Breaking the self

Abstract

Are there logically possible types of conscious experience that are nomologically impossible, given independently justified assumptions about the neural underpinnings of consciousness in human beings? In one sense, this is trivial: just consider the fact that the types of perceptual experiences we can have are limited by our sensory organs. But there may be non-trivial types of conscious experience that are impossible. For instance, if there is a basic type of self-consciousness, corresponding to a phenomenal property that is nomologically necessary for consciousness, then experiences lacking this phenomenal property will be (nomologically) impossible. More generally, it may be that there are causal dependencies between the neural mechanisms that are required to instantiate distinct phenomenal properties (in human beings). If this is the case, instantiating one of these phenomenal properties without certain others may be impossible, which means there are non-trivial cases of nomologically impossible types of conscious experience. This paper clarifies this hypothesis, outlines a general methodology for its investigation, and relates it to research on radical disruptions of self-consciousness.

Just one moment: Unifying theories of consciousness based on a phenomenological “now” and temporal hierarchy.

“…The Husserlian doctrine of intentional time consciousness was originally developed as prereflexive (nonconceptual), though there are versions where retentions are open to conceptual content (see Wiese, 2017). This mirrors developments in HOTs where higher order representations are speculated to be “thought-like” or “perception-like.” In the temporal hierarchy, HOT variants can occupy the slow-updating retention-like level at which first-order content is re-presented in either a spare or coarse-grained manner.…”