discomfort throughout
the day without attending to it. Yet, the moment attention is directed toward
the sensation, its presence becomes evident, and language enables one to articulate
that the headache is conscious. In this case, attending to the discomfort
constitutes a reflexive cognition—a second-order awareness or belief about the
state itself.
It is
precisely this reflexive dimension that distinguishes human consciousness in
its fullest sense. The capacity to report verbally on one’s internal states,
such as declaring “I have a headache,” provides compelling evidence of
reflexive consciousness. Unlike mere sensory awareness, reflexive consciousness
entails the ability to represent, reflect upon, and communicate one’s own
mental states, thereby marking a defining feature of mature human cognition.
The notion of
reflexive consciousness was articulated by Armstrong, who likened it to a
computer’s self-scanning function. He offered a significant account of its
evolutionary emergence, referring to it as introspective consciousness.
According to his proposal, the mental processes of living organisms became
progressively more complex and sophisticated through evolutionary development.
As this complexity increased, these processes generated drives that required
simultaneous monitoring; processes that had to be controlled, organized, and
directed by a higher-order mechanism. (Armstrong 1980: 65-66)
This
higher-order instance, we may add, is responsible for reflexive consciousness
itself: the capacity to form suitable cognitions of lower-order mental states.
In this way, reflexive consciousness arises not merely as an extension of
sensory awareness but as a structured, second-order system of representation,
enabling organisms to recognize, evaluate, and regulate their own mental
activity.
The principal objection to the monitoring
hypothesis is that reflexive cognitions are merely thoughts generated by
simultaneous lower-order mental states. On this view, reflexive cognitions,
typically second-order cognitions, lack causal influence on the very states
that produce them Rosenthal 2008).
However, this conclusion is not compelling for two reasons.
First, reflexive cognitions that render
lower-order states conscious appear to arise through the act of attending to
those states, rather than being generated by the states alone. Attention, therefore, plays a mediating role in the
production of reflexive awareness. Second, according to the causal theory of
action, reasons can exert causal effects, and reasons for action are nothing
more than beliefs combined with desires or volitions. If this account is
accepted, then reflexive cognitions, insofar as they are asserted thoughts,
that is, beliefs, can acquire causal efficacy when appropriately associated
with volitions that direct attention.
Through this association with volitional
processes, reflexive cognitions can regulate lower-order mental states and
thereby influence the actions that arise from them. Reflexive consciousness, in
this sense, is not epiphenomenal but functionally integrated into the causal
architecture of cognition and action.
Since first-order mental events can
generally be regarded as representations, reflexive consciousness necessarily
involves reflexive representations or meta-cognitions of these states.
Accordingly, reflexive consciousness may be described in two complementary
ways. In a relational sense, often termed transitive consciousness, we are conscious of our first-order
states. In a non-relational sense, as state consciousness, we say that first-order mental states
themselves are conscious.[3]
Thus, one may assert, “I am conscious of my feelings for Julia” (transitive
consciousness) or, alternatively, “My feelings for Julia are conscious” (state
consciousness). Reflexive representations enable us to become aware of
first-order mental states, though they cannot themselves be objects of direct
awareness. To achieve consciousness of reflexive representations, they would
need to be taken as objects of further meta-reflexive cognitions
(meta-meta-cognitions), and so on. As David Rosenthal has observed, the thought
at the highest level of this hierarchy always remains beyond the reach of
consciousness.
The relation between reflexive and sensory
consciousness is particularly instructive. First-person awareness of sensory
consciousness is possible only because we can form reflexive cognitions, or
representations, of sensory and perceptual states. In this respect, perceptual consciousness
is paradoxically a non-conscious form of consciousness. A cat, for example, may
recognize a dog and feel fear, yet it is unlikely to be conscious of
confronting its archenemy or even of being afraid.[4]
The adoption of the concepts of reflexive
and sensory consciousness provides a useful framework for explaining several
intriguing empirical phenomena:
1. Somnambulism (Sleepwalking)
Sleepwalkers are able to sit up, walk, and even engage
in potentially hazardous activities while asleep, yet afterward they are unable
to recall their actions. This can be explained by positing that reflexive
consciousness is inactive, while sensory consciousness continues to function.
The absence of reflexive monitoring prevents the encoding of experiences into
memory, despite ongoing sensory-driven behavior.
2. Blind-sight
Individuals with blind-sight suffer lesions in region
V1 of the visual cortex, impairing the integration of visual information.
Although they report no conscious visual experience, they can nonetheless
respond accurately to stimuli in their impaired visual field—for example, by
catching objects or navigating around obstacles. This phenomenon suggests that
sensory visual consciousness remains intact, but reflexive consciousness of
visual states is absent. Consequently, the individual is unable to reflect upon
or report the experience of “seeing,” despite demonstrable sensory processing.
3. Libet’s Experiments on Readiness Potential
Libet’s experiments reveal that unconscious neural
activity—the readiness potential—precedes the conscious awareness of a decision
to act. The readiness potential emerges approximately 350 milliseconds before the
action, whereas conscious awareness of the decision arises only about 200
milliseconds prior to movement. This temporal gap can be explained by
distinguishing between sensory and reflexive consciousness: sensory
consciousness coincides with the readiness potential, while reflexive
consciousness arises later, enabling meta-cognitive monitoring. Importantly,
Libet also demonstrated that subjects retain the capacity to suppress or
withhold the action during the intervening period, underscoring the regulatory
role of reflexive consciousness. These findings highlight the extent to which
sensory consciousness operates beneath awareness, while reflexive consciousness
provides the reflective dimension of agency.
4. Lucid Dreams
Lucid dreams are characterized by the dreamer’s
awareness of dreaming and the ability to exert volitional control over dream
content. Such dreams are typically experienced with heightened clarity and are
more easily recalled upon waking. Reflexive consciousness offers a compelling
explanation: when meta-cognitive representations of dream processes emerge, the
dream state becomes reflexively accessible, thereby enhancing both awareness
and memory.
The principal alternatives to reflexive accounts of
consciousness are what may be termed integrationist views.[5] According to these
perspectives, conscious states are not defined by their being the object of
reflexive cognition, but rather by their capacity to be integrated into the
broader system of the subject’s mental states and motor functions—particularly
in relation to action and speech. By contrast, unconscious mental states tend
to remain isolated: they cannot be rendered conscious through their ordinary
associations with other cognitive states, nor are they typically connected to
the motor system, especially to speech, as exemplified in cases of
non-reportable subliminal perception. From this standpoint, repressed and
subliminal states are unconscious not because they lack meta-cognitive
representation, but because they fail to achieve sufficient integration with
the wider mental system. Thus, two competing explanatory frameworks emerge: the
integrationist and the reflexive.
At this juncture, I wish to propose a
reconciliatory hypothesis. My suggestion is that integration is ordinarily
mediated by reflexive cognition, which possesses a binding property: the
capacity to integrate the first-order state it refers to with a system of other
states. Bernard Baars’s metaphor of the “theater of consciousness” in his
global workspace theory—an integrationist model—provides a useful illustration
(1997). In this metaphor, a conscious state is likened to a mental state
illuminated by the spotlight of attention, enabling it to be broadcast to the
wider auditorium of pre-conscious and unconscious states. While compelling, I
would add that reflexive cognition itself constitutes the spotlight directed by
attention. This proposal has intuitive appeal: when we become aware of a mental
state, we necessarily recognize it through cognitive means, and in doing so, we
inevitably relate it to other states and, at least potentially, to the entire
system, including the motor system.
Consider, for example, a patient undergoing
a temporal lobe epileptic seizure. Such a patient may act and even speak,
thereby exhibiting a degree of integration. Yet this integration is deficient,
justifying the description of a “narrowed field of consciousness.” Crucially,
reflexive consciousness is absent, as evidenced by the patient’s inability to
recall his actions after recovery. In my view, reflexive cognition and
integration are inseparable; reflexive cognition functions as a mechanism for
enhancing integration. They are two aspects of a single unifying process.[6]
Finally, this reconciliatory proposal also
addresses a central objection often raised against reflexive accounts of
consciousness—namely, that they fail to provide a criterion for distinguishing
between reflexive cognitions that confer consciousness and those that do not
(Seager 1999: 82). My proposed solution is that the criterion lies in the
binding property of a non-inferential, simultaneously reflexive cognition
generated by attention. What renders a reflexive cognition suitable for
consciousness is precisely its capacity to integrate the lower-order state it
refers to into the broader system of mental states.
3. Thinking consciousness
A final, more controversial point concerns the need to
posit an additional form of consciousness to accommodate certain resilient
intuitions. In many cases, we appear to be conscious of things that do not fall
neatly into the categories of present perceptual, sensory, or emotional
experience, nor are they simultaneously meta-represented by specific mental
states. Suppose, for example, that I think that:
1. Heinrich Schliemann discovered the site of
Troy.
2. The sum of the internal angles of a
Euclidean triangle is 180ºThe Moon is a large spherical rocky object orbiting
the Earth.
3. It is impossible that the same thing be and
not to bed not be the same thing at the same time and in the same respect.”
4. The Moon is a large, spherical, rocky
object orbiting the Earth.
5. The sum total of matter and energy in a
closed system remains constant over time.
6. I cannot simultaneously go to a movie and
to my favourite restaurant.
We may regard such judgments as constituents of
thinking consciousness insofar as they do not require metacognition to be
conscious. They appear conscious “by luminescence”: their very presence entails
awareness of their content. Reflexive meta-cognition may accompany them, but it
is not necessary; even when entertained without reflection, they are already
conscious in a substantive sense.
This
possibility seems grounded in their position within a broader network of
beliefs. A judgment may be conscious because it is verified, for example, the
claim that Schliemann discovered Troy, supported by reports of the excavations
at Hisarlik in the 1870s. It may be derived from axioms of geometry, or sustained
by philosophical argument, as in Aristotle’s defense of the principle of
non-contradiction. In each case, the judgment’s integration within a system of
beliefs confers its conscious status.
Some
philosophers have inferred from this that conscious mental states intrinsically
generate reflexive higher-order representations. Yet this view is implausible:
it would eliminate the possibility of unconscious mental states and lacks
intuitive support. Consider the thought that I cannot simultaneously attend the
cinema and dine at my favourite restaurant. One is conscious of this thought
without reflexive awareness, because its content is apprehended against a
background of perceptual and representational structures referring to external
states of affairs. Thinking consciousness thus functions analogously to
reflexive consciousness, rendering us aware of the sensory experiences or
formal principles implicated in our present judgements.
Present
judgments, then, acquire their conscious status not merely through reflexive
awareness but through their representational and integrative roles. This
perspective challenges the primacy of what Ned Block (2008) termed access
consciousness, defined as
information available for reasoning, reporting, and action. Block’s account
implies that statements (1)–(6), even when not presently entertained, belong to
access consciousness by virtue of their availability.
My suggestion
is that access consciousness belongs to consciousness only in a secondary, derivative sense. An ordinary language examination is
called for here. We can say that we know the truths of statements (1) to (6) without thinking about
them. We can say we are aware of such truths, that we have the consciousness of them, but not that we
are conscious of
them. We cannot even say that these available judgments belong to our consciousness unless we unduly
confuse consciousness with mentality. The conclusion is that, by calling access
consciousness a form of consciousness, Block confuses something that results
from being conscious with being conscious itself.
References:
Armstrong, David. The Nature of Mind. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1980.
Armstrong, D. M. Mind-Body Problem: An
Opinionated Introduction.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999.
Baars, Bernard J. In the Theater of
Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Block, Ned. “Consciousness and Cognitive Access.”
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 108, no. 1 (2008): 289–317.
Lycan, W. C. Consciousness and Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996.
Rosenthal, David. “Consciousness and Its Function.”
Neuropsychologia 46, no. 3 (2008): 829–840.
Rosenthal, David. “Explaining Consciousness.” In Philosophy
of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings, edited by David J. Chalmers, New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002.
Russell, Bertrand. An Outline of Philosophy. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.,
1970.
Seager, William. Theories of Consciousness: An
Introduction and Assessment. London:
Routledge, 1999.
Searle, John R. Consciousness and Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002.
* Full
Professor, UFRN; e-mail: ruvstof@gmail.com
Armstrong’s expression ‘perceptual consciousness’ is suggestive,
but somewhat misleading: if a person has a headache, she has perceptual consciousness of it; however,
she is not perceiving, but rather feeling her headache. The same holds for
emotions or feelings: feelings are felt, not perceived, although feelings alone
cannot in my view be conscious.
Reflexive cognition is not the only way to
achieve integration. As we will see, thinking
consciousness could also have an
integrative dimension, and we should not confuse the two.
