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For a wide range of concepts, a thinker's understanding of what it is for a thing to fall under the concept plausibly involves knowledge of an identity. It involves knowledge that the thing has to have the same property as is exemplified in instantiation of the concept in some distinguished, basic instance. This chapter addresses the question: can we apply this general model of the role of identity in understanding to the case of subjective, conscious states? In particular, can we explain our understanding of what it is for someone else to be in a particular conscious state in terms of our knowledge of the relation of identity which that state bears to some of our own states?

This chapter shows that mindmelding is metaphysically possible, i.e., that it does not violate any laws governing the metaphysical nature of reality. Metaphysical issues are fundamental and lie at the core of the most difficult parts of the problems of privacy and the mind-body problem itself. There is nothing stopping us from placing the idea of mindmelding on clear, unproblematic, and plausible metaphysical foundations. It is argued that the position of privacy is the one on shaky metaphysical grounds. Two metaphysical theses are examined: the thesis of privacy, and the idea that all conscious states must have a subject, which is called ‘inseparability’ because it posits that the subject is inseparable from the conscious state.

This chapter presents what is known about the anatomy and function of the executive processes to provide a better understanding of them. The discussion covers the sensory and mnemonic representations that remain in posterior cortex, the ensemble of executive processes, the anatomy and physiology of the prefrontal cortex, whether active prefrontal connections necessary for posterior conscious states, access consciousness versus phenomenal consciousness, and bare consciousness.

This chapter addresses the question of what consciousness itself is, and what roles it plays in the brain's systems and functions. The discussion covers the neuroscience of binding, the relation between consciousness and binding, visual consciousness, the function of binding, and conscious states.

This chapter evaluates the tenability of the unity thesis by examining the evidence for phenomenal disunity within the context of number of quite different domains. The first third of the chapter addresses the question of whether the unity of consciousness might break-down in the context of the perceptual phenomena of apparent motion and meta‐contrast masking. The second third of the chapter examines objections to the unity thesis that appeal to data derived from studies drawn from developmental psychology. The final third of the chapter evaluates objections to the unity thesis derived from a cluster of conditions that are characterized by minimal responsiveness: the persistent vegetative state, the minimally conscious state, and epileptic fugue states. It is argued that none of these objections undermines the unity thesis.

This chapter investigates what it is to grasp concepts of conscious states, such as the concept of pain. These concepts have taken center stage in the philosophy of mind recently, in large part due to the conviction that understanding their nature can help undermine some persistent objections to materialism about the mind. The chapter’s author himself is not concerned here with materialism, though his chapter is bound to have a significant impact on discussions of it. The chapter argues that we should explain a subject’s grasp of the concept of pain in terms of the subject’s understanding of an identity: in terms of the subject’s understanding that what it is for someone else to be in pain--what it is for the concept of pain to apply to someone else--is for that person to be in a state identical to the state that the subject himself is in when he is in pain. While the chapter employs a number of Wittgensteinian insights in arguing for his position, it believes this position is one that Wittgenstein would reject. In fact, this chapter’s author understands himself as steering a middle way between the classic rival positions on conscious states of the later Wittgenstein and of Frege.

Mindmelding is achieved when we allow one person's executive processes to interact with the conscious states of another person. Mindmelding does not require exotic metaphysical hypotheses, or unheard-of physical processes in the brain. It can be described using existing mental verbs, such as ‘aware’ and our existing notions of causality, matter, and truth. Indeed, not only is the alternative conception consistent with ordinary ways of speaking, but this chapter shows that uncovering the rich internal structure of folk psychology reveals deeper correspondences with the alternative view. The chapter also shows that sentences such as, ‘Jack is experiencing Jill's mental state,’ or, ‘Jill is aware of Jack's conscious state,’ can be true. More fundamentally, we need to know how to tell when sentences like these are true. Contemporary philosophers have undertaken extensive analyses of mental state terms and the sentences containing them. The chapter presents an account of the existing approaches.

This chapter focuses on the large and diverse set of representations employed by our brains. It argues that the brain exerts substantial processing power to preparing conscious representations so that they are clear, coherent, and gap-free, so that they can interact effectively with the executive processes. This sort of arrangement bodes well for the possibility of mindmelding in which one person's completed set of representations is put into causal contact with another person's executive processes, since there appears to be a point at which the preparation of the conscious state is complete.

This chapter considers consciousness, long thought to be the hardest nut for a behaviourist to crack. It argues for an epistemic approach to consciousness in which the idea of a conscious state of mind is understood in terms of the idea of a person being conscious of something and not the other way round. The chapter then applies the account of knowledge to yield the following account of consciousness: S is conscious of O if and only if O’s present relationship with S provides S with a means to knowledge of O. This does not undermine the idea of consciousness or drain it of phenomenal content. Being conscious of the dusty redness and ineffable earthy smell of a tomato is to know the dusty redness and ineffable earthy smell of the tomato through their being present to one’s visual and olfactory capacities. Sensory qualities are out there, and when their presence to us enables us to know them, they enter into our conscious states.

The Theory of Natural Individuals is composed of three elements: the Theory of Causal Significance, the Carrier Theory of Causation, and the Consciousness Hypothesis. This chapter attempts to apply the Theory of Natural Individuals to the general understanding of related issues in philosophy, physics, and cognitive neuroscience and aims to further clarify the commitments and usefulness of the framework. It also briefly discusses the vital points of such framework and its relevance to three philosophical questions. Also, it explores some potential physical indications of natural individuality and examines two issues in cognitive neuroscience and how its physical aspects of conscious states cohere with the framework.

This chapter argues against Uriah Kriegel’s “self-representational theory of consciousness,” which states that the structure of conscious states includes an element of self-reference. This self-referential or self- epresentational aspect of conscious mental states goes back to Aristotle and Franz Brentano, who argued that “every mental act includes within it a consciousness of itself. Therefore, every mental act, no matter how simple, has a double object, a primary and secondary object.” Three views are discussed in detail in this chapter: First, Brentano’s “pure self-referentialism,” which states that a conscious mental state is literally directed back at Itself, is criticized. Second, the chapter examines whether peripheral self-directed awareness accompanies all conscious states or not. Finally, responses are addressed to arguments presented in support of Kriegel’s view of self-representation.

This chapter advocates the thesis that the most remarkable property of consciousness — the one that might possibly hold the key to a genuine understanding — is the amount of integrated information associated with the occurrence of any particular conscious state. Of course, this requires that one defines precisely what is meant by information, and in what sense one says that such information is integrated. Perhaps the most important thing to realize about consciousness is that, when one experiences a particular conscious state each of us is gaining access to an extraordinarily large amount of information.

This paper defend the principle, disputed by Jane Heal, that whenever someone consciously Fs and also has the concept F, then she will be able to judge explicitly, with non-inferential justification, that she Fs. The defense turns on the distinction between experiencing something as F, as opposed to having in consciousness manifestations of an otherwise unconscious state of F. Reasons are offered against her view that perceptual models can illuminate our knowledge of our unconscious states. Lucy O’Brien asks how my account of action awareness can work in cases of action types where failure is impossible. I offer an account of how it can work there too, and outline an account of the differences between apparent action awareness and apparent perceptual awareness.

The final chapter focuses on defending the HOT-Brain Thesis that states that there is a plausible account of how the version of the HOT theory discussed in this book might be realized in the brain and lead to an informative neurophysiological research agenda. Some basics on brain structure and function are discussed, together with some leading empirical theories of consciousness and the problem of finding the so-called neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs). It is argued here that HOTs need not occur in the prefrontal cortex although HOT theory demands that conscious states be distributed to some degree. The mereological issue explored in a previous chapter is also revisited, putting more emphasis on the WIV, the brain, and feedback loops. The main issues in this chapter are framed by the question: “How global is the HOT theory?” More precisely, how widely distributed in the brain are conscious states?

This chapter begins with the subjective conception of consciousness that gives rise to the explanatory gap and the intractability of the ‘why?’ question. It then discusses the approach to the study of consciousness, an approach that rejects the subjective conception in favour of a broadly behaviourist one. Finally, it discusses the knowledge argument — an argument for the anti-physicalist claim that phenomenal properties of conscious mental states are not physical properties.

Recovery of consciousness following severe brain injuries typically evolves through several stages marked by considerable behavioral variability. This chapter considers the role of ‘circuit-level’ mechanisms in the forebrain in the generation of behavioral variability and specifically emphasizes the contributions of the central thalamus to altered arousal regulation in neurological disorders of consciousness. Neurons within the central thalamus play a key role in forebrain arousal regulation, acting as a nexus for the influence of ascending brainstem/basal forebrain neuronal populations (‘arousal systems’) and control signals descending from frontal cortical systems. Clinical distinctions among neurological disorders of consciousness and some observations of wide fluctuations in behavioral responsiveness in severely brain-injured patients can be organized by considering the possible role of circuit-level alterations of function involving the central thalamus, striatum and frontal cortical systems.

This chapter is about control. Control is clearly not the only aspect of consciousness. But the reason for stressing it when dealing with the concept of consciousness in scientific theories is that this is the aspect of consciousness which is most likely to have a causal role. Therefore it ought to be included in any scientific account of human behaviour. This chapter illustrates the conversion of common-sense accounts of behaviour to information processing accounts by developing three interpretations of a historical incident in terms of attentional mechanisms affecting awareness. This produces several propositions which relate characteristics of awareness to control mechanisms. After placing such correspondences in the framework of the current theoretical literature, the chapter discusses how experiments shed light on how conscious states are involved in the initiation and control of action.

This chapter considers the use of deep-brain stimulation as a treatment for neurological and psychiatric disorders. It addresses the question of whether a person with a disease of the mind can consent to stimulation of the brain, and how patients and medical teams weigh the potential benefits and risks of the treatment. It also describes some of the trade-offs between physical and psychological effects of stimulation. The medical and moral justification of this technique depends not only on whether it corrects brain dysfunction but also on how it affects all the psychological properties of the person.