Abstract:
Philosophical and scientific theories identify two types of consciousness. The first,
“phenomenal” consciousness is the qualitative experience of sensory input. The second,
“access” consciousness is the experience of attention, working memory and higher cognition
engaged during behaviour. The distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness is
subject to controversy and debate. Late global theories propose occipital cortex representations
only gain access to consciousness if they are attended to and enter into a brain wide network
of processors. Early theories propose visual consciousness arises from processing in local
modules of the occipital cortex.
This debate is fueled by the experimental, methodological requirement that observers access
the content of their phenomenal experience for report. Consequently, the late model argues
that the dissociation between access and phenomenal consciousness is scientifically
intractable. This thesis proposes a solution to this impasse. This will require the science of
consciousness to follow the lead of the established sciences. As models of consciousness
evolve, they will incorporate information from the neural network, cellular, chemical and
more fundamental physical levels of organization and they will develop bridging principles
that span those levels.
From this scientific perspective this thesis proposes that spatial and temporal structure are
essential features that will necessarily play a central role in any working definition of
consciousness. It is argued that phenomenal consciousness of the “external world” and access
consciousness representing the “internal self” exist within distinct temporal frames.
This thesis proposes a solution to the debate between the early Global Workspace and late
Global Neuronal Workspace models. It is argued that the Global Neuronal Workspace model
cannot account for the disjunction between the temporal frames of conscious awareness of the
external world and conscious awareness of internal “self” processes. Whereas a model which
incorporates a Visual Sentience Network, and a Global Workspace will account for conscious
experience across these two distinct temporal frames of reference.
A pithy, explanatory reduction of the Colour Phi Illusion is undertaken. This explanation
demonstrates that aspects of this visual illusion can be accounted for by processing at the local
network and cellular levels of the occipital cortex.