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Borderline consciousness, when it’s neither determinately true nor determinately false that experience is present | Philosophical Studies

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This article defends the existence of borderline consciousness. In borderline consciousness, conscious experience is neither determinately present nor determinately absent, but rather somewhere between. The argument in brief is this. In considering what types of systems are conscious, we face a quadrilemma. Either nothing is conscious, or everything is conscious, or there’s a sharp boundary across the apparent continuum between conscious systems and nonconscious ones, or consciousness is a vague property admitting indeterminate cases. Assuming mainstream naturalism about consciousness, we ought to reject the first three options, which forces us to the fourth, indeterminacy. Standard objections to the existence of borderline consciousness turn on the inconceivability of borderline cases. However, borderline cases are only inconceivable by an inappropriately demanding standard of conceivability. I conclude with some plausible cases and applications. Avoid common mistakes on your manuscri

1 Introduction: the central claim, some clarifications, and the argument in brief I will defend the existence of borderline consciousness. In borderline consciousness, conscious experience is neither determinately present nor determinately absent, but rather somewhere between. It is neither determinately true nor determinately false that there’s something it’s like to be the entity in question or to have the state in question. The existence of such indeterminate gray zones of consciousness has sometimes been defended on general evolutionary or metaphysical grounds or in view of seemingly…

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