On Twitter, the Neuroskeptic shared a new paper, in which an Israeli team claims to have demonstrated phenomenal consciousness without access consciousness: Experiencing without knowing? Empirical evidence for phenomenal consciousness without access.
A quick reminder. In the 1990s Ned Block famously made a distinction between phenomenal consciousness (p-consciousness) and access consciousness (a-consciousness). P-consciousness is conceptualized as raw experience, qualia, the “what it’s like” nature of consciousness. A-consciousness is accessing that information for use in memory, reasoning, verbal report, or control of behavior.
The paper notes that this distinction is controversial. While widely accepted in many corners of consciousness studies, it’s been challenged by others, notably illusionists. The paper cites Daniel Dennett and Michael Cohen in particular as challenging the possibility of gathering data about p-consciousness, since any data gathered has to come through a-consciousness. It cites their 2011 paper, and a couple of others, as providing criteria for establishing p-consciousness.
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