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High-Level and Low-Level Awareness

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Investigating the Neural Mechanisms of Aware and Unaware Fear Memory with fMRI
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Published on: October 6, 2011

Higher-order awareness, misrepresentation and function.

David Rosenthal1

  • 1Program in Philosophy and Concentration in Cognitive Science, Graduate Center, City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309 USA. davidrosenthal@nyu.edu

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences
|April 12, 2012
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Higher-order theories of consciousness offer significant advantages over first-order theories by explaining conscious mental states through higher-order awareness (HOA). While sharing misrepresentation possibilities with metacognition, consciousness

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Area of Science:

  • Philosophy of Mind
  • Cognitive Science
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • Conscious mental states are defined by an awareness of being in a particular state.
  • Higher-order theories (HOT) explain consciousness via higher-order awareness (HOA), contrasting with first-order theories.
  • An analogy is drawn between HOA and metacognition in psychological process regulation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To compare higher-order theories and first-order theories of consciousness.
  • To argue for the substantial explanatory advantages of higher-order theories.
  • To explore the relationship and differences between consciousness and metacognition.

Main Methods:

  • Comparative analysis of higher-order and first-order theories of consciousness.
  • Conceptual comparison between higher-order awareness and metacognition.
  • Examination of the potential for misrepresentation in both consciousness and metacognition.

Main Results:

  • Higher-order theories provide significant explanatory advantages for consciousness.
  • Consciousness and metacognition, despite both involving higher-order states, share limited commonalities.
  • Both consciousness (via HOA) and metacognition are susceptible to misrepresentation, potentially misdescribing mental states.

Conclusions:

  • Higher-order theories offer a more robust framework for understanding consciousness.
  • The utility of consciousness itself, beyond the utility of the underlying mental states, is questionable.
  • While metacognition offers clear benefits for psychological processing, the utility of conscious awareness remains less evident.