The Quest for a Unifying Definition and Taxonomy of Consciousness: Narrowing the Obstacles to Mutual Understanding

Abstract

The primary intent of this paper is to identify and elucidate various consequential factors that have impeded the attainment of a consensual definition and taxonomy of consciousness. As such, the author explores several etymological, semantic, and sociolinguistic issues, including the troubling conflation of ‘conscious’ and ‘consciousness,’ the perpetual promulgation of competing descriptions and types of consciousness, and the confounding polysemantic nature of the term itself. The author addresses the latter issue by proposing the adoption of a simple orthographic convention to disentangle and clearly delineate the tangible and intangible connotations of ‘consciousness.’ The paper also reviews methodological challenges in consciousness research and the search for the neural correlates of consciousness, and contrasts two opposing notions of consciousness—as a singular phenomenon/thing versus a multifaceted process. In addition, the author examines theoretical and procedural obstacles to classifying consciousness within a cogent taxonomic framework and evaluates several attempts to do so. The paper concludes with suggestions for minimizing the obstacles identified and advances a perspective borrowed from foundational Indian scriptures that may offer valuable insight moving forward.