 It is also agreed that within creature-consciousness itself we should distinguish between intransitive and transitive variants. To say of an organism that it is conscious simpliciter (intransitive) is to say just that it is awake, as opposed to asleep or comatose. There don’t appear to be any deep philosophical difficulties lurking here (or at least, they aren’t difficulties specific to the topic of consciousness, as opposed to mentality in general). But to say of an organism that it is conscious of such-and-such (transitive) is normally to say at least that it is perceiving such-and-such, or aware of such-and-such. So we say of the mouse that it is conscious of the cat outside its hole, in explaining why it doesn’t come out; meaning that it perceives the cat’s presence. To provide an account of transitive creature-consciousness would thus be to attempt a theory of perception.