A true science of consciousness explains phenomenology: comment on Cohen and Dennett

In their recent article in TiCS [1], Cohen and Dennett propose that consciousness is inextricably tied to one’s ability to report about the contents of experience (an ‘access-only ’ theory). They contrast this with theories that distinguish mechanisms that create the contents of expe-rience frommechanisms that allow one to report about this content (‘phenomenal-access ’ theories). These they claim to be unfalsifiable, and therefore beyond the realm of science. We argue below that this assertion is wrong and based on a misguided belief about what a theory of consciousness needs to explain. Cohen and Dennett maintain that phenomenal-access theories are ‘dissociative’, as though these theories propose mechanisms of consciousness that are devoid of function. They seem to suggest that access itself is the function tha