The Who and the How of Experience

There is nothing so self-evident and pervasive and immediate that nonetheless remains as opaque and illusive as consciousness. Consciousness underpins everything we are and everything we do and everything we know, and yet for all our progress in philosophy and science, we are still no closer to an accepted definition of consciousness. Not only is there no agreement about what consciousness actually means, there is not even agreement about what term to use to describe this condition of being and experiencing that we are referring to (even though we all seem to intuitively understand what we mean when we say consciousness). This work is an attempt at describing what it is we are referring to when to talk about consciousness.

As is widely appreciated and easily demonstrated, the notion that we are essentially experiential (or conscious) beings has a good deal of appeal; what is less obvious, and more controversial, is whether it is possible to devise a viable account of the self along such lines within the confines of a broadly naturalistic metaphysical framework. There are many avenues to explore, but here I confine myself to outlining the case for one particular approach. I suggest that we should think of ourselves (or our essential cores) as being composed of experience-producing systems, and that such systems belong to the same self when they have the capacity to contribute to unified streams of consciousness. The viability of this proposal rests in turn on a particular conception of the structure of consciousness, both at and over time; this conception is defended in the first part of the paper

Synthesis philosophica, 2008

This paper explores the possibility of a neuroscientific explanation of consciousness, and what such an explanation might look like. More specifically, I will be concerned with the claim that for any given experience there is neural representational system that ...

Buddhist Studies Review, 2013

Buddhism teaches that ‘self’ as a substantial, enduring entity is an illusion. But for self to be an illusion there must be something in our experience that is misinterpreted as self. What is this? The notion of an experiential self plays an important role in phenomenological investigations of conscious experience. Does the illusion of self consist in mistaking a purely experiential self for a substantial self? I argue against this and locate the source of the illusion in time-consciousness. It is the essence of consciousness to flow, but the flow of consciousness presupposes an experiential present. The experiential present — an abiding sense of ‘now’ — is the dimension through which experiences are experienced as streaming. It is this, I argue, that is misinterpreted as an enduring self. I support my account by arguing that the synchronic and diachronic unity of consciousness can be accounted for in terms of impersonal, temporal experience, and that conceiving of consciousness as ...

Consciousness and Cognition, 2009

The paper argues that Zahavi's defence of the self as an experiential dimension, i.e. ''identified with the first-person givenness of experiential phenomena", and of the notion of a prereflective minimal core self relies on an unwarranted assumption. It is assumed that awareness of the phenomenal mode of experiences of objects, i.e. what the object ''feels" like for the experiencer, is comparable with, indeed entails, first-person givenness of experience. In consequence both the arguments concerning the foundational role of the pre-reflective minimal core self and the explanation of the unity and identity of the self through time give rise to intractable problems.

2020

This paper explores the possibility of a neuroscientific explanation of consciousness, and what such an explanation might look like. More specifically, I will be concerned with the claim that for any given experience there is neural representational system that constitutes the minimal supervenience base of that experience. I will call this hypothesis the minimal supervenience thesis. I argue that the minimal supervenience thesis is subject to two readings, which I call the localist and holist readings. Localist theories seek to identify the minimal supervenience base for specific experiences. They sideline questions about the nature of creature consciousness, treating the neural basis of creature consciousness as merely a causally necessary background condition for a particular conscious experience. Holists on the other hand prioritise creature consciousness and argue that we can only account for particular states of consciousness in the context of an account of creature consciousness. I argue that any scientific explanation of consciousness must account for what I will call a minimal sense of self that is intrinsic to every conscious state. Holist theories are best able to accommodate this feature. I end by arguing that the Dynamic Sensorimotor (DSM) account of consciousness can be combined with a holist account of the neural basis of consciousness. Such a combination of views corrects for the opposition to the minimal supervenience thesis found in some prominent defenders of the DSM account (e.g. Alva Noë and Evan Thompson). It also provides a framework for developing a neuroscientific account of the minimal sense of self.

2019

The rejection of a permanent self as the 'thinker of thoughts ' and the 'senser of sensations' poses a significant challenge for Buddhist philosophy of mind: if there is no permanent agent (kartii), and if actions (karman) are merely transient events within a continuum of causally interconnected states, how is the phenomenal character of conscious experience and the sense of ownership implicit in first-person agency to be explained? At the same time, the rejection of a permanent locus for experience offers an opportunity to explore the problem of personal identity on phenomenological rather than metaphysical grounds: answering the question of why self-awareness comes bound up with a sense of self (whether owned or merely occurrent) can thus be pursued independently of metaphysical concerns about what a self is and what are its fundamental attributes. It also allows for an analysis of the structure of awareness without assuming that such a structure reflects an external relation of ownership between consciousness and the self. Let us note from the outset that there are substantive disagreements among Buddhist philosophers about how the problem of personal identity should be framed, the kind of evidence that is deemed reliable, and the lines of justification that are worth pursuing: it can be (and has been) framed in both epistemological and ontological terms, drawing on both experiential accounts and metaphysical considerations about what there is, and taking the form of both conceptual analysis

In an important sense this note is not about self. It does not make any claim that self does exist or it does not exist. This note questions the the very notion of self. The notion, this note argues, is misconceived and fails to make sense beyond the discursive boundary with in which it finds a problematic use. It fails to cross the boundary to talk about that is not a mere construction of the discourse. I have used in this note a few terms that are neologisms and a few others for which I have departed from conventional use. There are certain words I needed to rediscover for the presentation. In a discursive context for example deliberators arrive at a position by rational argumentation. The words agreement an consensus tell a different story. Gratis, the Latin root of 'agree', actually means to please. And 'consensus' derived from sentire meaning in Latin feeling. Originally therefore agreement and consensus are non-rational and very inter subjective in nature. The rational procedure of the discursive level hardly gets out of the vicious circle it's own ideas create. And cannot match with the agreement and consensus of the inter subjective level. Key words: Subjective plane-introspection-extra-spective-intersubjective plane-extra-spective plane-extraspectively intersubjective-introspectively intersubjective-discursive level-phenomenation-transcendental unity of apperception-selfsame ess of continuous consciousness-reflexive consciousness-lived bodies-three orders of being-sense of horizon of existence-auto-ontological-ex-ontological-facing-field-bio-embodied Consciousness-interface-instrumentation of sign system-cogito complex-spontaneous reflexivity-auto-thetic-linguistic fabrication One: spontaneous reflexivity Thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries dared not use the word self as reassuringly as many of their counterparts do today. They stuck to the words 'the I' or 'ego' for referring to something which many of them thought to have an

2011

I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception." These famous words of David Hume, on his inability to perceive the self, set the stage for JeeLoo Liu and John Perry's collection of essays on self-awareness and self-knowledge. This volume connects recent scientific studies on consciousness with the traditional issues about the self explored by Descartes, Locke, and Hume. Experts in the field offer contrasting perspectives on matters such as the relation between consciousness and self-awareness, the notion of personhood, and the epistemic access to one's own thoughts, desires, or attitudes. The volume will be of interest to philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and others working on the central topics of consciousness and the self.