Higher-Order Thought

Higher-order thought (HOT) theories of consciousness hold that a mental state becomes conscious not by its intrinsic properties but by being the target of a higher-order representation — a thought about the thought. A pain is conscious when one thinks that one is in pain; a visual experience is conscious when one thinks that one sees red. Consciousness, on this view, is meta-cognition: the mind's capacity to represent its own states.

The theory has roots in the work of John Locke, who held that consciousness is the perception of what passes in one's own mind, and was developed into a formal theory by David Rosenthal and William Lycan in the late 20th century. HOT theory attempts to explain consciousness without positing mysterious properties or fundamental experiences. Consciousness is just one mental state representing another; the representational apparatus is already required for other cognitive functions, so consciousness comes for