# How does the brain encode epistemic reliability? Perceptual presence, phenomenal transparency, and counterfactual richness **Abstract:** Seth develops a convincing and detailed internalist alternative to the sensorimotor-contingency theory of perceptual phenomenology. However, there are remaining conceptual problems due to a semantic ambiguity in the notion of “presence” and the idea of “subjective veridicality.” The current model should be integrated with the earlier idea that experiential “realness” and “mind-independence” are determined by the unavailability of earlier processing stages to attention. Counterfactual richness and attentional unavailability may both be indicators of the overall processing level currently achieved, a functional property that normally correlates with epistemic reliability. Perceptual presence as well as phenomenal transparency express epistemic reliability on the level of conscious processing. What exactly is it that makes the experiential content of some, but not all, conscious states appear as irrevocably real to us? And how can there be degrees in experiential realness? Seth pursues what is known as an I am grateful to Wanja Wiese and Jennifer Windt for constructive discussion and editorial help. © 2014 Taylor & Francis COMMENTARIES “intentionalist” strategy in philosophy of mind (Brentano, 1874; Crane, 2009). His strategy is to reduce a specific phenomenal property (namely, “perceptual presence”) to a specific form of representational content, which is carried by dynamical neural representations as described under the predictive processing approach (PP). A phenomenal property **Authors:** [[Thomas Metzinger]]