While the science of animal consciousness has seen a surge of new work, its most basic methodology remains highly disputed. In this paper I identify four candidate norms of inquiry that have been implicitly introduced in the recent literature. I call these (1) expansive theorizing, (2) indirect inquiry, (3) lowering epistemic standards, and (4) inflating epistemic standards. In each section, an instantiation of the norm of inquiry is discussed, and the broader lessons that can be taken from avoiding it are (...) drawn out. Interestingly, each of these candidate norms of inquiry have something in common: they implicitly hold that, to study animal consciousness, ordinary scientific standards must in some way be departed from. The overarching claim of this paper is that this is a mistake. In response to this, I propose four alternative candidate norms of inquiry. I call these (1) weighted development, (2) evidential foundations, (3) knowledge directed, and (4) anti-proof. The overarching norm of ‘no exceptionalism’ is then proposed with the goal of establishing a minimal methodological consensus. (shrink)

A fundamental question in the field of consciousness is how and why physical processes in the brain give rise to consciousness, a problem named the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ by David Chalmers. Despite numerous studies, neuroscience has yet to agree on a single account that addresses the hard problem of consciousness. Here, I introduce the energy-information generation (EIG) theory to answer this problem. The EIG theory posits that consciousness emerges when a neuron generates an EM field which represents the information (...) encoded in the neuron through its energy via numerous neural mechanisms. This paper explains how the mechanisms that allow neurons to store information about the environment can control the energy of the electromagnetic field of neurons through their impact on dendritic spikes during rhythmic synchronized activity. This theory proposes an answer to the hard problem of consciousness and could serve as a framework for future neuroscience research. (shrink)

In this article, first, we argue that the concept of ‘vitality forms’ endows direct social perception (DSP) with suitable constructed percepts. Vitality forms capture how embodied actions unfold in the process, encapsulating the how-dimension of action, which provides a new dimension for understanding the multiplicities of action. Second, we discuss how vitality forms, as a diachronic gestalt, are completed and recognized in the process of dyadic sharing. We attempt to invoke another concept advocated by Daniel Stern, ‘moments of meeting’, thereby (...) emphasizing the temporality problem of the constructed percepts in DSP. In these special moments, the minds of both parties intersect and co-construct a shared experience that can be perceived or seen by each participant. That is, vitality forms are a consequence of the co-construction within the dyad at the moments of meeting. (shrink)

Birch (2022a) proposes a theory-light methodology for studying whether invertebrates have the capacity for (phenomenal) consciousness. The success of any such methodology turns on the positive markers it proposes, and whether they are genuinely ecumenical. After providing an account of what it is for a marker to be ecumenical, it is argued that one of the more influential set of markers offered – unlimited associative learning – clearly counts as positive evidence for consciousness on only a small handful of theories, (...) rendering Birch???s theory-light approach tacitly theory-heavy. What emerges is a broader lesson concerning what exactly is required for the theory-light framework to be successful. (shrink)

P-zombies are creatures that are physically (functionally, behaviourally) like you and I and yet lack phenomenal consciousness. If such creatures are possible, it’s (typically) taken to show property dualism is true: phenomenal consciousness isn’t reducible to – nor does it supervene on – physical states. If inverted qualia are possible, it’s possible that you and I have identical physical states and yet you see tomatoes as green and I see tomatoes as red. If this is the case, then (again) property (...) dualism is (typically) taken to be true. In this article, I???ll show that p-zombies and inverted qualia – if they are actually possible – prove more than previously thought: if one thinks p-zombies or inverted qualia are possible, then one should endorse one of the four following theses: (i) substance dualism, (ii) we have even more reason to reject p-zombies and inverted qualia since they entail an even more radical conclusion than previously thought (i.e. substance dualism), (iii) eliminativism about selves, or (iv) friends of p-zombies and inverted qualia have homework: they need to show a relevant, plausible disanalogy between arguments for p-zombies and inverted qualia as traditionally stated and my parallel arguments that entail substance dualism. My purpose here isn’t to defend any of these particular options. Instead, my purpose is to highlight that these are the four options available to take. (shrink)

We propose a new theory to explain the nature and function of subjective experience, as a mechanism that guides the organism towards beneficial outcomes. In simple animals, that guidance takes the form of an affect producing a fitness-enhancing response. In human consciousness, there is not a single response, but a range of potential developments allowing a free choice. That range can be modelled as a local prospect: a field of possibilities centred on the present situation and coloured by valence. Building (...) on neural models of global workspace and adaptive resonance, we suggest how such a prospect could be implemented in the brain: as a halo of activation diffusing from, and feeding back into, a core of circulating activation. Using the thought experiment of qualia inversion, we argue that local prospect theory solves the ‘hard problem of consciousness’. We show how our theory explains key characteristics of consciousness: subjectivity, feeling, free will, agency, transience, continuity, integration, selectivity, intentionality, and ‘what it is like’. (shrink)

The work of Joseph Delb??uf (1831‐1896), a philosopher, psychologist, and mathematician, provides fresh insights on the relationship between agency, consciousness, and evolution. Without agency, Delb??uf argued, the distinction between the self and the external world would be impossible, the function of feelings such as pain and pleasure would be incomprehensible, and consciousness would not have evolved. Delb??uf also posited a psychological stage of evolution, preceding that of natural selection, whereby sentient organisms influence the selection of their own traits through the (...) decisions they make during their reproductive lives. In relating these ideas and others, I show how Delb??uf’s work is relevant to current scholarship on the nature and evolution of consciousness. (shrink)

In this paper, we show that there is a distinctive mode of spatial awareness in blind individuals, which we call sense of volume, that is not to be confused with echolocation based on self-generated sounds. It is based on the analysis of variations in the ambient sound field and it provides locational information about objects in one’s surroundings. We propose that the sense of volume offers a primitive contact with the outside world. It does not give access to perceptual objects (...) as such, but it should rather be understood as a rudimentary sense of presence that expresses that there is something out there at a certain distance and in a certain direction. We conclude by highlighting its tactile quality. More specifically, we argue that the sense of volume consists in a form of tactile anticipation: when one experiences something as being out there, one tactually expects that one could come in contact with it. (shrink)

Russellian panpsychism, the view that concrete reality is entirely physical and fundamental physical entities are intrinsically experiential, is faced with the combination problem – the challenge of explaining how the experiences of microphysical entities combine to form the experiences of macro-physical entities such as humans. While such combination is deemed impossible by critics of panpsychism, a ‘Leibnizian’ response to the problem – that microphysical (and micro-experiential) entities never combine – has received little attention. This paper seeks to evaluate the viability (...) of such a Leibnizian panpsychism. After motivating the view, we outline and respond to two kinds of objections a critic of the view might have: (a) mereological nihilism, the view that individuals never combine, is an unviable position independent of panpsychism, (b) Leibnizian panpsychism entails the unacceptable view that human experiences are physical simples. We argue that both sets of objections can be addressed, and that Leibnizian panpsychism ought to be taken more seriously as a metaphysics of consciousness. (shrink)

Due to a lack of engagement with the embodied dimensions of mindfulness, third-wave CBT has misleadingly construed mindfulness interventions as cognitive restructuring and behavioural modification agents. When the relationship between the mind and body is understood according to the model of embodied cognition, however, mindfulness’s process of change can be better articulated. We propose a novel understanding of the ‘decentring’ skills fostered through mindfulness via non-conceptual attention to the processes underlying cognition. Mindfulness, understood as a skilful mode of embodied social (...) cognition, cultivates operative intentionality whereby attention to the lived body, and one’s internal representations, allows one to intervene in the complex feedback structure of the mind???body system, influencing cycles of organismic self-regulation. Mindfulness-based exposure therapies, on this model, are understood not cognitively or behaviourally, but through insights generated via the practitioner’s orientation towards internal representations, and how these habituated patterns of representation generate transformations in their exteroceptive, pre-reflective enactment of both self and world perception. (shrink)

Recognition and feeling go hand in hand. But how exactly should we understand the role of affect in recognition? According to constitutivists, part of what it is to recognize a person, place, or thing is to enjoy a certain affective response. In contrast, causalists hold that affect is only causally implicated in recognition. I introduce Capgras syndrome — a condition characterized by the delusion that one's loved ones have been replaced by impostors — as a case study for exploring the (...) disagreement between causalists and constitutivists. I suggest three ways of resolving the disagreement and show why none are particularly satisfying. (shrink)

The articles in this issue are devoted to the question of whether consciousness is a fundamental feature of reality. In recent years the physicalist orthodoxy in the science and philosophy of consciousness has been challenged by a panpsychist insurgency (Chalmers, 2016; Goff, 2017; 2019), panpsychism being the view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the physical universe. This new wave of panpsychists claim that their view avoids the deep challenges faced by physicalism as well as those faced (...) by dualism, the traditional rival of physicalism. The best way to test whether panpsychism lives up to its promise is for philosophers and scientists to explore the pros and cons of panpsychism in discussion and in writing. Most of these articles were presented in some form at a workshop on the theme of 'Consciousness as Fundamental' at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, in September of 2023. This was one of two workshops that are part of a John Templeton Foundation funded project (Grant #62683) co-directed by Andrei A. Buckareff and Philip Goff on the theme of 'Panpsychism and Pan(en)theism: Philosophy of Mind Meets Philosophy of Religion'. Yanssel Garcia's article, entitled 'Is Consciousness Fundamental?', was the winner of an essay competition hosted by the project. These articles address the theme of whether consciousness is fundamental from a variety of perspectives, most focusing on different puzzles that arise if we assume a panpsychist framework in trying to explain consciousness. (shrink)

Panpsychism has a problem. We are subjects of experience and, according to panpsychism, we are also somehow the combination of the smaller subjects of experience that we comprise. But we have a seemingly unshakeable intuition that we are irreducible. If this is so, then combination is impossible, and panpsychism fails. The question, then, is: why believe that subjects are irreducible? A number of arguments have been offered in defence of the irreducibility of subjects. I consider five. The primary purpose of (...) this paper is to show that none of them clearly succeed. For each argument, at least one premise is either false, likely false, or in serious need of defence. I end the paper by attempting to nudge us away from the intuition that we are neither reducible nor combinable through the use of a fanciful thought experiment. (shrink)

The term 'psi wars' refers to a conflict between those who admit and those who reject the veridicality of psi. Some sort of 'peace' with regard to psi and related topics could be beneficial, particularly as part of a paradigm shift that is arguably already upon us. Here, the area of interest is first conceptualized as a subject–object dichotomy ranging between the poles of the 'supernormal' and 'paranatural'. Parallel to this schema, the domain and its evidential base are sketched through (...) three contemporary investigations exemplifying laboratory types, and some issues are raised concerning liminality, reduction, and proof. Then, on the working assumption that the basic claim for the veridicality of the supernormal-paranatural is at least reasonable, implications for metaphysics are addressed. Taking materialism as the default position, a route through postmaterialisms to a 'transmaterialism' is outlined. The former are to accommodate psi. The latter is introduced as a pluralist approach to metaphysics for a deeper resolution of the conflict. (shrink)

According to the interface theory of perception, our perceptual systems have evolved to provide a species-specific interface to guide adaptive behaviour, and not to provide veridical representations of an observer-independent world. Results of simulations of evolutionary resource games, genetic algorithms, and multiple mathematical theorems have supported and fleshed out this claim in various ways. They indicate that the probability is zero that any perceptual system has been shaped by natural selection to represent the true structure of an observer-independent world. Bagwell (...) (2023) thinks that this argument is self-defeating because it implies that organisms, resources, genes, etc. that are essential constituents of Darwin's theory do not provide an insight into the nature of observerindependent reality. Bagwell's argument relies on a false premise, however — namely, that the mathematical formulation of a scientific theory cannot dethrone its fundamental concepts. More broadly, his argument involves a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of scientific theories — of their explanatory scope and their necessary limits. (shrink)

One prominent intellectualist position in the debate on the nature of skill, famously defended by Stanley and Williamson (2001; 2017), claims that skill and knowing-how are reducible to knowledgethat. To defend this claim, Stanley and Williamson argue that skill and knowledge-that develop in a sufficiently similar way through different learning stages. In this paper we offer a novel argument to reject this version of intellectualism on methodological, descriptive, and conceptual grounds. We do so by drawing on the work of Heidegger, (...) Dreyfus, and Ryle on skill. We first offer a descriptive account of skilful action based on the work developed by these authors, and we then move on to show that skill and knowledge-that exhibit significant differences. First, while skills cannot be imparted merely linguistically, some forms of knowledge-that can be exclusively imparted and learned verbally. Second, weshow that the temporal learning curves of skill and knowledge-that are importantly different: the former usually requires a more or less extensive training process, whereas the latter may be acquired in a relatively sudden fashion. Finally, we show that, while the structure of most forms of knowledge-that is aggregative, the structure of skilful understanding is dynamic and holistic, which entails that prior skill stages cannot be retrieved and re-enacted at will. (shrink)

This article defends the cosmopsychist doctrine of the Indian philosopher-mystic Sri Aurobindo, arguing that it has distinct advantages over rival panpsychist positions. After tracing the dialectical trajectory of recent philosophical debates about panpsychism up to the present, I bring Aurobindo into dialogue with Miri Albahari, who has defended a form of panpsychist idealism based on the classical Advaita Vedānta philosophy of Śankara. I critique Albahari's panpsychist idealism from an Aurobindonian standpoint, arguing that its Śankaran metaphysical commitments and eliminativist implications make (...) it an unsatisfactory account of consciousness. I then summarize Aurobindo's cosmopsychism and explain its distinctive solution to the individuation problem, which is widely considered to be the most serious problem for all forms of cosmopsychism. According to Aurobindo, Divine Consciousness individuates into multiple creaturely consciousnesses through the twin processes of 'self-limitation' and 'exclusive concentration'. I conclude the paper by addressing several potential objections to Aurobindo's cosmopsychism. (shrink)

Panpsychism is the view that all things are associated with consciousness. Panpsychism has a number of significant theoretical implications, with respect to the mind–body problem and other problems in metaphysics. Here I will consider one of its potential practical or ethical implications; specifically, whether, if panpsychism is true, it follows that 'we are all one', in a sense that implies that egoism (understood as bias towards what we normally take to constitute the self or ego) is not only immoral but (...) fundamentally irrational (or imprudent). (shrink)

The article investigates how dancers can actively shape and handle the ways they are affected throughout their artistic practices. To do so, we adopt a phenomenological-ethnographic approach, analysing the dance-artist Kitt Johnson's site-specific performance production called Mellemrum ('the space between spaces'). We put ethnographically based interview data in a dialectical interaction with the existing notions of affectivity and affective scaffolding — showing their usefulness, while also noting the need for the further notion of what we call affective engagement. This notion, (...) we argue, is needed to account for how artists actively handle their affective involvements. Specifically, as we show, in Mellemrum the dancers deliberately and strategically juggle between (i) a self-affective engagement, (ii) an affective engagement with the environment (space and people), and(iii) an affective-aesthetic engagement with the choreography and artistic ideas of the performance. (shrink)

I analyse six different senses in which a conscious mind can be said to be either 'bounded' or 'unbounded', and evaluate how well they might capture what people mean when they say either that human consciousness is necessarily bounded, that it introspectively appears bounded, or that mystical and psychedelic experiences remove its apparent boundedness. I then argue that, although human consciousness is certainly bounded in one important sense (informational boundedness), this does not entail that it is phenomenally bounded, in the (...) sense of being divided into separate fields of experience. In fact, if panpsychists are right that consciousness is fundamental and nature is uniform, it is likely that human consciousness is phenomenally unbounded: the whole universe is likely to be a single field of consciousness, with each of us being an informationally dense region of it. I close by noting some ways that this claim of phenomenal unboundedness ('continuism') impacts debates among panpsychists about how to solve the combination problem. (shrink)

I outline a hylomorphic account of physical reality in which the cosmos as a whole has mental properties which explain its nomological order. According to this theory, the cosmos is directed in its temporal development toward certain ends or goals which it intends, and these ends are immanent to the cosmos rather than being imposed upon it. My object in doing so is to argue that, contrary to Sean Carroll (2021), a view of physical reality as having intrinsically mental aspects (...) need not induce any modifications of the known laws of physics nor violate 'causal closure' under physical laws. Rather, this soft form of naturalism, which includes final causes within nature, provides a foundation for the laws of physics that is lacking in Carroll's hard form of naturalism, which excludes mind from fundamental reality. I propose a trilemma for Carroll in which he should either: abandon naturalism, by admitting that the laws of physics are imposed by a divine mind; abandon realism, by conceding that 'laws' are constructed by human minds; or embrace cosmopsychism, by acknowledging that the cosmos as a whole instantiates a mind. I argue that cosmic hylomorphism, which links consciousness with intentional cognition, is preferable to non-hylomorphic versions of cosmopsychism, which tend to prioritize consciousness over intentionality. (shrink)

This article argues that the best explanation for the absence of borderline cases with respect to phenomenal consciousness is that phenomenal consciousness is irreducible. This, I argue, leads to a paradox, which is best resolved by adopting a form of panpsychism. The version of panpsychism I elaborate explains differences in the phenomenal character of experiences via differences in what the experiences represent. This aspect of the current view is compatible with representationalist claims I have made in the past with respect (...) to phenomenal consciousness. It also provides a straightforward and satisfying solution to the problem of combination. (shrink)

I raise three challenges for Wu's project. First, are mental actions really relevantly similar to ordinary bodily actions? I suggest that it may be hard to capture commonalities between them while still being grounded in the cognitive structure of action. Second, might long-term memory have a greater role to play than Wu allows? This influence might be observed on top of an indirect connection that flows through activated long-term memories in working memory. Finally, where do spontaneous memories fit in to (...) Wu's picture? We end with an exchange about spontaneity, seriality, and control. (shrink)

Illusionists and a posteriori physicalists agree entirely on the metaphysical nature of reality — that all concrete entities are composed of fundamental physical entities. Despite this basic agreement on metaphysics, illusionists hold that phenomenal consciousness does not exist, whereas a posteriori physicalists hold that it does. One explanation for this disagreement would be that either the illusionists have too demanding a view about what consciousness requires, or the a posteriori physicalists have too tolerant a view. However, we will argue that (...) this divergence of opinion is merely an upshot of the semantic indeterminacy of the term 'conscious' and its cognates. We shall back up this diagnosis by showing how semantic indeterminacy of the kind in question is a pervasive feature of language. By illustrating this pattern with a range of historical examples, we shall show how the dispute between the illusionists and a posteriori physicalists is one instance of a common kind of terminological imprecision. The disagreement between them is thus not substantial. In effect, the two sides differ only about how to make an indeterminate term precise. The moral is that they should stop looking for arguments designed to settle the dispute in their favour. (shrink)

This article argues that contemporary debates of the 'hard problem' of consciousness (i.e.how does 'mindless' matter produce 'matterless' mind?) cannot be resolved through philosophical analysis alone and need to be anchored to a comprehensive empirical foundation that includes psychophysiological research of psychosomatic phenomena and exceptional human experience. First, alternative perspectives on the mind–matter question and reasons why traditional formulations of the 'hard problem' have been so difficult to resolve are reviewed. Empirical evidence of mind modulation of bodily systems and its (...) implications for the classical quantitative–qualitative distinction and construct of causal closure are then considered. A novel theory that combines bottom-up (panpsychism) and top-down (non-theistic panenpsychism) approaches relating physical processes to mental activity is then proposed that has practical implications for conceiving and exploring alternatives to current ways of thinking about the mind–matter question. (shrink)

In this critical response, I begin with the positive features of Movements of the Mind, especially the flexibility and utility of Wu's account of attention and agency. I then focus my discussion on the relative absence of motivation and interaction in the account. Just as we cannot explain the motivating power of pain or emotions without understanding the role of attention and bias (a feature that makes MoM so useful), we also cannot fully understand attention and bias without understanding the (...) role of motivation in driving human behaviour. (shrink)

Whether consciousness is unidimensional with states defined along a single scale or it consists of multiple fundamental dimensions has been debated. Clinical assessment of consciousness distinguishes the content of consciousness (awareness) and the level of consciousness (wakefulness or arousal), which conflates firstperson phenomenal properties with third-person observable properties. The state of consciousness is more appropriately defined in terms of subjective level and content which are interdependent. On this account, the state of consciousness is exclusively defined by the experienced mental content, (...) i.e.awareness, whereas behaviour and cognition are overt expressions of the state. Wakefulness and arousal are predisposing factors for specific forms of conscious experience. Nevertheless, a unidimensional representation of consciousness fails to account for the variety of qualitatively different experiences in both normal and altered states of consciousness. To overcome this problem, cognitive and abstract multidimensional models of consciousness have been proposed, but such dimensions are interdependent and lack axiomatic support. A novel multidimensional characterization of consciousness based on the brain's macroscale functional geometry provides an alternative, empirically grounded model whose dimensions are defined by neurofunctional rather than behavioural attributes. The state of consciousness is then represented as a point in this functional multidimensional space. (shrink)

Movements of the Mind offers a compelling and empirically grounded theory of agency and attention, arguing that the structure of action depends on the capacity of attention. This capacity is also central to the explanation of how memory can be geared towards immediate action, as memory 'for work', because attention is essential for the solution of selection problems that require working memory. This seemingly simple structure has substantial and broad consequences for various aspects of cognition, allowing for the integration of (...) automatic processing and top-down routines with the articulation of physical and mental action. This account of agency and attention is also applicable to non-human cognition. (shrink)

This article purports to establish the philosophical inappropriateness of using established theorems in mathematical logic, such as Gödel's (1931) first incompleteness theorem, in order to conclude that human minds have a non-algorithmic nature. First, I will argue that the ongoing debate in the philosophy of mathematics concerning absolute provability is fully independent of the question whether our brains are biologically instantiated computers or not. Second, through a combination of evolutionary considerations and the phenomenon of vagueness, I will demonstrate the fragility (...) of the ill-defined notion of an idealized mathematical mind, which plays a key role in the anticomputationalist arguments. Third, I will make the case that all these arguments adopt a psychologically implausible conception of the nature of the high-level algorithms behind our mathematical abilities. Lastly, I look at the recent advances in artificial intelligence in order to illustrate the philosophical sleight of hand on which the anticomputationalist argument operates. (shrink)

Early in Movements of the Mind, Wayne Wu puts forth a foundational picture of action. On this picture, intentional action is necessarily a solution to a selection problem, a problem of choice among multiple causally possible alternatives. Forming an intention solves one selection problem; acting on that intention requires solving yet further selection problems about how to execute that intention. There are two serious issues with this picture of action. First: some intentional actions are causally necessitated. They can't be solutions (...) to selection problems. Wu's argument for this claim, which contrasts reflex with action, does not succeed in showing that action must solve a selection problem — nor that reflex does not solve such a problem. Second: the requirement to solve further selection problems while acting on an intention leads to a vicious regress that threatens the possibility of action in general. If these two issues are addressed, Wu's groundbreaking scientific approach to mental action might offer us a powerful new theory of ongoing causal control over intentional action. (shrink)

There is no abstract for this paper. It is a report on The Science of Consciousness, a conference that took place April 22-26, 2024 in Tucson, Arizona. Approximately 35 presentations are discussed, along with the conference as a whole.

Moral identity theory is one of the most popular theories of moral development. A central concept of moral identity theory is moral integration. Moral identity theorists refer to moral integration as the process by which moral values become central to a person's identity, thus developing one's moral identity. The problem is that there is still very little understanding of the psychological processes that constitute the process of moral integration. The aim of this paper is to offer an account of the (...) role of autobiographical memory in moral identity development. Autobiographical memory refers to the ability to recollect events in one's past as part of one's personal history. I motivate the claim that the role of the development of autobiographical memory in moral integration should be conceived in relation to the emergence of psychological abilities that both develop and are exercised on a personal, conscious, and deliberative level. (shrink)

In Movements of the Mind (MoM; Wu, 2023a), I give a theory of agency that uncovers its internal psychological structure, revealing how creatures with minds do things. While my focus is on things we do 'in our heads', mental actions, the theory concerns all forms of agency. The book also provides a theory of attention and its essential connection to action. It characterizes intention in action as a type of memory for work, drawing on empirical theories of working memory. Further, (...) it reveals the essential role of bias in action, providing an account of various psychological biases. The theory is then applied to three phenomena prominent in philosophical practice: implicit (better, automatic) bias, reasoning deductively, and introspection of conscious perceptual experience. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on somatosensory attenuation of bodily signals as a core mechanism underlying the phenomenon of 'losing' one's sense of self in meditation. Specifically, I argue that somatosensory attenuation of bodily signals does not make the bodily self 'disappear' experientially. Rather, during the subjectively reported phenomena of 'self-loss', bodily sensory signals are self-attenuated, physiologically, and experientially processed in the background. Hence the term 'losing' the self or 'selfless' states may be misleading in describing these peculiar types of (...) experiences reported during deep meditative states. What is 'lost', I claim, is a particular, ordinary way to explicitly, mentally model oneself in relation to the body and the world. Yet, the experience of being a living body, i.e.a self-organizing organism, is never 'lost' in this process. The proposal is that the explicit feeling of selfless minds may be tacitly accompanied by the implicit feeling of unlimited body, as two sides of the same coin. (shrink)

This paper defends the persistence of the subjective or self-intimating dimension of experience in non-ordinary and pathological states of consciousness such as non-dual awareness, full absorption, drug-induced ego dissolution, and the minimal conscious state. In considering whether non-ordinary and pathological conscious states display any subjective features, we confront a dilemma. Either they do, in which case there needs to be some way of accounting for these features in phenomenal terms, or they do not, in which case there is nothing it (...) is like to be in them. But the dilemma only arises if we assume that opacity rather than phenomenality is a pervasive feature of these non-ordinary states. However, non-ordinary conscious states are deemed phenomenally opaque only by overly restrictive standards of conceivability that: (i) fail to account for the variety of nonordinary and pathological experience in non-arbitrary ways; (ii) sidestep the problem of the attribution and location of mental content (given intelligibility requirements for experience) or relegate them to illusory constructs; (iii) assume an unproblematic appeal to testimonial evidence. I discuss some cases from contemplative traditions and psychopathology and offer some plausible alternative explanations. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to discuss the imaginability of subjectless consciousness, and in particular the question of whether one can imagine de se being subjectlessly conscious. I will not engage here with the further issue as to whether imaginability entails possibility, and so with the possibility simpliciter of consciousness being subjectless. The question I am interested in is, in another formulation, whether I can imagine being no one. I shall begin by reviewing the literature on a related, if (...) distinct, question, namely that as to whether I can imagine being someone other than the one that I am. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute to an integrated understanding of what goes missing in adverse meditation experiences and in cases of depersonalization disorder. Depersonalization disorder is characterized by distressing alterations in, and sometimes the complete disappearance of, the 'I'-sense. This paper examines the nature of the 'I'-sense and what it means to lose it from a Buddhist perspective. We argue for a nihilist position that the loss of the sense of self arises from misidentifications of the psychophysical complex with non-self (...) elements, such as memories, thoughts, or body movements. Drawing from meditation experiences and depersonalization symptoms, we propose that the sense of self is not a static entity given in experience but fluctuates between various senses of self (and no-self) depending on circumstances. This pluralistic understanding of the various senses of self offers a more nuanced understanding of symptoms in depersonalization disorder and adverse effects of meditation practices. (shrink)

I develop Tetsurō Watsuji’s relational model of the self as “betweenness”. I argue that Watsuji’s view receives support from two case studies: solitary confinement and dementia. Both clarify the constitutive interdependence between the self and the social and material contexts of “betweenness” that define its lifeworld. They do so by providing powerful examples of what happens when the support and regulative grounding of this lifeworld is restricted or taken away. I argue further that Watsuji’s view helps see the other side (...) of this deprivation, how reconstructing aspects of betweenness is, at the same time, a reconstruction of the self. I conclude by briefly indicating further consequences of this view. (shrink)

This paper sketches a phenomenological-structural account of consciousness that distinguishes phenomenal consciousness, subjectivity, and the self. On this account, minimal subjectivity is an inherent feature of human phenomenal consciousness. This minimal subjectivity is then understood as, in Indian Buddhist terms, mere reflexive awareness (svasamvedanamātra), or in Western phenomenological terms, minimal pre-reflective self-awareness. This minimal subjectivity is also distinguished from the richer phenomenon of the sense of self. It is possible to have consciousness without a sense of self, but that consciousness (...) would still be minimally subjective. (shrink)

The thrust of the present paper is that contemporary philosophical theories of consciousness are in the grip of a distorted perspective on the nature of their subject. They are absorbed in an understanding of consciousness which overemphasizes its role in grasping intentional objects, while undervaluing its functioning as the receptive ground to whom things are given and in whom they are disclosed. I first make the distinction more precise, discerning two complementary modes of consciousness: the accusative mode and the dative (...) mode, respectively. Taking Locke as a primary representative of the disregard for the dative mode, I proceed to show that this negligence leads to a fundamentally incomplete, and therefore ultimately incoherent, picture regarding the nature of consciousness. This is further demonstrated with regard to some contemporary philosophical theories of consciousness: higher-order monitoring theories and self-representational theories. I then move on to enquire, can the dative mode hypothesis receive support from significant trends in contemporary neuroscience? While interesting connections are drawn in relation to affective neuroscience and to spontaneous background activity, I argue that in order to do full justice to the receptive side of consciousness we must ultimately resort to the more radical concept of pure consciousness, developed primarily within Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. (shrink)

All experience is experiencing, and therefore entails an experiencer — i.e.a subject of experience. This is an a priori truth. It does not entail that, in the case of any given episode of experience, the portion of reality that is correctly said to be the experiencer (the subject of the experience) is something ontically distinct from the portion of reality that is the episode of experience itself, and there is one metaphysically fundamental way of conceiving of the subject of experience (...) — the thin conception — given which the subject of an experience is not ontically distinct from the experience. (shrink)

In recent publications, Jay Garfield and Anil Seth have both written about the you. Whereas Garfield is a Buddhist scholar who advocates a no-self view, Seth is a neuroscientist who defends a radical form of representationalism. But is it really possible to speak meaningfully of a you (and of a we) if one denies the existence of the self, and if one declares the world of experience a neuronal fantasy? In the following, I will criticize both accounts. I will argue (...) that they both, in different ways, are unable to deal with a real other, and, drawing on the work of Husserl, I will argue that a proper understanding of the you doesn't merely require accepting the reality of the self, but also the existence of a shared lifeworld. (shrink)

This essay comprises a first phenomenological semiotics of ChatGPT. I analyse how we experience the language signs generated by that AI. This task is accomplished in two steps. First, I introduce a conceptual scaffolding for the project, by introducing core tenets of Husserl's semiotics. Second, I mould Husserl's theory to develop my phenomenology of the passive and active consciousness of the language signs composed by ChatGPT. On the one hand, by discussing temporality, I demonstrate that ChatGPT can passively demand me (...) to understand its signs. On the other hand, I show that a conflict arises between active and passive consciousness when reading ChatGPT. While I actively know that there is no communicating subject, I still passively experience these signs as made by another. I argue that it is this conflict which lends ChatGPT its 'magical' character. I conclude by showing how these observations can inform future regulation of AI models. (shrink)

Philosophy of mind has made substantial progress on biologically-rooted approaches to understanding the mind and subjectivity through the enactivist perspective, but research on subjectivity within neuroscience has not kept apace. Indeed, we possess no principled means of relating experiential phenomena to neurophysiological processes. Here, we present the Nested States Model as a framework to guide empirical investigation into the relationship between subjectivity and neurobiology. Building on recent work in phenomenology and philosophy of mind, we develop an account of experiential states (...) as layered, or nested. We argue that this nested structure is also apparent in brain activity. The recognition of this structural homology — that both experiential and brain states can be characterized as systems of nested states — brings our views of subjective mental states into broad alignment with our understanding of general principles and properties of brain activity. This alignment enables a more systematic approach to formulating specific hypotheses and predictions about how the two domains relate to one another. (shrink)

There has recently been a revival of interest in panpsychism as a theory of consciousness. The hope of the contemporary proponents of panpsychism is that the view enables us to integrate consciousness into our overall theory of reality in a way that avoids the deep difficulties that plague the more conventional options of physicalism on the one hand and dualism on the other. However, panpsychism comes in two forms — strong and weak emergentist — and there are arguments that seem (...) to show that weak emergentist panpsychism faces problems analogous to those of physicalism whilst strong emergentist panpsychism faces problems analogous to those of dualism. In this paper, I will develop a new hybrid of the strong and weak emergentist forms of panpsychism, a view according to which subjects of experience are strongly emergent but their phenomenal properties are weakly emergent. I will argue that this hybrid view manages to avoid the challenges facing both physicalism and dualism, and the analogues of those challenges that seem to undermine standard forms of panpsychism. (shrink)

An examination of analytic philosophers' approaches to and critiques of the intelligibility of experiences of 'pure consciousness', non-intentionality, and selflessness in light of mystical experiences. Whether neuroscience can determine whether experiences of 'pure consciousness' are possible is also examined.

In 'Ethics Without Sentience: Facing Up to the Probable Insignificance of Phenomenal Consciousness' (Kammerer, 2022), I argued that phenomenal consciousness is probably normatively insignificant, and does not play a significant normative role. In 'Preserving the Normative Significance of Sentience' (Dung, 2024), Leonard Dung challenges my reasoning and defends sentientism about value and moral status against my arguments. Here I respond to Dung's criticism, pointing out three flaws in his reply. My conclusion is that the view that phenomenal consciousness is distinctively (...) significant is still very much under threat. (shrink)

Researchers in the psychological sciences have put forward the thesis that various sources of psychological, cognitive, and neuroscientific evidence demonstrate that being conscious of our mental states does not make any difference to our behaviour. In this paper, I argue that the evidence marshalled in support of this view — which I call psychological epiphenomenalism — is subject to major objections, relies on a superficial reading of the relevant literature, and fails to engage with the more precise ways in which (...) philosophers understand mental states to be conscious. I then appeal to work on implementation intentions to demonstrate that an intention's being 'access conscious' enhances its functional role, which makes it more likely that we will successfully carry out our intended behaviour. The result is that consciousness in at least one relevant sense is not epiphenomenal, with further work remaining to be done to show how other kinds of consciousness cause behaviour too. (shrink)

Many methodologies for systematic study of lived experience have been proposed in recent decades. These methods are typically calibrated in terms of the depth and complexity of data collection, and whether they consider reports on pre-reflective experience admissible. Even though it has been shown that lived experience occurs at different timescales (elementary, integrative, narrative), contemporary methods tend to focus on momentary experience. We trace the focus on momentary experience to the current cultural milieu and attitudes in the history of psychology. (...) We point out the need for studying temporally extended experiences in the field of psychopathology. We propose that lived experiences at different timescales are nested within each other and that this principle can be used to organize data collected with qualitative methods for the study of experience. We suggest that temporally extended experiences occur at the narrative level of description (i.e. they consist of experiential reports and sense-making). (shrink)

In light of the ongoing validity crisis in psychiatric classification, phenomenologically oriented psychiatric study has gained traction. This paper assesses two modes of investigation proposed by phenomenologists in studying mental disorders: the ideal type approach and the essential type approach. Despite the recent suggestion that they are antithetical approaches, I argue that they should constantly constrain and inform each other. In short, I advance a mutual complementarity thesis. Having established this thesis, I conclude by demonstrating how this proposal can function (...) as an heuristic strategy for effectively facilitating the recently proposed psychiatric research initiative, i.e. the ontological project of phenomenological psychopathology. (shrink)

One possible challenge for epiphenomenalism arises from the theory of evolution: if the mental has no causal powers, how might it have evolved? The aim of this paper is to argue that, contrary to some arguments advanced by other philosophers, most particularly William Robinson and Joseph Corabi, considerations from the theory of evolution do pose a genuine difficulty for epiphenomenalism.

According to an orthodox view, the capacity for conscious experience (sentience) is relevant to the distribution of moral status and value. However, physicalism about consciousness might threaten the normative relevance of sentience. According to the indeterminacy argument, sentience is metaphysically indeterminate while indeterminacy of sentience is incompatible with its normative relevance. According to the introspective argument (by François Kammerer), the unreliability of our conscious introspection undercuts the justification for belief in the normative relevance of consciousness. I defend the normative relevance (...) of sentience against these objections. First, I demonstrate that physicalists only have to concede a limited amount of indeterminacy of sentience. This moderate indeterminacy is in harmony with the role of sentience in determining moral status. Second, I argue that physicalism gives us no reason to expect that introspection is unreliable with respect to the normative relevance of consciousness. (shrink)

Delirium has conventionally been considered a disorder of consciousness, but this remains a relatively unexamined precept. First, a review of the role of consciousness disruption in delirium is revised from an historical and diagnostic perspective. Second, consciousness measurement in routine assessment of delirium is considered. Conscious levels, comprising alertness and arousal, are most commonly used but are not representative of the multidimensionality of consciousness. Third, a justification for the exploration of phenomenal consciousness is presented. Three candidate dimensions of phenomenal consciousness (...) are identified as the pre-reflective state, phenomenal experience, and reflective thought. Finally, the clinical implications of a deeper understanding of delirium through measurement of phenomenal consciousness is considered. (shrink)

Neuroelectrical panpsychism (NP) offers a clear, simple, testable mind–body solution. It says that everything is at least minimally conscious, and electrical activity across separate neurons creates a unified, intelligent mind. NP draws on recent experimental evidence to address the easy problem of specifying the mind's neural correlates. These correlates are neuroelectrical activities that, for example, generate our different qualia, unite them to form perceptions and emotions, and help guide brain operations. NP also addresses the hard problem of why minds accompany (...) these neural correlates. Here, the real nature of matter-energy (beyond how it appears to sense organs) is consciousness that occupies space, exerts forces, and unites neuroelectrically to form minds. This doesn't reduce consciousness to observable neural activities, nor posit any radically different entities. NP also deals with panpsychism's combination problem by explaining how the mind's subject and experiences arise by electrically combining simple experiences in brains. (shrink)

Introspection, or looking inward to observe one's experience, is inherent in many methods used to study feelings, the experiential component of emotion. Challenges of introspection make faithful, high-fidelity descriptions of feelings difficult to attain. A method that (1) cleaves to a specific moment, (2) cleaves to pristine inner experience, (3) brackets presuppositions, and (4) utilizes an iterative process may be particularly well suited to this task. We review some contemporary introspective methods from the perspective of these four methodological constraints, finding (...) that Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) addresses the constraints most fully. We present DES findings on feelings to highlight the unique contributions careful introspective methods make to emotion science. High-fidelity descriptions of feelings are necessary for a complete understanding of emotion. (shrink)

The art of acting, drama, or theatre has been largely excluded from the debate on the nature of consciousness in the scientific community. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether acting performance benefits from a divided or unified state of consciousness. Twenty-four acting students and professionals performed a monologue three times, twice with an interference task. Two different sets of instructions were provided for this task: one that asked participants to incorporate the interference into the world of their (...) monologue (unified consciousness), and another that asked them to dissociate it from their theatrical performance (divided consciousness). The variables studied included an evaluation of performance on primary and secondary tasks, as well as responses on a creativity and dissociative experiences questionnaire and to open-ended questions. Two acting professors provided monologue ratings. There was a significant difference in interference task performance scores for the divided and unified conscious conditions, as well as for the primary rater's monologue scores. Participants performed better on both tasks when they were asked to incorporate the interference into the imagined world of their monologue. These results show that a unified conscious approach results in better performance on certain tasks, implying that unified consciousness may be more adaptive for certain daily functions such as multitasking. (shrink)

The 'no-supervenience' theorem (Reason, 2019; Reason and Shah, 2021) is a proof that no fully self-aware system can entirely supervene on any objectively observable system. I here present a simple, non-technical summary of the proof and demonstrate its implications for four separate theories of consciousness: the 'property dualism' theory of David Chalmers; the 'reflexive monism' of Max Velmans; Galen Strawson's 'realistic monism'; and the 'illusionism' of Keith Frankish. It is shown that all are ruled out in their current form by (...) the no-supervenience theorem, except for Chalmers' theory, which I show requires humans to behave irrationally. (shrink)

Panexperientialists hold that experience is a fundamental feature of our universe, and that their view avoids radical emergence by providing an intelligible ground for our human experiences. This paper argues that they face a radical emergence problem of their own, and that they can avoid radical emergence only by adopting a strategy that can also be used by dualists (whose view they reject). It also argues that panexperientialists must either hold that all experiential properties they regard as simple must have (...) been actually instantiated since the earliest days of our universe, or accept radical emergence, or avoid radical emergence by a strategy that can also be adopted by dualists. (shrink)

Contemplative scholarship has recently reoriented attention towards the neuroscientific study of the soteriological ambition of Buddhist practice, 'awakening'. This article evaluates the project of seeking neural correlates for awakening. Key definitional and operational issues are identified demonstrating that: the nature of awakening is highly contested both within and across Buddhist traditions; the meaning of awakening is both context- and concept-dependent; and awakening may be non-conceptual and ineffable. It is demonstrated that operationalized secular conceptions of awakening, divorced from soteriological and cultural (...) factors, have little relationship to traditional Buddhist construct(s) of awakening. This article identifies methodological issues for secular conceptions of awakening concerning introspection and neuroimaging yet demonstrates also the value of recent advancements in empirical first-person phenomenology for attenuating introspective bias. Overall, it is contended that significant problems arise when decontextualizing awakening and placing it within a scientific naturalistic framework. Careful attention to the definitional, operational, and methodological neuroscientific obstacles identified herein is required in the responsible approach to the investigation of awakening states. (shrink)

Telling tales and reading have been a part of human activity for a very long time. We review in brief the anthropological evidence, then the emergence of the 'modern novel'. This explores in narratives the psychological reflections of the characters concerned with life circumstances including loss, abandonment, despair, illness, dying, and death. We report findings that the response of crying to a novel occurs as often as to music, not reported before: both 'move us'. We note what several critics and (...) authors imply about the imagined world of 'novel space' which emphasizes the active not passive nature of reading dramatic action, the latter being embedded and embodied within us. This touches on the mind–brain problem. We provide a brief introduction to neuroscientific work with brain imaging revealing how cerebral networks to do with theory of mind and brain structures that are the basis of our movements are involved with the very act of reading words and narratives. Emotional tearing is an exclusive attribute of Homo sapiens, and crying can have positive benefits for mental health. We argue that bibliotherapy needs greater attention than has been the case at present. We also suggest that telling tales and the 'modern novel' are closely allied to the development of the consciousness of Homo sapiens. (shrink)