comments

A conscious state is a higher-order thought

A conscious state occurs when a thought is directed at a lower-level mental state. Self-consciousness occurs when a third-level thought is directed at the second-level thought.

For example, a state of happiness is a first level mental state, the thought "I am happy" is a second-level conscious mental state, and the thought "I'm thinking about being happy" is a third level conscious state.

David Rosenthal (1986).
RELATED ARTICLESExplain
⌅
Artificial Intelligence
⌃
Can computers think? [1]
⌃
No: computers can't be conscious [6]
⌃
Higher-order representational structures
■
A conscious state is a higher-order thought
□
Computational structure necessary to consciousness
□
Consciousness is a higher-order system
□
Consciousness is the perception of own mind
□
Self-scanning robot would be conscious
□
Graph of this discussion
Enter the title of your article


Enter a short (max 500 characters) summation of your article
Enter the main body of your article
Lock
+Comments (0)
+Citations (0)
+About
Enter comment

Select article text to quote
welcome text

First name   Last name 

Email

Skip