There is much about the connection between accessibility and phenomenality that needs further thought. One of the most interesting questions are, as Benedicte pointed it out, the question of the existence or lack of a conceptual connection between them. I do not think the mere fact that access provides our only “hard” evidence for phenomenality is in itself a reason to posit a conceptual relationship. And certainly the connection is nothing like the one between RED and COLORED. However, you can’t easily peel some form of access away from phenomenality either. More needs to be said of the “form” of access since it is not simple access in the sense of being in global workspace. We are aware of much more phenomenality then what is directly accessed, as the Sperling experiments show. I think there is a form of accessibility that is not purely dispositional, the one that gives you the certainty in the Sperling experiments that you have actually seen all the characters – even without actual access to all of those characters. I think that that form of accessibility might be a minimal conceptually necessary condition on phenomenality – but I haven’t figured out how exactly to argue for that. I just have the strong sense that there is something fishy about the notion of inaccessible phenomenality.

Finally, thanks Lizzy for broaching the question of whether the quotational account sits easily with views about a conceptual link bw accessibility and phenomenality. I’ll need to think more about that.

Thanks again to both of you for your insightful comments.

Thanks for a great conference!

My aim in this paper was to argue that the empirical evidence for empty thoughts doesn’t address Block’s worry that the higher-order account of empty thoughts is incoherent. That evidence suggests that empty thoughts are actual; but Block’s worry is that if empty thoughts are actual, then the higher-order view cannot give a coherent account of them. Addressing Block’s worry requires more than establishing the existence of empty thoughts. However, as is clear in David’s response to Block’s paper, the argument from empty thoughts relies on the assumption that a conscious state is an existing state – an assumption that David rejects. Although Richard & Hakwan sometimes speak in their paper as though they think that conscious states are existing states, they, too, could reject this assumption and escape the problem of empty thoughts. If they do reject this assumption, however, then it is puzzling that they frame their empirical argument as a response to Block, since empty thoughts wouldn’t pose a compelling challenge to their view in the first place. The empirical argument is only needed if we accept the problematic assumption that conscious states can’t be non-existent – and I’ve argued that if we make that assumption, their empirical argument fails to meet the challenge.

The larger issue is whether the arguments in my paper and Block’s show that the higher-order view should be abandoned. As David and Richard have emphasized, the opponent of the higher-order view must provide a non-circular argument for the assumption that a conscious states must be an existing state. In a previous comment, I gave one argument: the higher-order view aims to provide a naturalistic explanation of state consciousness. You can’t provide a naturalistic explanation of something that doesn’t exist. So, you can’t provide a naturalistic explanation of non-existent conscious states. Richard responded by asking why a representational account of a non-existing conscious states isn’t a naturalistic explanation of state consciousness on my view. My worry is that a representationalist account of a non-existent conscious states doesn’t explain state consciousness – rather, it explains it away. When a thought is empty, the representationalist account may explain the subjective appearance of a conscious state. But on such an account, the conscious state cannot cause actions, inferences, or mental events. If we’re interested in finding a place for conscious states in the natural world, a view that explains mere appearance isn’t satisfying.

In a previous comment, David pointed to the possibility that an empty thought could bring about the very conscious state it represents. I think this is a promising suggestion that could provide a response to my worry. If I understand his suggestion correctly, an existing higher-order state will play a particular causal role in virtue of representing some mental state, whether or not that mental state exists. So although conscious states would technically be epiphenomenal in the case of empty thoughts, they could still have derivative causal influence.

I’ll take one more shot at an argument for the assumption that conscious states must be existing states. A standard way of defining ‘phenomenally conscious state’ is as follows: a state is phenomenally conscious just if there’s something it’s like for the subject. Given this definition of ‘phenomenally conscious state,’ subjective appearance is both necessary and sufficient for the existence of a phenomenally conscious state. If there’s something it’s like for a subject, then there’s a phenomenally conscious state. And if a subject is in a phenomenally conscious state, then there’s something it’s like for her. Given this definition, it is analytic that a conscious state just is whichever state is necessary and sufficient for subjective appearance. On the higher-order view, an appropriately caused HO state is necessary and sufficient for subjective appearance. So the HO state would be the conscious state, not the first-order state or no state at all. This argument aims to shift the burden onto the proponent of a higher-order theory to provide us with a reason to adopt a different definition of phenomenal state consciousness.

To sum up: in order to show that the higher-order view is “defunct,” we still need a non-circular argument for the assumption that a conscious state cannot be non-existent. As I pointed out previously, I don’t think this is a problem for the main argument in my paper. That argument is intended to show that the empirical cases don’t address Block’s worry that the HO account of empty thoughts is incoherent. But while it isn’t a problem for the narrow aim of my paper, it is a problem for the broader project of showing that the higher order view should be abandoned.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the discussion! If you would like to continue discussion by email, feel free to get in touch with me at adrienne (dot) prettyman (at) utoronto (dot) ca.

Thanks so much to everyone for making this such an enjoyable and stimulating session!

Special thanks to Elisabeth, Chris, Patrick, Markus, and John for their rich contributions. It was a pleasure to do this with you.

And many thanks to Richard for organizing yet another excellent conference. Congratulations!

All the best,

Myrto

Terms like “intersubjectivity”, “joint engagement”, and so on admit of weaker and stronger senses. In the weak sense, there is joint engagement whenever there is mutual face recognition, tracking of eye gaze, and so on. In this sense, joint engagement is widespread among primates. But in this sense joint engagement is too weak for mindreading and self-consciousness to be explicable in terms of it. In the strong sense, in contrast, there is joint engagement only when individuals share awareness of one another’s mental states – being aware that they are mutually afraid, for example, or that they both find the same event surprising. This presupposes a capacity to attribute mental states to others and to oneself, and so can’t form the basis of those abilities. In this strong sense, joint engagement appears to be uniquely human.

None of this is to deny, of course, that joint engagement in the weak sense might be an evolutionary precursor of both mindreading and self-consciousness. Indeed, I have no doubt that this is true. But this is not a competitor for the two views contrasted in our paper, since it does not require mental states to be attributed to anybody.

best
Peter

A suggestion for future editions that just came to my mind, and might be interesting to explore, is the possibility of recording (in a room or through skype) a video of a round table with several participant on a particular topic. The video would be an starting point for further open discussion in the CO (as one of the special session).

Great job Richard, thank you very much and congratulations for the big success.
It has been a great pleasure! Thanks.