Self-Consciousness as the Monitoring of Cognitive States: A Theoretical Perspective

Abstract

Following a review of introspectionist, dualist, and functionalist theories of self-consciousness, a mind-brain monitoring theory is developed. According to monitoring theory, self-consciousness is one's tacit knowledge that one is experiencing sensations: in particular, that one is imaging sensations or that one is perceiving them. Such knowledge is the phenomenal consequence of neurally monitoring whether one's sensations are centrally innervated images or peripherally innervated percepts. As a corollary of the present theory, dream images are interpreted as unmonitored images. Other hallucinations, which also arise in the absence of self-consciousness, are similarly interpreted. As another corollary, “subconscious” percepts are interpreted as unmonitored percepts. Experimental and clinical evidence in support of these and other corollaries is reviewed.