Stop Caring about Consciousness
Peter Carruthers
Abstract
The best empirically grounded theory of first-personal phenomenal consciousness is global workspace theory. This, combined with the success of the phenomenal-concept strategy, means that consciousness can be fully reductively explained in terms of globally broadcast representational content. So there are no qualia (and there is no mental paint). As a result, the question of which other creatures besides ourselves are phenomenally conscious is of no importance, and doesn’t admit of a factual answer in most cases. What is real, and what does matter, is a multidimensional similarity space of functionally organized minds.
Topics & Concepts
CreaturesQualiaConsciousnessEpistemologyCognitive sciencePhilosophy of mindElectromagnetic theories of consciousnessSpace (punctuation)PsychologyPhilosophyMetaphysicsNatural (archaeology)HistoryArchaeologyLinguisticsEmbodied and Extended CognitionPhilosophy and Theoretical ScienceAction Observation and Synchronization