General and specific consciousness: a first-order representationalist approach.

A complete theory of consciousness must explain both general consciousness (what makes any state conscious) and specific consciousness (what gives a conscious state its particular quality). First-order representationalism holds that consciousness consists of sensory representations directly available to a subject for action, belief, and planning. The authors provide a neuroscientific framework: neural correlates of general consciousness include prefrontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and non-specific thalamic nuclei, while specific consciousness involves sensory cortex and specific thalamic nuclei. They argue that recent data favor first-order representationalism over competing theories such as biological theory, higher-order representationalism, recurrent processing theory, information integration theory, and global workspace theory.

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Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that a complete theory of consciousness should explain general consciousness (what makes a state conscious at all) and specific consciousness (what gives a conscious state its particular phenomenal quality). We defend first-order representationalism, which argues that consciousness consists of sensory representations directly available to the subject for action selection, belief formation, planning, etc. We provide a neuroscientific framework for this primarily philosophical theory, according to which neural correlates of general consciousness include prefrontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and non-specific thalamic nuclei, while neural correlates of specific consciousness include sensory cortex and specific thalamic nuclei. We suggest that recent data support first-order representationalism over biological theory, higher-order representationalism, recurrent processing theory, information integration theory, and global workspace theory.