This paper attempts to answer the question 'what are the various concepts the term 'consciousness' picks out?' It outlines
six different notions of consciousness, self-consciousness, minimal consciousness,
perceptual consciousness,
phenomenal consciousness, access consciousness and higher order consciousness and shows why they are not equivalent. It examines how every one of these concepts of consciousness is problematic in that they have all alluded a complete scientific explanation and how phenomenal consciousness and perceptual consciousness are more likely to allude scientific analysis than the others.