THE FUTURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Strate talks about the subject of consciousness and reviews its past and present, in the hope of establishing a basis for considering its future. He cites that general semantics asks us to maintain an extensional orientation, that is, an orientation based on observation of the outside world, not on our own internal logic, or feelings, or prejudices. But consciousness is an entirely internal, intensional phenomenon. Our understanding of consciousness is based on our subjective examination of our own consciousness, and on inferences and logical reasoning in lieu of empirical evidence. In other words, there is no way to avoid applying an intensional orientation to an intensional phenomenon.