Content-Matching: The Contents of What?

Abstract

Rich, sparse, hybrid and sensori-motor accounts of the contents of consciousness are described here to assess the general strategy of content-matching. Criticisms of these accounts are reviewed to illustrate the problems associated with demarcating conscious content in a way that is consistent with reports, behaviours, and properties of the perceptual system. Of most interest is the way that differences between theories of conscious content and descriptions of perceptual processing can be dealt with. Cross-level identity (matching) claims typically play a heuristic role in science as a way to advance and test hypotheses, and to then revise concepts at both levels of the claim. Yet models of perceptual processing are unlikely to change to reflect intuitions about conscious content, and models of conscious content are equally unlikely to make the large changes necessary to make them consistent with scientific findings. This methodological and sociological feature of contemporary consciousness science again highlights the problems in treating ‘consciousness’ as a viable target of scientific research.