Tentative Contents of the M.A. Thesis

CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE FLOW OF ATTENTION

Tony H. Y. Cheng

Table of Contents

Introduction Facing up to Some ‘Easy’ Problems of Consciousness

0.1 Chalmers’ Reservation
0.2 Block’s Puzzle about Conscious Phenomenology
0.3 What Overflows What? P-Consciousness, A-Consciousness, Accessibility, Access, Attention, Working Memory, and Reportability

Ch. 1 Informational AND Phenomenal Persistence? Sperling Revisited

1.1 The Sperling Paradigm and Its Interpretations
1.2 Block’s Case for OVERFLOW and Its Critics
1.3 COVARIANCE: A Hypothesis Introduced and Defended

Ch. 2 Change Blindness OR Inaccessibility? Speckled Hen Revisited

2.1 Change ‘Blindness’ and Its Interpretations
2.2 Dretske’s Case for RICHNESS versus Tye’s Case for SPARSENESS
2.3 COVARIANCE: Extending the Analysis

Ch. 3 Larger Contexts: Theories of Consciousness

3.1 What HOT, AIR, and Other Theories Have to Say
3.2 Do Chimps Beat Humans in Memory Test?
3.3 A Grand Illusion, an Unsolvable Puzzle, or Let’s Go out of Our Heads? Skepticisms from Dennett, Schwitzgebel, and Noë Reconsidered

Appendix 1 Empirical Substances for a Transcendental Story

Appendix 2 Historical Roots: Rationalism, Empiricism, and Phenomenology