A philosophical account of consciousness is developed using the concept of emergence, where each level of physical energy flow has its own operative principles that are functionally separate from lower levels, even though physical laws remain continuous. The focus is on conscious mental processing emerging from neural activity governed by biochemical principles of brain organization. A process model of consciousness is built to explain many experienced aspects of consciousness, which are rigorously defined and linked to empirical tests for identifying their neural substrates. The article concludes by discussing the evolutionary function of consciousness and critiquing Integrated Information Theory.
Consciousness has many proposed properties, but they are often criticized as untestable. This overview reviews influential views on the properties of consciousness, framing them in terms of empirical testability in physiological terms. While these properties are subjective by nature, they can gain objectivity through consensus agreement on their validity. The author first proposes a working definition of consciousness and related terms, then reviews a representative range of proposals about its properties, assessing each for testability. The goal is to avoid the criticisms of untestability that were leveled against 19th-century phenomenologists.