Borderline consciousness, when it’s neither determinately true nor determinately false that experience is present

Abstract

This article defends the existence of borderline consciousness. In borderline consciousness, conscious experience is neither determinately present nor determinately absent, but rather somewhere between. The argument in brief is this. In considering what types of systems are conscious, we face a quadrilemma. Either nothing is conscious, or everything is conscious, or there’s a sharp boundary across the apparent continuum between conscious systems and nonconscious ones, or consciousness is a vague property admitting indeterminate cases. Assuming mainstream naturalism about consciousness, we ought to reject the first three options, which forces us to the fourth, indeterminacy. Standard objections to the existence of borderline consciousness turn on the inconceivability of borderline cases. However, borderline cases are only inconceivable by an inappropriately demanding standard of conceivability. I conclude with some plausible cases and applications.

What does it mean for consciousness to be multidimensional? A narrative review

“…This specific kind of vagueness has usually been denied to the property of consciousness on philosophical grounds ( Antony, 2008 ; Simon, 2017 ). However, recently, Schwitzgebel (2023) has argued in favor of the existence of borderline cases of consciousness.…”

“…In addition, on the mainstream philosophical opinion, if consciousness is unidimensional, it cannot be vague. One would have to accept the possibility of states that are neither conscious nor unconscious ( Schwitzgebel, 2023 ). On the other hand, if consciousness is multidimensional, there is additional room for vagueness in the global ordering of different consciousnesses.…”

“…Only models that clearly endorse a dimensional description of consciousness or some of its basic aspects are considered here. This leaves out models that may only imply a dimension or dimensions to consciousness, which is fairly common in theoretical texts on consciousness, as has been noted by others ( Jonkisz et al, 2017 ; Schwitzgebel, 2023 ). The review is also restricted to models that draw on cognitive science and philosophy.…”