The persistent problem of targetless thought.
Consciousness and Cognition July 1, 2020 Adrienne Prettyman
Targetless thought—where a subject represents herself as being in a mental state she does not actually have—poses a challenge for higher-order theories of consciousness. Some proponents of the higher-order view argue that such cases are possible and have offered empirical evidence for them. This paper provides an alternative explanation of that evidence that does not require positing targetless thoughts. The argument shows that the empirical evidence does not distinguish between first-order and higher-order theories of consciousness, thereby undermining the empirical case for the higher-order view.