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Full-body illusions and minimal phenomenal selfhood

2008; Elsevier BV; Volume: 13; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.tics.2008.10.003

1879-307X

Olaf Blanke, Thomas Metzinger,

Aesthetic Perception and Analysis

We highlight the latest research on body perception and self-consciousness, but argue that despite these achievements, central aspects have remained unexplored, namely, global aspects of bodily self-consciousness. Researchers investigated central representations of body parts and actions involving these, but neglected the global and unitary character of self-consciousness, the ‘I’ of experience and behaviour. We ask, what are the minimally sufficient conditions for the appearance of a phenomenal self, that is, the fundamental conscious experience of being someone? What are necessary conditions for self-consciousness in any type of system? We offer conceptual clarifications, discuss recent empirical evidence from neurology and cognitive science and argue that these findings offer a new entry point for the systematic study of global and more fundamental aspects of self-consciousness. We highlight the latest research on body perception and self-consciousness, but argue that despite these achievements, central aspects have remained unexplored, namely, global aspects of bodily self-consciousness. Researchers investigated central representations of body parts and actions involving these, but neglected the global and unitary character of self-consciousness, the ‘I’ of experience and behaviour. We ask, what are the minimally sufficient conditions for the appearance of a phenomenal self, that is, the fundamental conscious experience of being someone? What are necessary conditions for self-consciousness in any type of system? We offer conceptual clarifications, discuss recent empirical evidence from neurology and cognitive science and argue that these findings offer a new entry point for the systematic study of global and more fundamental aspects of self-consciousness. global motor control, including the subjective experience of action, control, intention, motor selection and the conscious experience of will. It involves the representation of goal-states. arguably, this appears when a system possesses a concept of the strong 1PP and is able to apply this concept to itself (i.e. it has an abstract and active mental representation of itself as a subject of experience, which includes a special form of cognitive self-reference) [3,6–8]. The cognitive 1PP presupposes the capacity of self-reference in a more narrow sense, that is, to mentally refer to oneself using a concept such as ‘I’, for example by consciously thinking I-thoughts such as ‘I am happy’ or ‘I myself am a thinking thing’ or ‘I myself am a subject of experience’. Many organisms might have phenomenal self-models [6,23] (MPS), but perhaps only humans have self-concepts. a position in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind that emphasizes the relevance of sensorimotor skills for general intelligence, the situtatedness of cognition and the role that the body has in shaping the mind, plus the subjective experience of using and ‘having’ a body. The concept is used in many different ways. Different functional levels exist (Thomas Metzinger [2007], Self models. Scholarpedia: www.scholarpedia.org/article/Self_models). the degree to which an organism identifies with the content of a global body representation [7,24]. a determinate volume in space, normally localized within the bodily boundaries as represented. The origin of the weak 1PP is localized within this volume (‘embedding principle’). Self-location is also necessarily spatiotemporal self-location (because it includes the ‘now’, a determinate position in time as represented). This is not discussed here [6]. this occurs when the model of the organism as a whole, given through MPS, is represented as being directed at an object component (including, potentially, the body itself). We speculate that a strong 1PP necessarily (and minimally) involves the additional experience of being able to control the focus of attention. a purely geometrical feature of an egocentric model of reality, most often referred to as a visuospatial model. A weak 1PP includes a spatial frame of reference, plus a global body representation, with a perspective originating within this body representation. A visual (or auditory) weak 1PP possesses a centre of projection, which functions as the geometrical origin of the ‘seeing’ (or ‘hearing’ etc.) organism's embodied perspective.