Abstract

In Enchanted Looms , Rodney Cotterill defends the hypothesisthat conscious sensory experience depends on motor response. Thepositive evidence for this hypothesis is inconclusive, andnegative evidence can be marshaled against it. I present analternative hypothesis according to which consciousness involvesintermediate level sensory processing, attention, and workingmemory. The circuitry of consciousness can be dissociated fromaction systems and may mark an evolutionary advance from a priorphylogenetic stage in which motor outputs and sensory inputswere more intimately bound.