Color, Qualia, and Attention: A Nonstandard Interpretation

Abstract

This chapter attempts to avoid as many consciousness debates as possible by confining the discussion to a simple kind of mental state that belongs to the genus phenomenal consciousness. This simple kind might be referred to as perceptual awareness or perceptual experience—episodes in which a subject both perceives something and is aware of what is perceived or of some aspect of what is perceived. Its perceptual origin gives the episode its distinctive phenomenal character, and often that phenomenal character is the feature of which one is aware. One might also refer to these as sensory experiences, in which one becomes conscious of a sensible feature of something that one senses. The latter condition, being aware of some aspect of what is perceived, qualifies the members of this species as states of consciousness. In virtue of having them, one can be considered to be aware of something.