A plurality of consciousnesses?
In the previous chapter, we began to explore consciousness from our personal experiences. We will now examine how contemporary researchers have structured this exploration, identifying different forms of consciousness, each referring to a particular facet of our mental life.
The philosopher Ned Block (1991) proposed a now classic distinction between two major types of consciousness : there access awareness and the phenomenal consciousness. To these two dimensions, other authors add the control consciousness and the self-awareness, thus forming a four-part theoretical framework.
Access awareness: what we have access to
There access awareness refers to the ability to mobilize mental information to reason, act or verbalize what we experience.
Let's take a simple example: you're doing a crossword puzzle and you're thinking of an anagram. You can verbalize the letters, suggest combinations, and think aloud. This process demonstrates that you have a conscious access to your reasoning. On the other hand, if the solution comes to you suddenly without you being able to explain how, this reveals that conscious access was limited or indirect.
In this context, the verbal reports are often used as indicators of access to consciousness (Ericsson & Simon, 1980). They testify to our ability to become aware of our thoughts, emotions, or perceptions and to use them actively.
Thus, conscious perception involves an integration between sensory information and stored knowledge. It allows us to recognize objects, evaluate a situation, or communicate an experience. Being aware of a shrub behind a window means being able to name it, talk about it, and place it in a context.
Phenomenal Consciousness: What It Feels Like to Be Yourself
There phenomenal consciousness refers to the subjective lived experience, the one that is difficult to translate into words but which constitutes the heart of our conscious existence.
Drinking a cup of coffee is a good example. We can describe its taste, its temperature, its texture... but these elements goals are not enough to transmit what it's like to taste coffeeThis essential distinction was clarified by the philosopher Thomas Nagel in his famous article What Is It Like to Be a Bat? (1974). For Nagel, a being is conscious if there is something that it is like to be this being.
Phenomenal consciousness therefore designates what overall, subjective, immediate feeling – what phenomenology sometimes calls the "lived"It is both central and elusive, making it a challenge to any attempt at scientific explanation.
Control consciousness: inner pilot or automatic standby?
There control consciousness (or “pilot consciousness”) refers to our ability to supervise our actions and mental states, to adjust them, to guide them.
James Reason (1979) has conducted fascinating research on the daily mistakes which reveal a lack of conscious piloting. He thus lists surprising anecdotes:
“I unwrapped a candy, put the wrapper in my mouth… and threw the candy away.”
These errors often come from theexcessive automation of our behaviors, requiring a temporary return of the conscious attentional control to correct the trajectory.
Damasio (1999) illustrates this dimension with clinical cases ofanosognosia, where the patient, although suffering from an obvious disability (for example paralysis), is not aware of it. The lack of conscious supervision then leads to a dissonance between bodily perception and actual state.
Self-awareness: the Self in time
There self-awareness relies on the ability to to represent oneself, here and now, but also in the past and the future. It involves the use of the Self as an object of reflection.
Cases of amnesia provide insight into this form of consciousness. For example, the famous patient HM, after an operation for epilepsy, lost the ability to form new memories. He remained stuck in an earlier time, still believing that his deceased relatives were alive (Carter, 1998). His narrative identity had frozen.
Another striking example is that of the LB patient, affected byasomatognosia. Although awake and lucid, she declared:
“I haven't lost my sense of being… but I've lost my body.”
Here it illustrates a dissociation between the feeling of existing And the feeling of having a body, highlighting the multiple layers of self-awareness.
Summary: A four-dimensional framework
These four forms of consciousness – access, phenomenal, control, self – constitute a coherent framework to explore the richness of human experience. They allow us to interpret the cases mentioned in the previous chapter:
THE somnambulism illustrates the absence of conscious access and self-awareness, but the presence of some behavioral control.
There blindsight demonstrates partial access to information without phenomenal awareness.
L'traumatic amnesia mainly disturbs self-awareness, while other forms remain intact.
Towards a unified theory?
This theoretical framework poses a crucial question:
Can a single theory of consciousness explain these different forms at once?
To date, most theories only cover some facets of consciousness. A comprehensive theory will therefore have to articulate these different dimensions to be truly satisfactory. This will be the subject of the following chapters, where we will explore the major cognitive, biological and philosophical approaches to consciousness.
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