Page "Consciousness" Paragraph 9

Ned Block proposed a distinction between two types of consciousness that he called phenomenal ( P-consciousness ) and access ( A-consciousness ).

P-consciousness, according to Block, is simply raw experience: it is moving, colored forms, sounds, sensations, emotions and feelings with our bodies and responses at the center.

These experiences, considered independently of any impact on behavior, are called qualia.

A-consciousness, on the other hand, is the phenomenon whereby information in our minds is accessible for verbal report, reasoning, and the control of behavior.

So, when we perceive, information about what we perceive is access conscious ; when we introspect, information about our thoughts is access conscious ; when we remember, information about the past is access conscious, and so on.

Although some philosophers, such as Daniel Dennett, have disputed the validity of this distinction, others have broadly accepted it.

David Chalmers has argued that A-consciousness can in principle be understood in mechanistic terms, but that understanding P-consciousness is much more challenging: he calls this the hard problem of consciousness.