Three propositions about conscious experience and their implications for theories of consciousness

White, Peter A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9080-6678 2026. Three propositions about conscious experience and their implications for theories of consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition 139 , 103994. 10.1016/j.concog.2026.103994

PDF - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (1MB)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to make and defend three simple propositions about what can and cannot be conscious in the human brain and to elucidate their implications for research and theory on consciousness. The first proposition is that the fact that some information is conscious should be, but often is not, distinguished from the information itself. The second proposition is that, treating the brain as an information processing system, information can be conscious (or not) but processes that operate on information cannot be conscious. This is illustrated with analysis of voluntary action generation, such as making a verbal report. The third proposition is that access consciousness is just access. Adding the word “consciousness” to it makes no difference to how it operates. An information processing system exactly like the human brain but in which no information was conscious would function in exactly the same way as human brains in which some information is conscious. Conscious experience must be explained by means of a generative mechanism; no such mechanism has yet been proposed.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Psychology
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	1053-8100
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	19 January 2026
Date of Acceptance:	9 January 2026
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2026 14:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/184026

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item