Consciousness is often investigated through mechanisms: access, reportability, attention, recurrent processing, global broadcasting, higher-order representation, interoception, predictive regulation, integrated information, self-modeling, or computational function. These mechanisms matter. They may enable, express, constrain, or amplify consciousness. But they do not by themselves settle the...
Consciousness is often approached through capacities: perception, memory, intelligence, access, reportability, self-modeling, prediction, language, planning, adaptive control, or global integration. These capacities matter. They may enable consciousness, express it, amplify it, or imitate it. But none of them is consciousness by itself. This essay begins with a prior question: not what a system...