Self-Consciousness in Experience

This paper critically evaluates Amie Thomasson’s (2003; 2005; 2006) view of the conscious mind and the interpretation of Husserl’s phenomenological reduction that it adopts. In Thomasson’s view, the phenomenological method is not an introspectionist method, but rather a “transparent” or “extrospectionist” method for acquiring epistemically privileged self-knowledge. I argue that Thomasson’s reading of Husserl’s phenomenological reduction is correct. But the view of consciousness that she pairs with it—a view of consciousness as “transparent” in the sense that first-order, world-oriented experience is (...) in no way given to itself—is not compatible with it and that it is not the point of view Husserl adopts. Rather, Thomasson’s view is, from a Husserlian vantage point, self-undermining in the same way that any genuinely skeptical view is self-undermining. And this is one of the motives Husserl has for holding a non-transparent, same-order view of consciousness alongside his transparent method for self-knowledge acquisition. (shrink)

Hume famously denied that he could experience the self. Most subsequent philosophers have concurred with this finding. I argue that if the subject is to function as a bearer of experience it must (1) lack sensory qualities in itself to be compatible with bearing sensory qualities and (2) be single so that it can unify experience. I use Douglas Harding’s first-person experiments to investigate the visual gap where one cannot see one’s own head. I argue that this open space conforms (...) to the above criteria and hence is consistent with being the subject. I respond to the objection that this location is merely a lack of visual experience. I argue that this space also encompasses sound and touch properties and hence functions as a bearer for other sensory modalities. These first-person findings provide prima facie support for the view that the subject is a thin bearer of experience. (shrink)

While elucidating the sense of ego-maker in classical Samkhya and Yoga philosophy I bear in mind several meanings of the word ‘sense’, or different levels of its understanding, namely: the semantic, ontological and epistemic as well as axiological sense. Thus, my aim is, firstly, to specify the semantic sense of the term ‘ahamkara’, that is to explain its contents or denotation. Secondly, when focusing on the ontological context I will try to define the nature and reason, or purpose (arthavattava), of (...) ahamkara. Thirdly, I shall also discuss the ego-maker in epistemic terms by displaying its function of the particular means or determinant of all experience. And finally, when concentrating on the axiological level I am going to consider the significance or value of ahamkara in the context of self-understanding and spiritual development. (shrink)

Relocating the figure of Jikaku (Self-Consciousness) in Nishida’s Intuition and Reflection in Self-consciousness.

There is converging evidence that high doses of hallucinogenic drugs can produce significant alterations of self-experience, described as the dissolution of the sense of self and the loss of boundaries between self and world. This article discusses the relevance of this phenomenon, known as “drug-induced ego dissolution (DIED)”, for cognitive neuroscience, psychology and philosophy of mind. Data from self-report questionnaires suggest that three neuropharmacological classes of drugs can induce ego dissolution: classical psychedelics, dissociative anesthetics and agonists of the kappa opioid (...) receptor (KOR). While these substances act on different neurotransmitter receptors, they all produce strong subjective effects that can be compared to the symptoms of acute psychosis, including ego dissolution. It has been suggested that neuroimaging of DIED can indirectly shed light on the neural correlates of the self. While this line of inquiry is promising, its results must be interpreted with caution. First, neural correlates of ego dissolution might reveal the necessary neurophysiological conditions for the maintenance of the sense of self, but it is more doubtful that this method can reveal its minimally sufficient conditions. Second, it is necessary to define the relevant notion of self at play in the phenomenon of DIED. This article suggests that DIED consists in the disruption of subpersonal processes underlying the “minimal” or “embodied” self, i.e., the basic experience of being a self rooted in multimodal integration of self-related stimuli. This hypothesis is consistent with Bayesian models of phenomenal selfhood, according to which the subjective structure of conscious experience ultimately results from the optimization of predictions in perception and action. Finally, it is argued that DIED is also of particular interest for philosophy of mind. On the one hand, it challenges theories according to which consciousness always involves self-awareness. On the other hand, it suggests that ordinary conscious experience might involve a minimal kind of self-awareness rooted in multisensory processing, which is what appears to fade away during DIED. (shrink)

This article is about the special, subjective concepts we apply to experience, called “phenomenal concepts”. They are of special interest in a number of ways. First, they refer to phenomenal experiences, and the qualitative character of those experiences whose metaphysical status is hotly debated. Conscious experience strike many philosophers as philosophically problematic and difficult to accommodate within a physicalistic metaphysics. Second, PCs are widely thought to be special and unique among concepts. The sense that there is something special about PCs (...) is very closely tied up with features of the epistemic access they afford to qualia. When we deploy phenomenal concepts introspectively to some phenomenally conscious experience as it occurs, we are said to be acquainted with our own conscious experiences. Accounts of PCs either have to explain the acquaintance relation, or acquaintance with our phenomenal experiences has to be denied. PCs have received much attention in recent philosophy of mind mainly because they figure in arguments for dualism and in physicalist responses to these arguments. The main topic of this article is to explore different accounts of phenomenal concepts and their role in recent debates over the metaphysical status of phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

I will argue that accounts of mineness and pre-reflective self-awareness can be helpful to panpsychists in solving the combination problems. A common strategy in answering the subject combination problem in panpsychism is to deflate the subject, eliminating or reducing subjects to experience. Many modern panpsychist theories are deflationist or endorse deflationist accounts of subjects, such as Parfit’s reductionism of personal identity and G. Strawson’s identity view. To see if there can be deflation we need to understand what the subject/self is. (...) One aspect of consciousness left unexplored and unappreciated by panpsychist theories is pre-reflective self-consciousness/self-awareness. Theories of the self, inspired by phenomenology, that are serious about subjectivity, could be of use in arguing against the deflationary reductionism of the experiencing subject. These theories show that there is more to the subject of experience than just its experiences (qualities). Even without arguing for any precise account of the nature of the self, it can be shown what phenomenology of subjective character of consciousness and pre-reflective self-awareness contributes to the combination problem debate. (shrink)

Users of psychedelic drugs often report that their sense of being a self or ‘I’ distinct from the rest of the world has diminished or altogether dissolved. Neuroscientific study of such ‘ego dissolution’ experiences offers a window onto the nature of self-awareness. We argue that ego dissolution is best explained by an account that explains self-awareness as resulting from the integrated functioning of hierarchical predictive models which posit the existence of a stable and unchanging entity to which representations are bound. (...) Combining recent work on the ‘integrative self' and the phenomenon of self-binding with predictive processing principles yields an explanation of ego dissolution according to which self-representation is a useful Cartesian fiction: an ultimately false representation of a simple and enduring substance to which attributes are bound which serves to integrate and unify cognitive processing across levels and domains. The self-model is not a mere narrative posit, as some have suggested; it has a more robust and ubiquitous cognitive function than that. But this does not mean, as others have claimed, that the self-model has the right attributes to qualify as a self. It performs some of the right kinds of functions, but it is not the right kind of entity. Ego dissolution experiences reveal that the self-model plays an important binding function in cognitive processing, but the self does not exist. (shrink)

Some philosophers of mind, cognitive scientists, phenomenologists as well as Buddhist philosophers have claimed that an awareness of an object is not just an experience of that object but also involves self-awareness. It is sometimes argued that being aware of an object without being aware of oneself is pathological. As anyone who has been involved in martial arts, as well as any sports requiring quick responses such as cricket and tennis, can testify, however, awareness of the self at the time (...) of acting becomes problematic: you would not be able to respond to the slight movement of your opponent if you were aware of yourself responding to it. This suggests that it must be possible for us to be aware without being aware of ourselves. The aim of this paper is to clarify the notion of self-awareness and its relation to the self by investigating the phenomenology of the martial artist who is ‘in the act’. I shall argue that we can make sense of self-awareness without invoking awareness of oneself. (shrink)

It seems certain to me that I will die and stay dead. By “I”, I mean me, Greg Nixon, this person, this self-identity. I am so intertwined with the chiasmus of lives, bodies, ecosystems, symbolic intersubjectivity, and life on this particular planet that I cannot imagine this identity continuing alone without them. However, one may survive one’s life by believing in universal awareness, perfection, and the peace that passes all understanding. Perhaps, we bring this back with us to the Source (...) from which we began, changing it, enriching it. Once we have lived – if we don’t choose the eternal silence of oblivion by life denial, vanity, indifference, or simple weariness – the Source learns and we awaken within it. Awareness, consciousness, is universal – it comes with the territory – so maybe you will be one of the few prepared to become unexpectedly enlightened after the loss of body and self. You may discover your own apotheosis – something you always were, but after a lifetime of primate experience, now much more. Since you are of the Source and since you have changed from life experience and yet retained the dream of ultimate awakening, plus you have brought those chaotic emotions and memories back to the Source with you (though no longer yours), your life & memories will have mattered. Those who awaken beyond the death of self will have changed Reality. (shrink)

When so much is being written on conscious experience, it is past time to face the question whether experience happens that is not conscious of itself. The recognition that we and most other living things experience non-consciously has recently been firmly supported by experimental science, clinical studies, and theoretic investigations; the related if not identical philosophic notion of experience without a subject has a rich pedigree. Leaving aside the question of how experience could become conscious of itself, I aim here (...) to demonstrate that the terms experience and consciousness are not interchangeable. Experience is a notoriously difficult concept to pin down, but I see non-conscious experience as based mainly in momentary sensations, relational between bodies or systems, and probably common throughout the natural world. If this continuum of experience — from non-conscious, to conscious, to self-transcending awareness — can be understood and accepted, radical constructivism (the “outside” world as a construct of experience) will gain a firmer foundation, panexperientialism (a living universe) may gain credibility, and psi will find its medium. (shrink)

Mental ownership concerns who experiences a mental state. According to David Rosenthal (2005: 342), the proper way to characterize mental ownership is: ‘being conscious of a state as present is being conscious of it as belonging to somebody. And being conscious of a state as belonging to somebody other than oneself would plainly not make it a conscious state’. In other words, if a mental state is consciously present to a subject in virtue of a higher-order thought (HOT), then the (...) HOT necessarily representsthe subject as the owner of the state. But, we contend, one of the lessons to be learned from pathological states like somatoparaphrenia is that conscious awareness of a mental state does not guarantee first-person ownership. That is to say, conscious presence does not imply mental ownership. (shrink)

The Two Selves takes the position that the self is not a "thing" easily reduced to an object of scientific analysis. Rather, the self consists in a multiplicity of aspects, some of which have a neuro-cognitive basis (and thus are amenable to scientific inquiry) while other aspects are best construed as first-person subjectivity, lacking material instantiation. As a consequence of their potential immateriality, the subjective aspect of self cannot be taken as an object and therefore is not easily amenable to (...) treatment by current scientific methods. -/- Klein argues that to fully appreciate the self, its two aspects must be acknowledged, since it is only in virtue of their interaction that the self of everyday experience becomes a phenomenological reality. However, given their different metaphysical commitments (i.e., material and immaterial aspects of reality), a number of issues must be addressed. These include, but are not limited to, the possibility of interaction between metaphysically distinct aspects of reality, questions of causal closure under the physical, the principle of energy conservation. -/- After addressing these concerns, Klein presents evidence based on self-reports from case studies of individuals who suffer from a chronic or temporary loss of their sense of personal ownership of their mental states. Drawing on this evidence, he argues that personal ownership may be the factor that closes the metaphysical gap between the material and immaterial selves, linking these two disparate aspects of reality, thereby enabling us to experience a unified sense of self despite its underlying multiplicity. -/- . (shrink)

This essay by Nishida Kitarō from 1927, translated into English here for the first time, is from the initial period of what has come to be called “Nishida philosophy” (Nishida tetsugaku), when Nishida was first developing his conception of “place” (basho). Nishida here inquires into the relationship between logic and consciousness in terms of place and implacement in order to overcome the shortcomings of previous philosophical attempts—from the ancient Greeks to the moderns—to dualistically conceive the relationship between being and knowing (...) in terms of subject-object or form-matter. During the course of articulating his novel approach to consciousness and cognition, Nishida discusses what he takes to be the weaknesses of Greek hylomorphism, Kantian (and neo-Kantian) dualism, and Husserlian phenomenology. Dissatisfied with the attribution of mere passivity to placiality, and turning away from consciousness objectified as a subject of statement, Nishida imparts to consciousness qua place a certain logical independence as an active yet un-objectifiable “predicate.” This investigation of consciousness as the unobjectifiable place for objectification leads Nishida to the notion of what precedes consciousness itself, a “place of nothing” (mu no basho) that envelops the dichotomized structures of subject-predicate, being-nothing, subject-object, universal-particular, et cetera. (shrink)

In recent years the term ‘recognition’ has been used in ever more variegated theoretical contexts. This article contributes to the discussion of how the concept(s) expressed by this term in different debates should be explicated and understood. For the most part it takes the concept itself as its topic rather than making theoretical use of it. Drawing on important work by Ikäheimo and Laitinen and taking Honneth’s tripartite distinction of recognition into love, respect, and esteem as a starting point it (...) introduces the conceptual distinction between recognitive attitudes, recognitive relations, and recognitive acts, discusses Brandom’s attempt at explaining self-consciousness in terms of reflexive recognition mediated by intersubjective recognitive relations and suggests some critical points on how Butler puts the concept of recognition to work in her conception of ethics. (shrink)

Some theorists approach the Gordian knot of consciousness by proclaiming its inherent tangle and mystery. Others draw out the sword of reduction and cut the knot to pieces. Philosopher Thomas Metzinger, in his important new book, Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity, instead attempts to disentangle the knot one careful strand at a time. The result is an extensive and complex work containing almost 700 pages of philosophical analysis, phenomenological reflection, and scientific data. The text offers a sweeping (...) and comprehensive tour through the entire landscape of consciousness studies, and it lays out Metzinger's rich and stimulating theory of the subjective mind. Metzinger's skilled integration of philosophy and neuroscience provides a valuable framework for interdisciplinary research on consciousness. (shrink)

In this article, I delineate seven aspects of the process of self-consciousness in order to demonstrate that when any of the aspects is compromised, self-consciousness goes away while consciousness persists. I then suggest that the psychological phenomenon of flow is characterized by a loss of self-consciousness. The seven aspects are: 1) implicit awareness that the person and the self are identical; 2) awareness of an event or circumstance in the world internal or external to the person; 3) awareness that this (...) event or circumstance is not isolated, that something will result from it; 4) inference that a result of the circumstance or event may have an impact on one's person; 5) inference that the impact on one's person may have a normative valence with respect to one's person; 6) inference that the normative valence with respect one's person may be significant to one's person; 7) implicit awareness that any event eventuating in a normative valence that is significant with respect to one's person will also be significant to one's self. (shrink)

The thesis of Delius's book is that statements of self-awareness such as "I am aware that I see a cat" possess what he calls 'Cartesian characteristics' of indubitability or absolute self-evidence. He argues that this is the case in virtue of the fact that such statements are not about anything independent of themselves. The book is described as a 'semantical inquiry', but it is not by any means a contribution to the philosophy of language of the predictable sort. Statements of (...) self-awareness express what Delius calls 'egological experiences', and the subject of the book is most accurately described as consisting in the relations between egological statements and egological experiences, in a sense made clear in the course of the book. (shrink)

It is not necessarily the case that we ever have experiences of self, but human beings do regularly report instances for which self is experienced as absent. That is there are times when body parts, mental states, or actions are felt to be alien. Here I sketch an explanatory framework for explaining these alienation experiences, a framework that also attempts to explain the “mental glue” whereby self is bound to body, mind, or action. The framework is a multi-dimensional model that (...) integrates personal and sub-personal components, psychological and neural processes. I then proceed to show how this model can be applied to explain the action-related passivity experiences of persons suffering from schizophrenia. I argue that a distinctive phenomenological mark of these experiences is that they are vividly felt, unlike ordinary actions (those taken to belong to self), and I seek to explain these heightened sensory experiences from within the proposed framework. I also propose hypotheses concerning such phenomena as thought insertion and anarchic hand syndrome that are motivated by this framework. Finally, I argue that the proposed model and view of self-experiences is consistent with several aspects of and theories of consciousness, especially theories which indicate that consciousness is more likely to be engaged when we are dealing with novelty or error—e.g. when self seems to have gone missing. I conclude by recommending that if we wish to learn about self, we would be well advised to attend closely to those times when it seems absent. (shrink)

A widespread assumption in current philosophy of mind is that a conscious state’s phenomenal properties vary with its representational contents. In this paper, I present (rather dogmatically) an alternative picture that recognizes two kinds of phenomenal properties that do not vary concomitantly with content. First, it admits phenomenal properties that vary rather with attitude: what it is like for me to see rain is phenomenally different from what it is like for me to remember (indistinguishable) rain, which is different again (...) form what it is like for me to visualize (indistinguishable) rain – where these differences cannot be traced back to variations in content. Secondly, there is a kind of phenomenal property that varies neither with content nor with attitude but is altogether invariant across all conscious states: a substantive phenomenal commonality among what it is like for me to see, remember, and visualize rain, cats, or dogs. This substantive commonality, I will suggest, is the for-me-ness component of what it is like for me to have any of these experiences. I will close by discussing the interrelations among these three concentric layers of phenomenality: content-based, attitude-based, and for-me-ness. (shrink)

This metatheoretical paper develops a list of new research targets by exploring particularly promising interdisciplinary contact points between empirical dream research and philosophy of mind. The central example is the MPS-problem. It is constituted by the epistemic goal of conceptually isolating and empirically grounding the phenomenal property of “minimal phenomenal selfhood,” which refers to the simplest form of self-consciousness. In order to precisely describe MPS, one must focus on those conditions that are not only causally enabling, but strictly necessary to (...) bring it into existence. This contribution argues that research on bodiless dreams, asomatic out-of-body experiences, and full-body illusions has the potential to make decisive future contributions. Further items on the proposed list of novel research targets include differentiating the concept of a “first-person perspective” on the subcognitive level; investigating relevant phenomenological and neurofunctional commonalities between mind-wandering and dreaming; comparing the functional depth of embodiment across dream and wake states; and demonstrating that the conceptual consequences of cognitive corruption and systematic rationality deficits in the dream state are much more serious for philosophical epistemology (and, perhaps, the methodology of dream research itself) than commonly assumed. The paper closes by specifying a list of potentially innovative research goals that could serve to establish a stronger connection between dream research and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In a recent Opinion article, Sui and Humphreys [1] argue that experimental findings suggest self is ‘special’, in that self-reference serves a binding function within human cognitive economy. Contrasting their view with other functionalist positions, chiefly Dennett's [2], they deny that self is a convenient fiction and adduce findings to show that a ‘core self representation’ serves as an ‘integrative glue’ helping to bind distinct types of information as well as distinct stages of psycho- logical processing. In other words, where (...) Dennett regards self as analogous to a center of gravity, a simplification posited by observers, Sui and Humphreys regard self as a function that modulates mental processes. In practice, however, the concept of ‘self’ they employ is not unlike Dennett's. We side with Sui and Humphreys in hold- ing that self-reference modulates mental processes: reference to self during a task can bind memory to source, increase perceptual integration, and link attention to decision making, among other things. What is more, these functions are not reducible to other factors such as semantic coding, familiarity, or reward [3]. But whereas Sui and Humphreys contribute important empirical detail, the binding functions they describe are compatible with Dennett's version of functionalism, which treats self as an artifact of social process. (shrink)

Spontaneous activity levels prior to stimulus presentation can determine how that stimulus will be perceived. It has also been proposed that such spontaneous activity, particularly in the default-mode network (DMN), is involved in self-related processing. We therefore hypothesised that pre-stimulus activity levels in the DMN predict whether a stimulus is judged as self-related or not. Method: Participants were presented in the MRI scanner with a white noise stimulus that they were instructed contained their name or another. They then had to (...) respond with which name they thought they heard. Regions where there was an activity level difference between self and other response trials two seconds prior to the stimulus being presented were identified. Results: Pre-stimulus activity levels were higher in the right temporoparietal junction (RTPJ), the right temporal pole (RTP), and the left superior temporal gyrus in trials where the participant responded that they heard their own name than trials where they responded that they heard another. Conclusion: Pre-stimulus spontaneous activity levels in particular brain regions, largely overlapping with the DMN, predict the subsequent judgement of stimuli as self-related. This extends our current knowledge of self-related processing and its apparent relationship with intrinsic brain activity in what can be termed a rest-self overlap. (shrink)

The alleged for-me-ness or mineness of conscious experience has been the topic of considerable debate in recent phenomenology and philosophy of mind. By considering a series of objections to the notion of for-me-ness, or to a properly robust construal of it, this paper attempts to clarify to what the notion is committed and to what it is not committed. This exercise results in the emergence of a relatively determinate and textured portrayal of for-me-ness as the authors conceive of it.

In this condensed survey, I look to recent perspectives on evolution suggesting that cultural change likely alters the genome. Since theories of development are nested within assumptions about evolution (evo-devo), I next review some oft-cited developmental theories and other psychological theories of the 20th century to see if any match the emerging perspectives in evolutionary theory. I seek theories based neither in nature (genetics) nor nurture (the environment) but in the creative play of human communication responding to necessity. This survey (...) finally looks to more recent work to do with the appearance of independent self-consciousness in the individual following empathic group awareness. The result of such self-created group awareness and symbolic communication is seen to be cultural consciousness, unique to humanity, from which individual consciousness and personhood derive. I conclude by noting the general implications for these approaches in our schools, politics, and in ultimate ontological questions. (shrink)

Patients suffering from the Cotard syndrome can deny being alive, having guts, thinking or even existing. They can also complain that the world or time have ceased to exist. In this article, I argue that even though the leading neurocognitive accounts have difficulties meeting that task, we should, and we can, make sense of these bizarre delusions. To that effect, I draw on the close connection between the Cotard syndrome and a more common condition known as depersonalisation. Even though they (...) are not delusional, depersonalised patients seem to have experiences that are quite similar to those of Cotard patients. I argue that these experiences are essentially characterised by a lack of subjective character and of two other structural features of experience, which I call ‘the present character’ and ‘the actual character’. Cotard's nihilistic delusions simply consist in taking these anomalous experiences at face value. (shrink)

Recent studies have demonstrated neural overlap between resting state activity and self-referential processing. This “rest-self” overlap occurs especially in anterior cortical midline structures like the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (PACC). However, the exact neurotemporal and biochemical mechanisms remain to be identified. Therefore, we conducted a combined electroencephalography (EEG)-magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) study. EEG focused on pre-stimulus (e.g., prior to stimulus presentation or perception) power changes to assess the degree to which those changes can predict subjects’ perception (and judgment) of subsequent (...) stimuli as high or low self-related. MRS measured resting state concentration of glutamate, focusing on PACC. High pre-stimulus (e.g., prior to stimulus presentation or perception) alpha power significantly correlated with both perception of stimuli judged to be highly self-related and with resting state glutamate concentrations in the PACC. In sum, our results show (i) pre-stimulus (e.g., prior to stimulus presentation or perception) alpha power and resting state glutamate concentration to mediate rest-self overlap that (ii) dispose or incline subjects to assign high degrees of self-relatedness to perceptual stimuli. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to introduce, interpret, and develop two incompatible process -ontological theories of personal identity that have received little attention in analytic metaphysics. The first theory derives from the notion of personal identity proposed in Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy, but I interpret this notion differently from previous commentators. The Whiteheadian theory may appeal to those who believe that personal identity involves an entity or entities that are essentially dynamic, but has nothing to do with diachronic objectual (...) identity : the binary equivalence relation that every entity bears to itself, and only to itself, even after undergoing intrinsic change. The Whiteheadian theory may also find favor with those who, like Whitehead, reject the possibility of pure processes and hold that in every becoming, something—which need not be an object, thing, or individual substance—becomes. The second theory derives from the notion of recurrent dynamics presented in Johanna Seibt’s General Process Theory. The Seibtian theory may appeal to those who believe that personal identity involves not only an entity or entities that are essentially dynamic, but also the relation of diachronic objectual identity. The Seibtian theory may also find favor with those who, like Broad and Sellars, find reason to postulate pure processes. (shrink)

Some philosophers suggest that a minimal form of self-awareness is an integral element of the way in which all experiences are given (SPC: self-presenting claim). The main argument for this is that the phenomenological quality of ‘mineness’ of the experience reveals the self as a part of all experiences. Since the sense of mineness is taken as intrinsic to the givenness of the experience, it counts as an argument for the SPC. In this essay, I assess this claim and its (...) main argument. After describing the phenomenological approach to self- awareness that grounds the discussion, I comment on some pathological cases that challenge the SPC. After this, I examine the standard reply in defence of the SPC and I focus the discussion on cases of thought insertion. I conclude that although the standard reply adds interesting elements to the general discussion, it becomes philosophically problematic especially when it tries to deal with cases of thought insertion. (shrink)

Wegner and colleagues have offered an explanation of the sense of agency over one’s bodily actions. If the orthodox view is correct and there is a sense of agency deficit associated with delusions of alien control, then Wegner and colleagues’ model ought to extend to an explanation of this deficit. Data from intentional binding studies opens up the possibility that an abnormality in representing the timing of mental events leads to a violation of the principle of priority in those suffering (...) from delusions of alien control. However, the model ultimately fails as it is unable to accommodate action monitoring deficits associated with delusions of alien control, in particular the theory of mind deficiencies predicted by such accounts have not materialiszed. There are theory of mind problems associated with schizophrenia but they are not associated with delusions of alien control. Such accounts thereby fail to adequately explain delusions of alien control. (shrink)

Many ideas from Georg Nortoff’s works (published one paper in 2010, mainly his book in 2011, other papers in 2012, 2103, 2014, especially those related to Kant’s philosophy and the notion of the “observer”, the mind-brain problem, default mode network, the self, the mental states and their “correspondence” to the brain) are surprisingly very similar to my ideas published in my article from 2002, 2005 and my book from 2008. In two papers from 2002 (also my paper from 2005 and (...) my book 2008), following Kant’s philosophy, I introduced the notion of the “observer” for the mind-brain problem. After 2010 (mainly his book 2011 and other papers after this book), Nortoff also uses Kant’s philosophy (even if his knowledge about Kant’s philosophy is very superficial!) and the notion of the “observer” for the mind-brain problem in a methodology very similar to my methodology. Moreover, instead of EDWs, Nortoff uses a kind of “transdisciplinary” view, quite close to parallelism – the closest approach to my EDWs! In his works until 2014, Northoff’s conclusion within the unicorn world was different than my conclusion. However, in his book 2014 (two volumes) using notions like “correlations” and even “correspondences” many times, his conclusion is very closed to my EDWs! This dramatic change of framework in 3 years is quite unbelievable!!! Incredible many ideas from this book are very similar to my ideas from 2005 and 2008! (shrink)

Research on future-oriented mental time travel (FMTT) is highly active yet somewhat unruly. I believe this is due, in large part, to the complexity of both the tasks used to test FMTT and the concepts involved. Extraordinary care is a necessity when grappling with such complex and perplexing metaphysical constructs as self and time and their co-instantiation in memory. In this review, I first discuss the relation between future mental time travel and types of memory (episodic and semantic). I then (...) examine the nature of both the types of self-knowledge assumed to be projected into the future and the types of temporalities that constitute projective temporal experience. Finally, I argue that a person lacking episodic memory should nonetheless be able to imagine a personal future by virtue of (a) the fact that semantic, as well as episodic, memory can be self-referential, (b) autonoetic awareness is not a prerequisite for FMTT, and (c) semantic memory does, in fact, enable certain forms of personally-oriented FMTT. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on what is referred to as the ‘mineness’ of experience, that is, the intimate familiarity we have with our own thoughts, perceptions, and emotions. Most accounts characterize mineness in terms of an experiential dimension, the first-person givenness of experience, that is subsumed under the notion of minimal self-consciousness or a ‘minimal self’. We argue that this account faces problems and develop an alternative account of mineness in terms of the coherence of experiences with what we (...) label an ‘embodied biography’. Building on a near consensus among consciousness researchers over the function of consciousness as integrating infor- mation, we argue that the phenomenology of mineness consists in the absence of any further thought on top of the experience itself. Finally we argue that this non-phenomenological account of mineness fits well with existing data on pathologies of mineness such as delusions of thought insertion. (shrink)

My main claim is that, in order to account for the nature of human mind, philosophy of mind should embody topics usually treated by disciplines as ethics or applied philosophy so as to enrich the pure notion of cognitive experience to the extent of treating the whole of human experience. I begin with considering the Cartesian approach to the "cogito". I argue for the claim that cartesian-like dualists (Descartes and Locke, Kant and Husserl) fail in treating the opposition of internalism (...) and externalism concerning experience. This failure commits them to a form of epistemological idealism unable to manage the "veil of perception" objection. I then settle a provisional account for the mind, mainly dependent on a Berkeleyan-Humean deflationist approach to it, showing the necessity to incorporate in it robust practical topics from an ontological point of view. (shrink)

This essay is divided into two parts, deeply intermingled. Part I examines not only the origin of conscious experience but also how it is possible to ask of our own consciousness how it came to be. Part II examines the origin of experience itself, which soon reveals itself as the ontological question of Being. The chief premise of Part I is that symbolic communion and the categorizations of language have enabled human organisms to distinguish between themselves as actually existing entities (...) and their own immediate experience of themselves and their world. This enables them to reflect upon abstract concepts, including “self,” “experience,” and “world.” Symbolic communication and conceptualization grow out of identification, the act of first observing conscious experiencing and intimating what it is like, mimesis, a gestural protolanguage learned through imitation, and reflection, seeing oneself through the eyes of others. The step into actual intentional speech is made through self-assertion, narrative, and intersubjectivity. These three become the spiral of human cultural development that includes not only the adaptive satisfaction of our biological needs, but also the creativity of thought. With the mental-conceptual separation of subject and object – of self and world – the human ability to witness the universe (and each other) is the ground of our genuinely human quality. Consciousness gives human life its distinctively human reality. It is, therefore, one and the same ability that enables us to shape planet Earth by means of conceptual representations (rather than by means of our hands alone) while also awakening us to the significance of being. -/- Looking beyond human self-consciousness to investigate the origin and nature of awareness itself in Part 2, reductive objective materialism is found to be of little use. Direct experience also falls short in that, in order to be transformed into objective knowledge about itself, it must always be interpreted through and limited by the symbolic contexts of culture and the idiosyncratic conceptualizations of the individual. Awareness-in-itself must thus be considered ultimately unexplainable, but this may more indicate its inexpressible transcendence of all symbolic qualifiers than its nonexistence. It is suggested that awareness is not “self-aware” (as in deity) but is instead unknowing yet identical with the only true universal: the impetus of creative unfolding. Our human knowledge, as an expression of this unfolding, is seen to emerge from our conscious experiencing and, in turn, to have the power – and enormous responsibility – of directing that experience. Our underlying symbolic worldviews are found to be autopoietic: They limit or open our conscious experience, which, in turn, confirms those worldview expectations. As we explore a future of unforeseeable technological breakthroughs on an ailing planet who patiently copes with our “success,” truly vital decisions about the nature, meaning, extent, and future of conscious experience will have to be made. (shrink)

According to the Self-Location Thesis, one’s own location can be among the things that visual experience represents, even when one’s body is entirely out of view. By contrast, the Minimal View denies this, and says that visual experience represents things only as "to the right", etc., and never as "to the right of me". But the Minimal View is phenomenologically inadequate: it cannot explain the difference between a visual experience of self-motion and one of an oppositely moving world. To show (...) this, I argue (i) that these experiences are different in an important respect, (ii) that this difference is genuinely experiential, (iii) that it is visual, (iv) that it is not purely phenomenal, and (v) that it cannot be identified with anything other than the apparent motion of the self. So the Self-Location Thesis is upheld: reports of one’s own motion can correspond to aspects of visual experiences every bit as basic to their contents as the apparent motion or rest of the things one has in view. (shrink)

This is a short sketch of some central ideas developed in my recent book _Being No One_ (BNO hereafter). A more systematic summary, which focuses on short answers to a set of specific, individual questions is already contained _in _the book, namely as BNO section 8.2. Here, I deliberately and completely exclude all work related to semantically differentiating and empirically constraining the philosophical concept of a "quale" (mostly Chapter 2, 3 & 8), all proposals regarding conceptual foundations for the overall (...) theory (2 & 5), all of the neurophenomenological case-studies used to test and refine it (4 & 7), and all remarks of a more general or methodological character (1 & 8). In particular, the present Pr. (shrink)

The prima facie heterogeneity between psychical and physical phenomena seems to be a serious objection to psychoneural identity thesis, according to many authors, from Leibniz to Popper. It is argued that this objection can be superseded by a different conception of consciousness. Consciousness, while being conscious of something, is always unconscious of itself . Consciousness of being conscious is not immediate, it involves another, second-order, conscious state. The appearance of mental states to second-order consciousness does not reveal their true nature. (...) Psychoneural identity can thus be considered a valid hypothesis. Related views of Kant, Freud, Shaffer, Bunge and others are considered. “Naive psychical realism” is criticised. Consciousness of mental events is considered as the result of the action of a cerebral system that observes the neural events hypothetically identical to mental events. The theory combines a materialist view with a due consideration of subjective experience. (shrink)

How one transcends the self depends on the self that experiences it. Is it instigated or sought, does it happen by accident, or by an act of Grace? Is it common or rare? Is it brought on by the ingestion of psychedelic agents or by meditation or by being overcome by fear or merely by caring more about the welfare of others than oneself? Is it transcendence to experience a shift of perspective or dissolution of the self? In the pages (...) that follow, each of these paths is explored in nine ways, each unique unto itself. None of them deal with absolute self-transcendence, which should be no surprise, for, as I’ve indicated, there would no longer a self or person to record or communicate the event. Many of them deal the transcendence of self-consciousness, my own included, but only two describe the ingestion of mind-altering psychedelics to catalyze the event. One sees self-construction from the ground-up, as it were, as a form of transcending a previous self that has disintegrated. One looks to acts of kindness to sidestep the illusion of self-consciousness. Two, at least, look to creative experience in the arts as a way to connect with universal spontaneity, but in very different ways. The others refer to what might be called spiritual experiences that, though thirsted for or sought, arrive unexpectedly, almost like a gift. (shrink)

The word ?consciousness? is notoriously ambiguous. This is mainly because it is not a term of art, but a mundane word we all use quite frequently, for different purposes and in different everyday contexts. In this paper, I discuss consciousness in one specific sense of the word. To avoid the ambiguities, I introduce a term of art ? intransitive self-consciousness ? and suggest that this form of self-consciousness is an essential component of the folk notion of consciousness. I then argue (...) for a specific account of consciousness as intransitive self-consciousness. According to this account, a mental state is conscious iff it represents its own occurrence. The argument is a ?modernizing? modification of an older argument due to Aristotle and Brentano. (shrink)

Many recent discussions of self-consciousness and self-knowledge assume that there are only two kinds of accounts available to be taken on the relation between the so-called first-order (conscious) states and subjects' awareness or knowledge of them: a same-order, or reflexive view, on the one hand, or a higher-order one, on the other. I maintain that there is a third kind of view that is distinctively different from these two options. The view is important because it can accommodate and make intelligible (...) certain cases of authoritative self-knowledge that cannot easily be made intelligible, if at all, by these other two types of accounts. My aim in this paper is to defend this view against those who maintain that a same-order view is sufficient to account for authoritative self-knowledge. (shrink)

The theory of mind that medieval philosophers inherit from Augustine is predicated on the thesis that the human mind is essentially self-reflexive. This paper examines Peter John Olivi's (1248-1298) distinctive development of this traditional Augustinian thesis. The aim of the paper is three-fold. The first is to establish that Olivi's theory of reflexive awareness amounts to a theory of phenomenal consciousness. The second is to show that, despite appearances, Olivi rejects a higher-order analysis of consciousness in favor of a same-order (...) theory. The third and final is to show that, on his view, consciousness is both self-intimating and infallible. (shrink)

In their article “Out of nowhere: thought insertion, ownership and context-integration”, Jean-Remy Martin & Elisabeth Pacherie criticize the standard approach to thought insertion. However, their criticism is based on a misunderstanding of what the standard approach actually claims. By clarifying the notions ‘sense of ownership’ and ‘sense of agency’, I show that Martin & Pacherie’s own approach can be construed as a refined version of the standard approach.

The special and unique attitudes that we take towards events in our futures/pasts—e.g., attitudes like the dread of an impeding pain—create a challenge for “Reductionist” accounts that reduce persons to aggregates of interconnected person stages: if the person stage currently dreading tomorrow’s pain is numerically distinct from the person stage that will actually suffer the pain, what reason could the current person stage have for thinking of that future pain as being his? One reason everyday subjects believe they have a (...) substantially extended temporal existence stems from introspection—they introspectively experience their selves as being temporally extended. In this paper, I examine whether a Reductionist about personal identity can co-opt this explanation. Using Galen Strawson’s recent work on self-experience as a resource, I reach both a negative and a positive conclusion about the prospects of such a position. First, the relevant kind of self-experience—i.e., the introspective experience of one’s self as being a substantially temporally extended entity—will not automatically arise within a person stage simply in virtue of that stage being psychologically connected to/continuous with other person stages. Second, the relevant kind of self-experience will arise, however, in virtue of person stages weaving together their respective experiences, actions, etc. via a narrative. This positive conclusion points towards a new Reductionist position that focuses upon a narrative, and not mere psychological continuity, in attempting to justify the special attitudes we take towards events in our futures/pasts. (shrink)

In this paper, I first consider a famous objection that the standard interpretation of the Lockean account of diachronicity (i.e., one’s sense of personal identity over time) via psychological connectedness falls prey to breaks in one’s personal narrative. I argue that recent case studies show that while this critique may hold with regard to some long-term autobiographical self-knowledge (e.g., episodic memory), it carries less warrant with respect to accounts based on trait-relevant, semantic self-knowledge. The second issue I address concerns the (...) question of diachronicity from the vantage point that there are (at least) two aspects of self—the self of psychophysical instantiation (what I term the epistemological self) and the self of first person subjectivity (what I term the ontological self; for discussion, see Klein SB, The self and its brain, Social Cognition, 30, 474–518, 2012). Each is held to be a necessary component of selfhood, and, in interaction, they are appear jointly sufficient for a synchronic sense of self (Klein SB, The self and its brain, Social Cognition, 30, 474–518, 2012). As pertains to diachronicity, by contrast, I contend that while the epistemological self, by itself, is precariously situated to do the work required by a coherent theory of personal identity across time, the ontological self may be better positioned to take up the challenge. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the view that our knowledge of our desires is inferential and based on the consciousness we have of our emotions, and on our experiences of pain and pleasure.

In the article, I propose that the body phantom is a phenomenal and functional model of one’s own body. This model has two aspects. On the one hand, it functions as a tacit sensory representation of the body that is at the same time related to the motor aspects of body functioning. On the other hand, it also has a phenomenal aspect as it constitutes the content of conscious bodily experience. This sort of tacit, functional and sensory model is related (...) to the spatial parameters of the physical body. In the article, I postulate that this functional model or map is of crucial importance to the felt ownership parameters of the body (de Vignemont 2007), which are themselves considered as constituting the phenomenal aspect of the aforementioned model. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between implicit self-related information and explicit self-representation and argues that the latter is required for self-consciousness. It is further argued that self-consciousness requires an awareness of other minds and that this awareness develops over the course of an increasingly complex perspectival differentiation, during which information about self and other that is implicit in early forms of social interaction becomes redescribed into an explicit format.