title: General and specific consciousness: a first-order representationalist approach.
abstract: It is widely acknowledged that a complete theory of consciousness should explain general consciousness (what makes a state conscious at all) and specific consciousness (what gives a conscious state its particular phenomenal quality). We defend first-order representationalism, which argues that consciousness consists of sensory representations directly available to the subject for action selection, belief formation, planning, etc. We provide a neuroscientific framework for this primarily philosophical theory, according to which neural correlates of general consciousness include prefrontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and non-specific thalamic nuclei, while neural correlates of specific consciousness include sensory cortex and specific thalamic nuclei. We suggest that recent data support first-order representationalism over biological theory, higher-order representationalism, recurrent processing theory, information integration theory, and global workspace theory.
authors.affiliation: Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University New Haven, CT, USA.
authors.forename: Neil
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mehta
authors.forename: George A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Mashour
keywords: consciousness; content of consciousness; first-order representationalism; level of consciousness; neural correlate; representationalism