Properties of consciousness.

A materialist view suggests minimal requirements:rS9

  • Organization of information to coordinate action
  • Responsiveness toward certain goals
  • Self-monitoring of some sort to maintain homeostasis
  • Phenomonology (what it’s likes to be oneself)

Other properties seem necessary, but aren’t.


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    Eric Schwitzgebel, “If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious,” Philosophical Studies, no. 172 (2015): 1697–1721. (See notes.)