The projective theory of consciousness: from neuroscience to philosophical psychology

Abstract

The development of the interdisciplinary areas of cognitive, affective and action neurosciences contributes to the identification of neurobiological bases of conscious experience. The structure of consciousness was philosophically conceived a century ago (HUSSERL, 1913) as consisting of a subjective pole, the bearer of experiences, and an objective pole composed of experienced contents. In more recent formulations, Nagel (1974) refers to a “point of view”, in which qualitative experiences are anchored, while Velmans (1990, 1993, 2009, 2017) understands that phenomenal content is composed of mental representations “projected” to the space external to the brains that construct them. In Freudian psychology, the conscious mind contains a tension between the Id and the Ego (FREUD, 1913). How to relate this bipolar structure with the results of neuroscience? I propose the notion of projection [also used by Williford et al. (2012)] as a bridge principle connecting the neurobiological systems of knowing, feeling and acting with the bipolar structure. The projective process is considered responsible for the generation of the sense of self and the sense of the world, composing an informational phenomenal field generated by the nervous system and experienced in the first-person perspective. After presenting the projective hypothesis, I discuss its philosophical status, relating it to the phenomenal (BLOCK, 1995, 2008, 2011) and high-order thought (ROSENTHAL, 2006; BROWN, 2014) approaches, and a mathematical model of projection (RUDRAUF et al., 2017). Eight ways of testing the status of the projective hypothesis are briefly mentioned.

Functional theories can describe many features of conscious phenomenology but cannot account for its existence

“…Given the inability of IIT to clearly demarcate systems (or subsystems) that don't have consciousness from those that do, Merker et al suggest an alternative measure of what it is like to have a conscious “point of view” employing a form of projective geometry that specifies the “point-horizon” structure of human consciousness (Rudrauf et al, 2017). As with the other theories that focus on the projected, three-dimensional nature of conscious phenomenology (e.g., Lehar, 2003; Pereira, 2018; Revonsuo, 2006; Trehub, 2007; Velmans, 1990, 2008, 2009), this specification of self-location within a three-dimensional phenomenal world captures a central, but often ignored feature of human conscious phenomenology that has many important consequences for understanding consciousness (cf. Velmans, 2009).…”

Going out of my head: An evolutionary proposal concerning the “why” of sentience.

“…The transition from respondent to agent required the organism to transform predetermined, inwardly conceived and directed acts into intentional behavior targeting objects located in a threedimensional space outside its body. To experience the world as a phenomenological space within which the organism can move and interact, an agent must feel that its experiences are presented to, not simply present within, itself (e.g., James, 1904;Pereira, 2018;Pribram, 2004;Rudrauf et al, 2017;Velmans, 2007Velmans, , 2009.…”

“…To fashion a world external to the organism, neural activities must be phenomenologically projected onto the space outside the brain in which they originate (e.g., Pribram, 2004;Velmans, 2007). This process-"phenomenal projection" (for discussion, see Pereira, 2018;Pribram, 2004;Velmans, 2007Velmans, , 2009 8 , served as both the product of and occasion for observation of the physical world. To experience a world consisting of objects and their relations requires those objects be fitted with properties in virtue of which they can be individuated.…”

Untitled

“…It introduces the role of dynamic patterns in a discussion that is still pretty much focused on how brain networks are stimulated by music. 5 Let us elaborate on this in the next sections.…”