Why and how access consciousness can account for phenomenal consciousness.

A popular philosophical distinction holds that conscious experience is far richer than what we can report, calling the reportable part 'access consciousness' and the remainder 'phenomenal consciousness'. This article reviews five major problems with that view and argues that a strict access-consciousness theory, framed within the global workspace model, can account for all conscious experience. Subjective reports are not passive broadcasts but result from dynamic internal processes including interpretation and belief attribution. The article offers testable predictions and counterintuitive hypotheses, suggesting that phenomenal consciousness beyond access may be unnecessary.

Study at a glance

Abstract

According to a popular distinction proposed by the philosopher Ned Block in 1995, our conscious experience would overflow the very limited set of what we can consciously report to ourselves and to others. He proposed to coin this limited consciousness 'Access Consciousness' (A-Cs) and to define 'Phenomenal Consciousness' as a much richer subjective experience that is not accessed but that would still delineate the extent of consciousness. In this article, I review and develop five major problems raised by this theory, and show how a strict A-Cs theory can account for our conscious experience. I illustrate such an A-Cs account within the global workspace (GW) theoretical framework, and revisit some seminal empirical findings and neuropsychological syndromes. In this strict A-Cs perspective, subjective reports are not conceived as the mere passive broadcasting of information to the GW, but as resulting from a dynamic and active chain of internal processes that notably include interpretative and belief attribution stages. Finally, I list a set of testable predictions, of unsolved questions and of some counterintuitive hypotheses.This article is part of the theme issue 'Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access'.