 The targetless HOT problem has recently become a very significant topic of debate among HOT theorists as well as some critics (Block 2011; Rosenthal 2005, 2011; Weisberg 2011; Gennaro 2012, chapter four; Wilberg 2010; Berger 2014, 2017; Brown 2015; Lau and Brown 2019) which has also led some to advocate for other variants of HOT theory or to clarify their own theories. Gennaro (2012) argues, for example, that since the HOTs in question are typically themselves unconscious, it makes little sense to suppose that these HOTs are phenomenally conscious in the context of HOT theory, especially since a conscious HOT would be an introspective state instead. Maintaining that an unconscious HOT would yield the same subjective experience without any target state seems to run counter to a central initial motivation of HOT theory, namely, to explain what makes a first-order state conscious. Thus, the first-order state must exist first in order to be rendered conscious by an appropriate and accompanying HOT with some sort of corresponding conceptual content.  If both aren’t present, then no relevant conscious state occurs (see also Wilberg 2010). Berger (2014), however, argues that consciousness is not a property of states at all; instead, it is a property of individual persons (that is, how my mental states appear to me). And Brown (2015) challenges the very assumption that HOT theory is best interpreted as a relational theory at all; instead, it is better construed as a HOROR theory, that is, higher-order representation of a representation, regardless of whether or not the target representation exists. In this sense, HOT theory is better understood as non-relational which also seems to be Rosenthal’s considered view in recent decades. The debate continues (Rosenthal 2018). 