The Quest for a Unifying Definition and Taxonomy of Consciousness: Narrowing the Obstacles to Mutual Understanding

The primary intent of this paper is to identify and elucidate various consequential factors that have impeded the attainment of a consensual definition and taxonomy of consciousness. As such, the author explores several etymological, semantic, sociolinguistic, and methodological issues, and offers several suggestions to minimize these obstacles, and enhance mutual understanding. Various definitional issues are discussed, including the troubling conflation of ‘conscious’ and ‘consciousness’, and the perpetual publication of competing descriptions and types of consciousness. The paper also reviews issues in consciousness research and the search for the neural correlates of consciousness, and contrasts two opposing notions of consciousness - as a singular phenomenon/thing versus a multifaceted process. In addition, the author examines theoretical and procedural obstacles to classifying consciousness within a cogent taxonomic framework, and evaluates several attempts to do so. The paper concludes with a perspective borrowed from foundational Indian scriptures that may offer valuable insight moving forward.