There is much more in the target paper than I have mentioned here. For the purposes of this commentary, I will focus on four issues related to the general issue of consciousness, which then result in the presentation of a revised version of the author’s account. Now that I have summarized what I take to be the author’s most important ideas, I will discuss some general problems the underlying distinction seems to bring with it. This section receives my main attention. I will try to localize the distinction within theories of consciousness. I then discuss some underlying conceptual claims to which Schooler is committed to making, and show how they relate to one another. I will point out that there is serious tension between them. In the second section, I will discuss in more detail the main empirical evidence that motivates the account—mind-wandering—, and introduce the proposed criteria. My epistemic goals in the commentary are, first, to determine the exact relationship between the initial distinction, the evidence presented, and the proposed list of criteria. Second, to discuss of how we should evaluate certain criteria, and what they tell us about underlying concepts of meta-awareness, access, and reflection. Third, to gain some insight into the relationship between one’s position regarding the mind–body problem and the suggestion the author draws from his perceptual perspective shifting analogy. According to Schooler, this is the central proposal of his paper; he claims the existence of a new-meta-perspective, which helps to overcome the limitations of both perspectives and thereby solves the mind–body problem. As I shall argue, this element is relatively independent from the rest of the project. Moreover, I think it weakens the main project.
As a positive contribution, I will suggest some conceptual changes of the underlying framework. The changes I will suggest include giving up some claims and revising others. I think these changes make the main project, which I take to be a methodological strategy for studying consciousness, stronger. They also help to avoid some problems we encountered in the discussion of the main argument. I also suggest a finer-grained specification of different kinds of reflection and taking stock. This will help to give us a better understanding of meta-cognition in general as well as of consciousness and awareness of being in a certain state as distinct phenomena. I take this to be a driving idea in Schooler’s initial distinction.