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.


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