The Consciousness Atlas is an interactive web app that visualizes more
than 450 theories of consciousness. It is based on Robert Lawrence
Kuhn's 2024 paper,
"A Landscape of Consciousness". The Atlas maps theories that address phenomenal consciousness - the
subjective feel of experience, such as the redness of red.
What the Atlas is
The Atlas is a visual reference built on Kuhn's taxonomy. It presents
the full set of theories at once so you can explore the field visually
and open any theory to read its entry, like an encyclopedia with
structured entries. Each theory entry shows a concise identity line,
conceptual ground, suggested mechanism, empirical notes, implications,
and sources.
Why this exists
Consciousness is studied across disciplines - neuroscience,
philosophy, and sometimes spiritual or anomalous-state research.
Kuhn's paper collects and organizes hundreds of theories along a
spectrum from most physical to least physical. The Atlas puts that
organization into a visual form so readers, students, and researchers
can quickly see how different positions relate and where each theory
sits on the spectrum.
How it works
Theories are grouped into ten main categories, arranged by their
stance on the physical-to-nonphysical spectrum. Examples of categories
include Materialism, Non-Reductive Physicalism, Functionalism,
Quantum-based theories, Panpsychism, Monism, Dualism, Idealism,
Anomalous States, and Challenge Theories. The app shows the whole map
at once. Click any theory to read its structured entry, which includes
references to canonical sources and named thinkers.
Who it is for
- Students learning philosophy of mind and cognitive science
-
Researchers and lecturers looking for an at-a-glance comparative
resource
-
Journalists and writers who need a quick reference to the range of
positions
-
Curious readers who want a clear view of what people mean when they
talk about consciousness
What the Atlas does not do
The Atlas does not endorse or rank theories. It is a visualization and
reference based on Kuhn's taxonomy - collect and present, not judge.
It does not attempt to settle the hard problem of consciousness. It is
a tool for exploration and comparison.
A note from Kuhn
Kuhn explicitly states the project's purpose: "collect and categorize,
not assess and adjudicate." The Consciousness Atlas follows that
approach. The data and structure are derived from Kuhn's paper;
feedback and suggested corrections are welcome, but the app is a
visualization layer on top of Kuhn's work.
Kuhn was not involved in the design or content of the Consciousness
Atlas, other than his original paper, 'A Landscape of Consciousness,'
which is the sole source.
FAQ
What is phenomenal consciousness?
Phenomenal consciousness refers to subjective experience - the
qualitative feel of being aware, like the taste of coffee or the
redness of red.
How many theories does the Atlas include?
The Atlas visualizes over 220 individual theories, grouped into ten
broad categories.
Does the Atlas show which theory is true?
No. The Atlas presents theories neutrally. It is a map, not an
argument for any single position.
Is the Atlas academic?
The Atlas is based on an academic source - Robert Kuhn's 2024 paper,
"A Landscape of Consciousness" - and links to canonical sources
where available.
Summary
The Consciousness Atlas is a straightforward visualization tool: it
presents Kuhn's taxonomy as a single, explorable map and lets users
open individual theory entries to read structured, referenced
summaries. It is designed to make this complex field easier to survey
and to serve as a practical reference.
Phenomenology
Petitmengin’s Micro-Phenomenology
Consciousness as Describable Micro-Dynamics of Lived Experience
Claire Petitmengin holds that lived experience has a fine-grained micro-dynamics (pre-reflective, bodily, affective, temporal, gestural) that normally goes unnoticed but can be described precisely under guided conditions. Her micro-phenomenological interview leads a person back to one specific past moment and uses content-empty questions to draw out how it unfolded, without suggesting what will be found. The aim is first-person data rigorous enough to constrain, and be constrained by, neuroscience.
Claire Petitmengin
What consciousness is
Petitmengin makes an epistemic claim, not a metaphysical one: phenomenal consciousness has a describable micro-dynamics, a pre-reflective layer through which any perception, thought, or feeling emerges.
Mind and body
First-person and third-person analyses are meant to guide and determine one another, which Petitmengin hopes may shed light on the explanatory gap. She proposes no metaphysics of the relation.
Mechanism
Guided evocation with content-empty questions, which aims to bypass the opinions and reconstructions that make ordinary introspective reports unreliable.
Core claims
- Guided interviews reveal fine-grained structure in experiences that people ordinarily report as simple.
- Generic experiential structures recur across subjects and domains beneath the specific content of each episode.
- With neurologists, Petitmengin used interviews to detect pre-reflective changes preceding epileptic seizures that patients had never articulated, and paired them with analysis of preictal brain activity.
- Petitmengin and Michel Bitbol argue that standard objections to introspection target naïve inner observation, not mediated, evocation-based access.
Criticisms
Critics note that the constraint between experiential and neural levels in the seizure studies remains programmatic, without an explicit explanatory model. After exchanges with Dan Zahavi, some practitioners dropped the term ‘pre-reflective’, which classical phenomenology reserves for self-awareness that reflection cannot retrieve.
Related theories
Sources
- Describing one's subjective experience in the second person: an interview method for the science of consciousness, Claire Petitmengin (2006)
- Towards the source of thoughts: the gestural and transmodal dimension of lived experience, Claire Petitmengin (2007)
- Anticipating seizure: pre-reflective experience at the center of neuro-phenomenology, Claire Petitmengin, V. Navarro, and M. Le Van Quyen (2007)
- The validity of first-person descriptions as authenticity and coherence, Claire Petitmengin and Michel Bitbol (2009)
- Description of the experience of experiencing: a reply to commentators, Claire Petitmengin (2011)
- Varieties of reflection, Dan Zahavi (2011)
- The lived experience of remembering a ‘good’ interview: micro-phenomenology applied to itself, K. Heimann et al. (2022)
- Petitmengin’s Micro-Phenomenology, Landscape of Consciousness (Closer To Truth)
Explore all theories on the Consciousness Atlas
