I tend to favor that general way of speaking, having been brought up on classical cybernetics, optimal control, and systems theory, where we think of a system as passing through its state space, controlled by its objective to optimize a specific objective function defined on its space of states. When it comes to choosing intuition-aiding names for the various components of systems and regions of state spaces, those details can be fit to the particular type of system in view.
In the case of creatures like ourselves, it is possible to regard our conscious contents as representing our body’s theory of what is likely to deserve our mind’s attention. If that theory is a good one, then we may live to be conscious of another day.
Inquiry Into Inquiry 