Conclusiones de la práctica

The second lesson is that once we’ve identified these different explanations, we can see that neither has conditions that are internally incompatible in the empty HOT scenario. (This result is summarized in Table 3 and I will refer to that table throughout the analysis.)

We can see in the first row of Table 3 Block’s original statement of the HOT theory’s necessary and sufficient conditions. In each of the second and third rows I have provided a reconstruction of the actual necessary and sufficient conditions that the HOT theory can be seen as providing for state consciousness and subject consciousness respectively. Notice that Block’s ambiguous phrase ‘conscious state’ (represented in bold in row 1) is disambiguated in each new condition (as shown in the italicized parts of rows 2 and 3). Also notice that the condition we found to be appropriate for each sort of consciousness is held constant within the appropriate row (as highlighted by asterisks).

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Table 3. Clarifying the necessary and sufficient conditions provided by the Higher-Order

Thought Theory.

Necessary

Condition Sufficient Condition Result in Empty HOT Scenario

Block’s Representation of the HOT Theory’s Conditions “being the object of an appropriate higher order thought is necessary for a conscious state” “[having] an appropriate higher order thought is sufficient for a conscious state”

There is no object of the HOT so the necessary condition is not satisfied. The subject does have an appropriate HOT, so the sufficient condition is satisfied. The two conditions lead to differing predictions about the presence of a conscious state in empty HOT cases - there is an incompatibility among these conditions. State Consciousness Sense of ‘Conscious State’ A mental state’s being the object of an appropriate HOT is necessary for the mental state to be state conscious *A mental state’s being the object of an appropriate HOT* is sufficientfor the mental state to be state conscious

There is no state that is the object of the HOT, so neither condition will be satisfied. Both conditions predict that there will not be a state conscious state in empty HOT cases - there is no incompatibility among these conditions. Subject Consciousness Sense of ‘Conscious State’ *A creature’s having an appropriate HOT* is necessary for the creature’s being subject conscious A creature’s having an appropriate HOT is sufficient for the creature’s being subject conscious

There is a creature with an appropriate HOT, so both

conditions will be satisfied. Both conditions predict that there creature will be subject conscious in empty HOT cases - there is no incompatibility among these conditions.

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With all these clarifications in place, we can now see that the new conditions for each sort of consciousness are not internally incompatible in the empty HOT case after all. Let’s look at the results for state consciousness first.

The newly clarified conditions for state consciousness are as follows: A mental

state’s being the object of an appropriate HOT is necessary for the mental state to be state

conscious and *a mental state’s being the object of an appropriate HOT* issufficientfor

the mental state to be state conscious.

We can now see that, rather than there being an incompatibility of predicted outcomes here, the conditions for state consciousness (as we and the objectors understand that property) just fail to be satisfied in the empty HOT scenario. That is, since there is no state that is the object of an appropriate HOT and since this condition is both

necessary and sufficient for state consciousness, the theory, as I’ve interpreted it, predicts that there will not be any state conscious mental state in empty HOT cases. Block’s charge of an incompatibility among necessary and sufficient conditions therefore fails to be realized here.

Notice that, since the very circumstances of an empty HOT scenario dictate that there is no lower-order state present, and hence that there is no lower-order state to which we could attribute the property of state consciousness in the first place, this result is not problematic for the theory. When a HOT is empty, it turns out to be true both that there is no state that is the object of the HOT and also that there is no state to which we can attribute the property of state consciousness anyway. Hence the result that there is no state conscious state in these cases should not be alarming.

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As for subject consciousness, the newly clarified conditions are as follows: *A

creature’s having an appropriate HOT* is necessary for the creature’s being subject

conscious anda creature’s having an appropriate HOT is sufficient for the creature’s being subject conscious.

Since these conditions make no mention of the lower-order state that fails to be instantiated in empty HOT cases, we can see that these conditions are both satisfied and, as Rosenthal has maintained, the theory therefore predicts that there will be something it’s like for the creature in the empty HOT cases. Furthermore, since the necessary and sufficient conditions for subject consciousness are here both satisfied, there turns out not to be any internal incompatibility among the conditions for subject consciousness in empty HOT cases either. Block’s charge of an internal incompatibility among conditions again fails to be realized.

In light of these findings, we can conclude that in empty HOT cases there is no internal incompatibility among the conditions we’ve now taken the HOT theory to provide, either for state consciousness or for subject consciousness. The conditions for state consciousness both fail to be met in empty HOT scenarios and the conditions for subject consciousness are both satisfied in empty HOT scenarios. From here we can conclude that Block’s charge that the HOT theory has internally incompatible conditions in empty HOT cases is actually based on his accidental combination of one condition from each of the two separate explanations. Since the HOT theory provides no explanation consisting of those two conditions together, and hence the theory has no explanation with internally incompatible conditions, we can safely reject Block’s Misrepresentation Objection.

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This clarification of the explanations provided by the HOT theory not only

eliminates the objection but also helps us to understand how Block might have fallen into endorsing this objection in the first place. The most obvious reason for this mistake is clearly the fact that Rosenthal has never said that the theory provides two separate explanations, hence Block can hardly be faulted for failing to notice that the two

conditions he identifies are part of two different explanations contained within the theory. Even more interestingly, however, we now also can see how Block’s mistake of running together a condition from each of the different explanations would be an easy

mistake to make, even if he was aware of the presence of the two separate explanations.

The reason is that both of these separate explanations actually take the formation of an appropriate HOT to be a necessary condition for their particular sort of consciousness. Specifically, mental states are state conscious when appropriate HOTs are formed about them, so a HOT must be formed in order for any mental state to be state conscious, and creatures are subject conscious when they are representing via HOTs, so a HOT also must be formed in order for any creature to be subject conscious. Given this parallel in the theory’s explanations of the two sorts of consciousness, we can see clearly now that it would be rather easy to confuse the conditions involved in the two explanations.