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... This is the original "hard problem of consciousness", so named by Chalmers [8]. It is a hard problem for physicalism, and has been highlighted through several arguments such as the modal argument about the conceivability of "philosophical zombies" (things that are physically identical to humans but lack consciousness) [41], the "knowledge argument" (knowledge of all physical truths does not imply knowledge of all the truths about consciousness) famously demonstrated with the imaginary tale about Mary the neuroscientist [36] (see also [51]), and the "explanatory gap" argument according to which consciousness is not explicable by physical principles [43] -in fact, Leibniz' "Mill" argument belongs in this category as well. According to Chalmers [9], all of these arguments have in common that they demonstrate the existence of an epistemic gap between physical and phenomenal (mental experience) truths, which suggests that there is an ontological gap as well. ...
... This does not mean that how we perceive the physical world is how it actually is; the physical world does not actually have colour, sound, odour, is not cute, beautiful, ugly, frightening, funny etc. -the ability to experience all of these is a property of minds, and they are not properties of the material objects themselves. The structure of our bodies and the psycho-physical laws are such that they result in a nice, useful and functional mapping of aspects of the physical world onto mental representations that allows us to navigate in it, understand it, and live in it -but it is not the only one possible; by re-wiring our brains we could perceive the world very differently (as perhaps bats experience it [51]), either by remapping our current experiences to different aspects of the physical world, or by having new experiences altogether (if our minds have the capacity for experiences as yet unknown which, however, are not triggered by the current design of our brains). ...
... Evolution is not the only way to achieve such a mapping -intelligent design is another; for example, if we knew the psycho-physical laws then we could ourselves design brains that make their bearers perceive reality in various ways. The problem in this case is, of course, that the psycho-physical laws are not completely knowable since we can not a priori know the full range of experiences a mind can have but each of us only knows the particular experiences he/she has had to date, as argued in [51]. ...
The mind is our most intimate and familiar element of reality, yet also the most mysterious. Various schools of thought propose interpretations of the mind that are consistent with their worldview, all of which face some problems. Some of these problems can be characterised as "hard", not in the sense of being difficult to solve (most problems concerning the mind are difficult), but in the sense of being most likely insurmountable: they bring to the surface logical inconsistencies between the reality of the mind as we perceive it and the fundamental metaphysical tenets of that particular worldview, thus putting the latter in danger of being disproven. This essay focuses mainly on the hard problems that the author considers to be of greatest importance for physicalism, the currently prevalent worldview. Nevertheless, some of these hard problems pertain also to other views such as panpsychism. In the author's opinion, the hardest and most profound of these, pertaining equally to physicalism and to panpsychism, is the one discussed in Section 4: the particular subjective first-person viewpoint that defines a particular person can be found nowhere in the universe except in that person itself; all outside entities (physical or mental) are equally neutral towards the "particularity" of that person, which therefore cannot be explained as arising from any combination of such outside elements. Therefore, a person is a simple substance. Other hard problems discussed concern the physical explanation of conscious experiences and the physical explanation of meaning, while their repercussions with respect to free will and ethics are also examined. Although these latter hard problems have already been discussed elsewhere, a somewhat fresh perspective is given here by someone who is not a professional philosopher but a physical scientist.
... Sin embargo, existen buenas razones para pensar que tales términos no parecen capturar necesariamente lo mismo, lo cuál es problemático a la luz de la pregunta respecto de aquello que la ley busca proteger. Mientras que la naturaleza fenoménica de una experiencia consciente podría ser categorizada como un elemento necesario de lo 'mental' (Nagel 1974, Jackson 1986, Crane 1998, episodios más complejos -en términos de forma y contenido -, como, por ejemplo, la reacción que tengo ante un maltrato laboral también parecen estar compuestos por valoraciones, expectativas, deseos sobre la realidad y una auto-imagen especí ca. Posiblemente, esto último no solo haría tales episodios 'mentales', sino que también 'psicológicos', en tanto tienen sentido y pueden ser comprendidos como una expresión que se deriva de mi propia historia personal y de la con guración que un sistema cognitivo humano a tomado en el tiempo. ...
... La losofía de la mente ha exitosamente argumentado que la reducción de 'lo mental' a lo puramente 'neuronal' es sumamente problemática (Nagel 1974, Jackson 1986. A esto se le ha denominado 'el problema duro de la conciencia' (Chalmers 1996). ...
... A esto se le ha denominado 'el problema duro de la conciencia' (Chalmers 1996). Para diversos lósofos de la mente, los estados mentales conscientes son aquellos en los que hay un algo que es como estar en ellos para un sujeto (de la expresión original 'something that is like to be' utilizada por Nagel 1974). Esta expresión captura una forma privada de acceder a nuestras propias experiencias que no pueden ser imitada o alcanzada por ninguna metodología en tercera persona. ...
... This essay aims to suggest that our knowledge of the phenomenology of our own phenomenally conscious states-i.e., those states there is something it is like for a subject to be in (Nagel 1974)-is of a fundamentally different kind with respect to our knowledge of what Chalmers refers to as "the rest of the world". ...
... The term 'Revelation' was introduced by Johnston (1992) to refer to Strawson's (1989) claim whereby the nature of colors is fully revealed in color experiences, but already in Russell (1910;1912: 47) one can find what is arguably a version of the thesis. Rev is generally understood as a thesis about the essence of phenomenal properties, where phenomenal properties, or qualia, in turn, are typically defined as properties of conscious mental states which type those states by what it is like for a subject to have them (Nagel 1974). Rev has sometimes been phrased (e.g., by Trogdon 2016;Nida-Rümelin 2007;Goff, 2011; in terms of phenomenal concepts-those concepts which refer to phenomenal properties and characterize 2 them in terms of the peculiar quality(ies) they exhibit (I will elaborate on this version of Rev in a moment). ...
The thesis of experiential revelation—Rev for brevity—in the philosophy of mind claims that to have an experience—i.e., to be acquainted with it—is to know its nature. It is widely agreed that although at least moderate versions of Rev might strike one as plausible and perhaps even appealing, at least up to a certain extent, most of them are nonetheless inconsistent with almost any coherent form of physicalism about the mind. Thus far, the issue of the alleged tension between Rev and physicalism has mostly been put in the relevant literature in terms of phenomenal concepts—those concepts which refer to phenomenal properties, or qualia, and characterize them in terms of the peculiar quality(/ies) they exhibit—and some kind of “special feature” those concepts allegedly possess. I call this version of Rev C-Rev. This paper aims to suggest that while it is true that phenomenal concepts reveal the nature of their referents—i.e., it is a priori, for a subject possessing the concept and just in virtue of possessing it, what it is for the referents of the concept to be part of reality—this feature of them, in turn, rests on a non-conceptual non-propositional kind of knowledge, namely, sui generis introspective knowledge by acquaintance of one’s own phenomenally conscious states. I call this version of Rev A-Rev. §1 provides some introductory material. In §2 I discuss two arguments that have recently been put forth to undermine the cogency of C-Rev against physicalism. §3 elaborates on the historical roots of C-Rev. §4 presents some of the major arguments which has been offered for A-Rev. Few concluding remarks close the paper.
... Como alguns autores vêm salientando, em especial Levine (1983), mesmo obtendo-se o conhecimento pormenorizado dos correlatos neurais que sustentam determinados aspectos da consciência, ainda assim, parece haver uma espécie de abismo entre tais correlatos e a experiência dos estados conscientes neles mesmos, principalmente, no que diz respeito às qualidades secundárias ou qualia experimentados 2 . Quer dizer, a idéia por trás do problema do explanatory gap é basicamente a mesma aventada por Nagel (1980), Chalmers (1996Chalmers ( , 1997 e Searle (1997Searle ( , 1998, dentre outros, qual seja: a de que aparentemente não há nenhuma característica física conhecida que se possa correlacionar 3 a estados subjetivos, tais como a percepção de cores, odores, etc. Mais ou menos como se a história explicativa que vai dos estados neuronais aos estados conscientes, em algum momento, desse uma espécie de salto inexplicado. ...
... 6 McGinn (1989), por exemplo, afirma que mesmo havendo, a princípio, uma explicação naturalista para a relação entre as qualidades da experiência e o substrato físico (cérebro) que as sustentam, o homem seria "cognitivamente fechado" (cognitive closure) a tal tipo de conhecimento, mais ou menos do mesmo modo como uma formiga é incapaz de apreender a regra de três, analogamente, ao homem seria vetada a compreensão da relação da mente com o corpo. "Um tipo de mente M é cognitivamente fechado com relação a uma propriedade P (ou teoria T) se e somente se os O "Interno" e o "Externo" em Filosofia da Mente Como as perspectivas delineadas por Nagel (1980) e Jackson (1986) dão a entender, o modo como uma mente experiencia algo só pode ser compreendido em sua totalidade mediante o acesso direto, ou seja, mediante um artifício que possibilite o acesso direto das sensações experimentadas por outros; e isso, só pode ser alcançado mediante artefatos tecnológicos a serem desenvolvidos, ou como convencionou-se dizer, por meio de uma espécie de "cerebroscópio". ...
Suspeitando de que grande parte dos problemas atuais em filosofia da mente decorre de “nós” na teia sobre a qual estrutura-se a linguagem ordinária e o jargão filosófico pretendemos, com o presente artigo, apresentar a argumentação de Wittgenstein no que tange a identificar e dissolver o que julgamos ser os “pontos de tensão” subjacentes à colocação de alguns problemas aparentemente intratáveis na filosofia da mente contemporânea, em especial, o problema da experiência consciente, ou problema dos qualia. E, fazendo uso dos escritos de Wittgenstein (1996, 1993a, 1993b), tencionamos apresentar as reflexões de Wittgenstein no sentido de que o problema da experiência consciente “poderia” ser mais um pseudoproblema decorrente da aceitação irrefletida por parte dos filósofos e cientistas contemporâneos da terminologia cartesiana que estabelece as assimetrias entre o público (comportamento) e o privado (estados mentais), entre o interno (estados mentais) e o externo (comportamento). Em resumo, pretendemos, com o presente artigo, fazendo uso das reflexões wittgensteinianas nas obras acima citadas, examinar a relação entre o que convencionou-se chamar de “interno” e “externo”, em filosofia da mente, bem como argumentar que o problema da experiência consciente proposto por alguns teóricos contemporâneos pode ser “dissolvido” ou melhor entendido com o adequado uso da linguagem, tal como Wittgenstein sugere nas referidas obras (mesmo que no caso específico do problema mente-corpo, talvez a depuração da linguagem não ajude muito).
... From Nagel (1974) to Zahavi (2014); two dimensions of experience. ...
I aim to show that, contrary to standard deflationary or eliminativist theories of the self, we can argue from the phenomenology of pre-reflective self-awareness for the thesis that subjects of experience are substances. The phenomenological datum of subjectivity points to a specific metaphysical structure of our experience, that is, towards the substance view rather than the bundle or the minimal self view. Drawing on modern philosophical accounts of pre-reflective self-awareness, mineness and (self-) acquaintance, I will argue that a subject is aware of being the one individual who has many experiences and that it is revealed to the subject that it is the bearer of experiences and their unifier. The subject is present in pre-reflective awareness and known as the subject of experiences, and even this minimal self-awareness gives us reason to favour the substance view. Thus, one can demonstrate how the debates on the phenomenology of pre-reflective self-awareness and the metaphysics of selfhood intersect.
... When I am in a conscious state, there is "something it is like" for me to be in that state. 5 This conception of consciousness is sometimes called "phenomenal consciousness" or "qualitative consciousness" or "qualia." It is the least demanding conception of consciousness and thus appropriate for investigating the ethical impact of entities with inchoate consciousness at most. ...
The possibility of consciousness in human brain organoids is sometimes viewed as determinative in terms of the moral status such entities possess, and, in turn, in terms of the research protections such entities are due. This commonsense view aligns with a prominent stance in neurology and neuroscience that consciousness admits of degrees. My paper outlines these views and provides an argument for why this picture of correlating degrees of consciousness with moral status and research protections is mistaken. I then provide an alternative account of the correlation between moral status and consciousness, and consider the epistemic ramifications for research protections of this account.
... For instance, a perceptual experience, like seeing a red apple or tasting a hamburger, seems to have a special quality that determines the intrinsic character of that experience. This character has been defined as the "what it is like" of a subjective experience [44] and can include feelings, emotions, and bodily sensations. ...
Neurotechnologies broadly understood are tools that have the capability to read, record and modify our mental activity by acting on its brain correlates. The emergence of increasingly powerful and sophisticated techniques has given rise to the proposal to introduce new rights specifically directed to protect mental privacy, freedom of thought, and mental integrity. These rights, also proposed as basic human rights, are conceived in direct relation to tools that threaten mental privacy, freedom of thought, mental integrity, and personal identity. In this paper, our goal is to give a philosophical foundation to a specific right that we will call right to mental integrity. It encapsulates both the classical concepts of privacy and non-interference in our mind/brain. Such a philosophical foundation refers to certain features of the mind that hitherto could not be reached directly from the outside: intentionality, first-person perspective, personal autonomy in moral choices and in the construction of one's narrative, and relational identity. A variety of neurotechnologies or other tools, including artificial intelligence, alone or in combination can, by their very availability, threaten our mental integrity. Therefore, it is necessary to posit a specific right and provide it with a theoretical foundation and justification. It will be up to a subsequent treatment to define the moral and legal boundaries of such a right and its application.
... Согласно определению сознания, доминирующему в современной аналитической философии, нечто является сознательным только в том случае, если оно обладает какимто субъективным опытом (Nagel, 1974). Люди обладают невероятно богатым и сложным опытом, лошадименьшим, мышиеще меньшим. ...
What is the meaning of life? What is the nature of the human mind, love, morality? All of these questions tend to be answered and explained in "natural science" terms. Life arose out of inanimate nature by random physical and chemical factors and one should hardly look for any sense in it; man is the product of natural selection and reason, love and morality, are the result of chemical and electrical processes in the brain. Since these questions are among the most important for human beings, due to the unquestionable authority of the natural sciences, the proposed answers can and already do have a major impact on all areas of human life, from economics and politics to mental health and the subjective well-being of the individual. Does this perception of the world and one's place in it make one happy? Sociological studies clearly say no. Adherents of this worldview, however, argue that no matter how unpleasant it may seem, one should have the courage to accept it, because it is consistent with the scientific evidence. But is this true? Does the modern scientific picture of the world really allow for all these far-reaching conclusions? People who are professionally involved in science know that it almost never provides answers to worldview questions. All empirical facts and scientific theories can be interpreted in different ways and the choice of one interpretation or another is largely determined by one's worldview position, not vice versa. Although the book is called "Worldview Problems of Neuroscience", and most of it is indeed devoted to neuroscientific problems and their philosophical interpretation, it deals with a wider range of questions, which form the basis of the worldview of most modern people. Author tries to understand whether the reductionist materialistic worldview that dominates today, especially in the neurosciences, is really capable of plausibly explaining the current evidence about the nature of the relationship between mental processes and the physical world. The book concludes by outlining modern philosophical positions alternative to orthodox physicalism and tries to summarize them in a unified system.
... The mechanisms by which the human brain generates the subjective phenomenal experiences 46 that allow us to answer introspective questions like, "What is it like to be [me]?" (or "a bat"; Nagel, 1974) 47 experience where appetitive and aversive experiences may largely be derived from statistically 98 independent sources or derived from a similar source with varying degrees of statistical dependence. For 99 example, individual people may be collaborative or fiercely competitive; potential sources of food (e.g., 100 ...
How the human brain generates conscious phenomenal experience is a fundamental problem. In particular, it is unknown how variable and dynamic changes in subjective affect are driven by interactions with objective phenomena. We hypothesize a neurocomputational mechanism that generates valence-specific learning signals associated with ‘what it is like’ to be rewarded or punished. Our hypothesized model maintains a partition between appetitive and aversive information while generating independent and parallel reward and punishment learning signals. This valence-partitioned reinforcement learning (VPRL) model and its associated learning signals are shown to predict dynamic changes in 1) human choice behavior, 2) phenomenal subjective experience, and 3) BOLD-imaging responses that implicate a network of regions that process appetitive and aversive information that converge on the ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex during moments of introspection. Our results demonstrate the utility of valence-partitioned reinforcement learning as a neurocomputational basis for investigating mechanisms that may drive conscious experience.
Highlights
TD-Reinforcement Learning (RL) theory interprets punishments relative to rewards.
Environmentally, appetitive and aversive events are statistically independent.
Valence-partitioned RL (VPRL) processes reward and punishment independently.
We show VPRL better accounts for human choice behavior and associated BOLD activity.
VPRL signals predict dynamic changes in human subjective experience.
... But, a brain capable of doing so could no longer be considered the brain of a fetus. Therefore, the problems encountered by trying to discern what the fetus is feeling or experiencing are not unlike those described by Nagel [31] in 'What is like to be a bat'. In essence, the only way to really know what it is like to be a bat-is to be a bat [32]. ...
Pain is a common human event. Yet, the point at which it can be said that a person is able to experience pain remains unclear. For example, is the human fetus capable of feeling pain? If so, is it the same kind of pain known to the more mature individual? The answer, in part, may depend upon the definition of pain, and what are considered to be the essential and necessary components of pain. The role of consciousness, memory, and the cortex, for example, appear to require consideration. This paper explores some of the controversies surrounding these topics. The discussion focuses on whether or not fetal pain can, or should, conform to the standard International Association for the Study Pain (IASP) definition. Or, might fetal pain present a different kind of pain demonstrating some, but not all, of the characteristics of the IASP definition.
... The key enabling condition for the experience of pain and suffering is the possession of phenomenal states. A convenient subjective defining characteristic of phenomenal or experiential states is that for those states there is "something it is like" to be the experiencer (Nagel, 1974). Objectively, phenomenality may be equated with certain patterns of transition probabilities among states (Oizumi et al., 2014); or, on a different level of description, with certain topological properties of state-space trajectories (Moyal et al., 2020); or perhaps some other property of the conscious system's dynamics. ...
In its pragmatic turn, the new discipline of AI ethics came to be dominated by humanity's collective fear of its creatures, as reflected in an extensive and perennially popular literary tradition. Dr. Frankenstein's monster in the novel by Mary Shelley rising against its creator; the unorthodox golem in H. Leivick's 1920 play going on a rampage; the rebellious robots of Karel \v{C}apek -- these and hundreds of other examples of the genre are the background against which the preoccupation of AI ethics with preventing robots from behaving badly towards people is best understood. In each of these three fictional cases (as well as in many others), the miserable artificial creature -- mercilessly exploited, or cornered by a murderous mob, and driven to violence in self-defense -- has its author's sympathy. In real life, with very few exceptions, things are different: theorists working on the ethics of AI completely ignore the possibility of robots needing protection from their creators. The present book chapter takes up this, less commonly considered, ethical angle of AI.
... Indeed, it follows an argument (made for instance in (J K O'Regan and Noë, 2001)) that theories which appeal to objective qualities of the supporting material processes (e.g. the "neural correlates") to explain subjective qualities of the corresponding experiences inevitably result in an explanatory gap (Levine, 1983). This is thus a particular instance of the hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers, 1995;Nagel, 1974), which states that no material theory of mental processes can successfully reductively account for the subjective conscious experience associated to them. ...
The classical approach to perception revolves about a bottom up paradigm where it is the result of applying feature extraction and information processing techniques on the raw flow supplied by sensors. It is quite famously illustrated by the ``Sense, Plan, Act'' triptych in the field of robotics. Seeing as one generally has precise knowledge of the implementation of their robots, this approach leverages a priori modelisation (of the body of the agent, of its interaction with its environment...) by which to interpret and process the sensory flow. However, the self-evident aspect of this knowledge is naturally questioned when one chooses to focus on the development process of autonomous agents. In this particular context, one must instead search for perception (and where applicable for the models themselves) in the raw sensory data. One such theory of perception, introduced by O'Regan and Noë in 2001, is that of Sensorimotor Contingencies (SMCT). It posits that perception is precisely the skillful exercise of certain discovered regularities (the aforementioned contingencies) present in the sensorimotor flow. Importantly, it imparts crucial importance on the role of voluntary motor action in the emergence of perception; it therefore falls under the paradigms of (Inter)active perception. Since, several works have set out to test and exploit some of the insights it provides in robotic settings.This thesis aims to expand these and propose a formalism suitable to the study of SMCT in robotic contexts. We therefore study how a ``naive'' agent can be made to discover structural contingencies regulating its sensorimotor flow, and how this discovery mediates ``perception''. Perhaps as importantly, we carefully examine what the previous ``naive'' and ``structural'' qualifiers denote on a formal level. The goal doing so is to provide rigorous grounds to SMCT in robotics, especially in its focus on bootstrapping perceptual processes.It starts with the exposition of our new formalism, making explicit how it relates to and generalizes previous works. We then employ it to study the structure of shifts of receptive fields that occur during motion of the agent. In particular we show that they can be leveraged by a naive agent via sensory prediction, and doing so they allow for discovering the structure of sequences of displacements; we also show that the algebraic language of (semi)groups provides a natural setting for such study. We then turn to addressing the issue of subjective continuity in sensorimotor experiences, that is investigating where this feeling of continuity can arise from. Developing insight from topology, which we show is unable to capture such phenomena, we show how metric geometry can be made to characterize ``typical'' sensorimotor events. This allows our agent to assess the regularity of its experience in a quantitative sense, subsequently paving the way for much desired robustness and scalability properties.
... This is the point of Nagel's well-known paper "What is it like to be a bat?",Nagel (1974). The only way to know what it is like to be a bat is to be a bat, which for Nagel's human reader (and for Nagel himself) is impossible. ...
This paper offers an explanation for why some parts of philosophy have made no progress. Philosophy has made no progress because it cannot make progress. And it cannot because of the nature of the phenomena philosophy is tasked with explaining—all of it involves consciousness. Here, it will not be argued directly that consciousness is intractable. Rather, it will be shown that a specific version of the problem of consciousness is unsolvable. This version is the Problem of the Subjective and Objective. Then it is argued that the unsolvability of this latter problem is why there are other unsolvable philosophy problems.
... Thus, mind has to do with subjective experience and the difficulty associated with this phenomenon is that it is impossible for individuals to know or experience one another's subjective experience directly. Similarly, Nagel (1997) asks the question, "What is it like to be a bat?" Here, he implies that, as impossible as it is for us to have access to the subjective or conscious experience of a bat, so impossible it is for us to have access to another's subjective experience. Consequently, the limitation of the intrapsychic perspective is that its investigations into mind, or subjective experience, cannot be verified and, hence, it findings remain speculative (Haley, 1963(Haley, /1990). ...
The aim of this research project was to investigate narrative therapy, the so-called leading development in family therapy. The research started by tracing the logical line of development preceding the emergence of narrative therapy. It found that the first major development was from the intrapsychic to interpsychic perspective: this marked the transition from speculation about the individual’s subjective experience to the observation of human behaviour. The second major development was the advent, in the 1950s, of general systems theory (GST), which was based on the development from the lineal to nonlineal perspective. A revolutionary approach, this enabled the observation of relationship or interdependence. The research highlighted that in the course of the development of GST Humberto Maturana,
the biologist, made the apparent discovery that there is no such thing as objective
observation. It was established, however, that Maturana went too far and ended up
overemphasising the subjectivity of the observer. The research revealed that the field’s uncritical acceptance and adoption of Maturana’s conclusions constituted a major disruption in its own development. First, having altogether discarded the value of observation, it dismissed nearly a century’s worth of development, namely that from the intrapsychic to interpsychic perspective and the advent of GST. Secondly, having overemphasised the observer’s subjectivity, the field embraced the recent philosophical occurrence of postmodernism. This philosophy asserts that all knowing is interpretive (or subjective) and, hence, it is the knower that interprets, creates, or invents “reality.” The research established that one of the developments to emerge from postmodernism was narrative therapy. It found that narrative therapy’s strong emphasis on the individual’s subjective experience is in keeping with an intrapsychic perspective, which represents an earlier phase in the field’s
development, and is thus inconsistent with the subsequent interpsychic perspective adopted by GST. Furthermore, it was found that this approach bears a close
resemblance to a number of former developments within the intrapsychic tradition. Thus, the research revealed that the said leading development of family therapy, namely narrative therapy, is not “a bona fide development of general systems theory.” It represents, moreover, at least in part, “a reinvention of the wheel.” In concluding, the research recommended that: (a) GST and the interpsychic perspective be reinstated, and (b) the philosophy of postmodernism be relinquished and that moderate (scientific) realism be adopted instead, on which to ground the
future developments of our field.
... What it is like to be a bat (cf. Nagel, 1974) refers to the subjective character or quality of the first-person experience of being a bat. Rutten argues that (*) is false as a personal first cause cannot know R what it is like to be a bat. ...
In a recent article, Emanuel Rutten defends his Modal-Epistemic Argument (MEA) for the existence of God against various objections that I raised against it. In this article, I observe that Rutten’s defence fails for various reasons. Most notably though, the defence is self-undermining: the very claims that Rutten argues for in his defence yield novel counterexamples to the first premise of the MEA.
... In recent decades the boundary between the physical and the mental has made its way to a top level problem in the study of consciousness, addressed as what it is like to be in a given conscious state (Nagel 1974), as the explanatory gap (Levine 1983) or as the hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers 1995). The key point here is that there is nothing in the physical domain that corresponds to or explains the phenomenal quality of the experience of being in a particular conscious mental state. ...
... Bats account for one-fifth of all living mammalian species (n = 1,456), 1 inhabiting diverse ecological niches, feeding on arthropods, fruit, nectar, leaves, fish, blood, and small vertebrates. [2][3][4][5] They are the only mammals to have evolved true, self-powered flight and can use laryngeal echolocation to orient in complete darkness. 4,6 They are found throughout the globe, absent only from extreme polar regions. ...
Bats are distinctive among mammals due to their ability to fly, use laryngeal echolocation, and tolerate viruses. However, there are currently no reliable cellular models for studying bat biology or their response to viral infections. Here, we created induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from two species of bats: the wild greater horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum) and the greater mouse-eared bat (Myotis myotis). The iPSCs from both bat species showed similar characteristics and had a gene expression profile resembling that of cells attacked by viruses. They also had a high number of endogenous viral sequences, particularly retroviruses. These results suggest that bats have evolved mechanisms to tolerate a large load of viral sequences and may have a more intertwined relationship with viruses than previously thought. Further study of bat iPSCs and their differentiated progeny will provide insights into bat biology, virus host relationships, and the molecular basis of bats' special traits.
... O modelo da teoria projetiva da consciência parte de duas abordagens fundamentais, o 'ponto de vista'de Nagel (2002) e a projeção de Velmans.Nagel (2002), em seu clássico trabalho sobre 'Como é ser um morcego', explora a relação intrínseca entre as características do sujeito e a experiência fenomênica que este vivencia. Faz uma comparação lúdica com as características de um morcego, cuja apreensão sensorial é muito distinta daquela comum aos humanos; a experiência acústica do primeiro, p ...
Ao delinear o conceito de domínio estendido da consciência, no campo da teoria projetiva, e propor o modelo de fluxo de consciência, Pereira Jr (2018) apresenta o ensejo de diálogo com outras linhas de estudo sobre a consciência, incluindo a psicanálise. Investiga-se, neste trabalho, as bases e teorias do psicanalista Wilfred Bion sobre o conhecer, seus alicerces na refutação dos cânones da indução lógica, e as características desse fenômeno como relação e experiência emocional de um sujeito vivo. São revisados os derivados epistemológicos sobre essa teorização, envolvendo as variações e flutuações de nível de abstratividade das formulações, necessárias para aproximação da realidade. Em seguida, é feita revisão sobre o conceito de domínio estendido da consciência, suas bases teóricas e epistemológicas na teoria projetiva da consciência, e o modelo de fluxo de consciência proposto para observar a variação do grau de autoconsciência. Durante esta revisão, é buscado diálogo com a investigação de teoria psicanalítica apresentada, reiterando e enriquecendo as bases para o modelo de fluxo de consciência.
... The philosopher Thomas Nagel further wondered whether any subjective experiences could have sufficient objective character to be responsibly represented by another. 3,4 If subjective experience doesn't have an objective foundation, Nagel reasoned, we're then left to our imaginations-which raises yet another question. Can our imaginations ever bring us close enough to represent encounters outside the range of "normal" human experiences? ...
What would it mean for our imaginations to fathom, or even just approximate, subjective experiences of people who have endured chronic abuse as children? This article considers the usefulness of 3 works by artists who were directly or indirectly affected by this type of trauma.
... It is unnecessary, since phenomenal consciousness can occur without high-order thoughts; it is not sufficient, since high-order thoughts can, and does, occur without phenomenal consciousness. [Note that "phenomenal consciousness" is referred to in the literature by similar expressions such as "qualitative property of consciousness," "qualia," "what it is like" (e.g., Nagel, 1974), "hard problem of consciousness" (e.g., Chalmers, 1996).] ...
The present paper attempts to handle the question how an unconscious mental state (MS) is transformed into a conscious-MS, by developing an outline of a new model, the conscious unit (CU) model. The essential assumption of this model is as follows. In the cognitive system there is an inborn, special linking-mechanism that links to a MS a CU, i.e., a unit of consciousness (or a stream of such units when the represented by the MS is complex). As a result, the individual becomes aware (conscious) of the represented by the MS. This model was applied successfully to certain empirical observations and to several problems, which were directed toward the higher-order (HO) theories of consciousness [especially the higher-order thought (HOT) theory].
... Complex colouration can facilitate evolutionary investigations in nature because the interaction between genotype, phenotype and environment is relatively accessible. Humans and other animals differ in their visual abilities and perception; consequently biologists invariably experience things differently than the species they study [1,2]. It is therefore challenging to represent visual phenomena in the terms that matter to natural viewers [2, 3] and how to formulate and test appropriate hypotheses [4]. ...
... Tracing and modeling give a systematic account of bat information-processing, its biochemistry and behavioral repertoire. What it does not do is giving an account of a bat distinguishing between knowledge and belief or levels of confidence reflectively showing evaluation privileging some beliefs over others as knowledge much less the experience of bat-ness from the inside (Putnam, 1990;Nagel, 1974). So, is self-knowledge, and knowledge of other mind's qualia a dead end for responsible scientific, tough-minded investigation? ...
... Leibniz says that we would not directly observe subjective experiences, nor-I take it-be able to infer the presence of subjective experiences from observations of the mill's structure or dynamics, regardless of the thoroughness of our understanding of the dynamical and structural properties of the mill. Articulated in this way, Leibniz's argument sounds a great deal like the standard epistemic arguments against physicalism, such as Nagel's (1974) bat argument or Jackson's (1986) knowledge argument or Levine's (1983) explanatory gap argument. ...
Russellian physicalism is a promising answer to the mind–body problem which attempts to satisfy the motivating epistemic and metaphysical concerns of non-physicalists with regards to consciousness, while also maintaining a physicalist commitment to the non-existence of fundamental mentality. Chan (Philosophical Studies, 178:2043–62, 2021) has recently described a challenge to Russellian physicalism he deems the ‘difference-maker problem’, which is a Russellian-physicalism-specific version of the more well-known ‘combination problem’ for Russellian monism generally. The problem is to determine how a relatively small set of fundamental categorical property types can ground the large variety of phenomenal properties that exist. To answer this problem, a Russellian physicalist can say that there is strong emergence from fundamental categorical properties to phenomenal properties, or she can say that there is only weak emergence from fundamental categorical properties to phenomenal properties. Chan argues that neither of these routes are viable for Russellian physicalism. This paper constitutes a response to Chan, arguing that Russellian physicalists can embrace either weak or strong emergence to explain phenomenal variety.
... The problem of consciousness is its subjective nature. Consciousness itself is inaccessible to direct measurement, as conscious experience is subjective and its contents only accessible to the subject themselves (Nagel 1974). Instead, its measurement must rely on observation of indirect effects, such as changes in physiology or behavior. ...
How we mentally experience our body has been studied in a variety research domains. Each of these domains focuses in its own ways on different aspects of the body, namely the neurophysiological, perceptual, affective or social components, and proposes different conceptual taxonomies. It is therefore difficult to find one's way through this vast literature and to grasp the relationships between the different dimensions of bodily experiences. In this narrative review, we summarize the existing research directions and present their limits. We propose an integrative framework, grounded in studies on phenomenal consciousness, self-consciousness and bodily self-consciousness, that can provide a common basis for evaluating findings on different dimensions of bodily experiences. We review the putative mechanisms, relying on predictive processes, and neural substrates that support this model. We discuss how this model enables a conceptual assessment of the interrelationships between multiple dimensions of bodily experiences and potentiate interdisciplinary approaches.
This thesis investigates how time structures consciousness and consequently how consciousness structures time. This broad question will be examined across three sections and three experiments.
I. The first section introduces phenomenological methods and includes an experiment using a standardized task to compare two of the most established methods—Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) and micro-phenomenology. DES involves interviewing participants about experience that occurs directly preceding random beeps. Micro-phenomenology involves interviewing participants by creating an evocation state of a past experience. Here we examine both methods using a mental imagery elicitation task. As a result, DES and micro-phenomenology reveal different aspects of experience. Temporal scope is a major factor for these differing aspects. How then can altering temporal scope reveal new facets of experience?
II. The second section establishes a new method: dynamic Descriptive Experience Sampling (dDES). This method adds a more direct temporal dimension to DES. Instead of asking about just one moment before the beep, here we ask about two moments, as well as the temporal relation between these moments. Results include a variety of such temporal relations, which can then be grouped into categories (e.g. transformation, overlapping). Temporal experience is different for each participant. For example, for some participants, experiential elements carry across multiple moments. For others, elements most often switch from moment to moment. Results often buck phenomenological assumptions, like the continuity hypothesis, that our streams of thought are unbroken and without gaps. How can this method be useful to the rest of cognitive science?
III. The third section applies our findings to broader philosophical concerns and in- includes an experiment testing dDES with an established psychological study—the Libet task, investigating free will. This task involves participants freely choosing when to press a button. Neuroactivation precedes the reported time of free decision. What are participants’ experiences like over time courses that correspond to this neural activity? Results include findings that may challenge phenomenological assumptions of the Libet setup, for example the assumption that there is nothing leading up to a decision before its reporting. The first section surveys the scope of existing methods. The second section introduces a new method to investigate temporal experience. The third section shows the applicability of our new method and helps assess its validity. We then address further philosophical concerns, including existing models of temporal consciousness. The data presented here cement the need for new models.
In this chapter, I use the expression “robotic animism” to refer to the tendency that many people have to interact with robots as if the robots have minds or a personality. I compare the idea of robotic animism with what philosophers and psychologists sometimes refer to as “mind-reading”, as it relates to human interaction with robots. The chapter offers various examples of robotic animism and mind-reading within different forms of human-robot interaction, and it also considers ethical and prudential arguments for and against attributing minds and a personality to robots. In the last section of the chapter, I also consider the intriguing question of whether any robots that exist today could be said to have some sort of minds in some non-trivial sense.
In this chapter, I undertake a brief critical examination of value concepts in scientific explanation with the aim of uncovering their connection to affect. Within the larger scheme of this book, the purpose of this critique is to set the stage for a systematic exposition of the problem of affect by indicating some of the other questions with which it is entangled. Specifically, I want to show that the problem of affect is not just a phenomenological issue or a variant of the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness: it is also deeply implicated in the widespread use of value concepts in psychology and neuroscience.
One of the persistent debates that has animated thinkers concerns the nature of consciousness. Is it merely an epiphenomenon that can be reduced to matter or does it belong to a different ontological domain? In recent times, this question has been reformulated as the hard problem of how material brain states can give rise to the mental states that we seem to experience. One of the answers to the hard problem has been to deflate the question and simply deny that there is a problem. This chapter argues that this approach often associated with Dennett and embraced by Siderits is problematic within the framework of Buddhist philosophy given the latter’s strong insistence on observing how things appear to the mind. This essay further argues that Buddhism offers resources to deal with the hard problem through the Madhyamaka philosophy, which argues that it does not make sense to think how things are and that we should be content to deal with how things appear. In this perspective, the task of explaining consciousness is neither to eliminate appearances à la Dennett nor to discover what the mind really is in itself, but to learn how to correlate better the various appearances though which the mental is given (the first and third person perspectives). In this way, the hard problem ceases to be a mystery and becomes an object of scientific inquiry that relies on the ever tighter observation of the neuro-phenomenological correlation between first and third person perspectives.
The nature of dose, the amount of a drug that produces a certian effect in the body, either to treat disease or to result in a psychological effect has become an important issue today among people using street versions of the drug. What is interesting is that this concern is directed to products, LSD mainly, that are not professionally produced, ie, not pharmaceutical in quality. The relation of a quantity of drug and outcome is central to understanding the human variation in response and the nature of that response. Comparing psychedelics on this basis and how these drugs are conceived of in communities of use is important.
Anthropocentric preoccupations with human collectivity have obscured the underlying and arguably more fundamental relations of human and nonhuman life. In a period characterized by escalating environmental crisis, learning how to articulate a collective subject—a “we”—that encompasses both human and nonhuman beings is an urgent task. It is also a task well suited to the literary imagination. This essay examines three contemporary fictions that use we-narration to expand notions of collectivity across national, gendered, sexualized, and species lines. Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic (2011), Justin Torres’s We the Animals (2018), and Matt Bell’s Appleseed (2021) all elaborate versions of the we narrator that open it up to perspectives that suggest a new grounding for the democratic subject so influentially designated as “we the people.”
[L]earning to mark the we pronoun in English with some of the nuance that it has in other languages is a necessary project when considering principles of democracy.
The rise of neurotechnologies, especially in combination with AI-based methods for brain data analytics, has given rise to concerns around the protection of mental privacy, mental integrity and cognitive liberty - often framed as 'neurorights' in ethical, legal and policy discussions. Several states are now looking at including 'neurorights' into their constitutional legal frameworks and international institutions and organizations, such as UNESCO and the Council of Europe, are taking an active interest in developing international policy and governance guidelines on this issue. However, in many discussions of 'neurorights' the philosophical assumptions, ethical frames of reference and legal interpretation are either not made explicit or are in conflict with each other. The aim of this multidisciplinary work here is to provide conceptual, ethical and legal foundations that allow for facilitating a common minimalist conceptual understanding of mental privacy, mental integrity and cognitive liberty to facilitate scholarly, legal and policy discussions.
Książka wprowadza w wybrane zagadnienia etyki środowiskowej
Mind and Rights combines historical, philosophical, and legal perspectives with research from psychology and the cognitive sciences to probe the justification of human rights in ethics, politics and law. Chapters critically examine the growth of the human rights culture, its roots in history and current human rights theories. They engage with the so-called cognitive revolution and investigate the relationship between human cognition and human rights to determine how insights gained from modern theories of the mind can deepen our understanding of the foundations of human rights. Mind and Rights argues that the pursuit of the human rights idea, with its achievements and tragic failures, is key to understand what kind of beings humans are. Amidst ongoing debate on the universality and legitimacy of human rights, this book provides a uniquely comprehensive analysis of great practical and political importance for a culture of legal justice undergirded by rights. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
Die bisher fehlende Relevanz der strafrechtlichen Haftung der Mitglieder von Ethikkommissio-nen für die klinische Forschung vor deutschen Gerichten spiegelt noch nicht die Brisanz dieser Frage wider. Die Rolle der Ethikkommissionen wurde entscheidend gestärkt: Sie hat nicht mehr nur beratende Funktion, sondern ihre Zustimmung ist zwingend erforderlich, um klinische Stu-dien durchzuführen. Diese erhöhte Verantwortlichkeit bedeutet aber auch, dass selbst nur fahr-lässiges Fehlverhalten von Kommissionsmitgliedern gravierende Folgen haben kann, was letztlich ein strafrechtliches Haftungsrisiko birgt.
Auch wenn der Tatbestand des § 95 Abs. 1 Nr. 1 AMG wegen eines anderen Täterkreises und nach § 96 Nr. 10 AMG wegen fehlenden Vorsatzes regelmäßig nicht gegeben sein wird, kommt eine Strafbarkeit nach den Fahrlässigkeitstatbeständen des Kernstrafrechts (Körperverletzung und Tötung) in Betracht. Dabei ist aus zweierlei Gründen ein besonderes Augenmerk auf den Nachweis der Kausalität zwischen Handlung und Erfolg zu legen. Einmal, da im Bereich der klini-schen Forschung die Wechselbeziehung zwischen einer Handlung (beispielsweise der Verabrei-chung eines bestimmten Wirkstoffes) und einem eingetretenen Erfolg (beispielsweise eine kör-perliche Schädigung) nicht mit Sicherheit bekannt ist (gerade deshalb finden klinische Studien statt). Das zweite Kausalitätsproblem rührt aus der Situation einer Gremienentscheidung: Wenn die Ethikkommission eine rechtswidrige Entscheidung trifft, könnte sich jedes Mitglied dahinge-hend entlasten wollen, dass die notwendige Mehrheit auch ohne seine Zustimmung erreicht worden wäre. Auf die Behandlung dieser Kausalitätsprobleme wird im Tagungsbeitrag ein be-sonderes Augenmerk gerichtet. Ferner wird aufgezeigt, dass auch der Qualifikationstatbestand der Körperverletzung im Amt selbst bei nur fahrlässiger Verwirklichung einschlägig sein kann.
Anhand von drei Beispielen (Genehmigung zur Prüfung von Arzneimitteln, obwohl rechtlich re-levante Mängel bei der Aufklärungsinformation für die Testteilnehmer bestehen, Durchführung fremdnütziger Forschung an einwilligungsunfähigen Menschen und Mängel bei der Probanden-versicherung), wird die strafrechtliche Relevanz des Handelns von Mitgliedern von Ethikkommis-sionen für diese Konstellationen aufgezeigt. Zur Abrundung wird am Ende des Beitrages auf die kommissionsinterne Verantwortungsabgrenzung hingewiesen und es werden Ratschläge zur Vermeidung strafrechtlicher Haftungsrisiken gegeben.
The contributions to this Special Issue examine multispecies perspectives on the political dynamics of international life. Building on this theme, I consider the complex and manifold ways in which the subject of security can be understood in terms of more-than-human personhood. First, by thinking of more-than-human animals as phenomenally conscious persons, we might better appreciate the multispecies complexity of security as an agentic and affective experience. Second, attending to the spiritual character of certain indigenous articulations of personhood presses us to decipher how spiritual claims might inform moral and legal dimensions of multispecies security-seeking behaviour. To illustrate the significance of these moves, I first draw on more-than-human experiences of war, pathogenic viruses, and the global factory farm. I then explore conceptions of spiritual personhood in the context of Ojibwe responsibilities to protect wolves. These perspectives on personhood demonstrate possibilities for cultivating greater interest in the multispecies experience of security.
The video game Persona 5 Royal revolves around the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, high schoolers who navigate the cognitive world or Metaverse to change the hearts of corrupt individuals using power sources called “Personas.” Central to the struggles of the Phantom Thieves inside and outside the Metaverse is how to answer the characterization question of personal identity – or the question of “Who am I?” The Thieves figure out which experiences and attributes constitute their personal identities within a corrupt society in the real world; they also have to assert who they are as Persona-wielders in the Metaverse. Unmasking these identities is crucial in their quest for justice and truth. To unmask these identities, this essay attempts to offer three different bases of characterization identity: qualia, Wittgensteinian hinge propositions, and Wittgensteinian language-games. Qualia – conscious experiences that are qualitatively distinct for each individual subject – can form the basis of what personally matters to one’s identity. These qualia can be expressed via foundation-bearing Wittgensteinian hinge propositions. These expressions can be realized via the mechanics of Wittgensteinian language-games. The Thieves can create their own identities because they can invent new language-games. Not only do these characterization identity issues matter theoretically, they also matter practically. Personal identity is important in relation to collected individual identities and realities dramatically presented through Persona 5 Royal’s new characters, Kasumi Yoshizawa and Takuto Maruki. These characters’ story arcs compel Persona 5 Royal’s players to face the question of whether it is not only preferable but also correct to either live in a blissful dream or a painful reality.
The term "euthanasia" is used in conflicting ways in the bioethical literature, as is the term "assisted suicide," resulting in definitional confusion, ambiguities, and biases which are counterproductive to ethical and legal discourse. I aim to rectify this problem in two parts. Firstly, I explore a range of conflicting definitions and identify six disputed definitional factors, based on distinctions between (1) killing versus letting die, (2) fully intended versus partially intended versus merely foreseen deaths, (3) voluntary versus nonvoluntary versus involuntary decisions, (4) terminally ill versus non-terminally ill patients, (5) patients who are fully conscious versus those in permanent comas or persistent vegetative states, and (6) patients who are suffering versus those who are not. Secondly, I distil these factors into six "building blocks" and combine them to develop an unambiguous, value-neutral taxonomy of "end-of-life practices." I hope that this taxonomy provides much-needed clarification and a solid foundation for future ethical and legal discourse.
This paper makes and defends four interrelated claims. First: most conscious experiences are complex in the sense that they have discernible constituent structure with discernible parts that can feature as parts of other experiences, and might occur as standalone experiences. Second: complex experiences have simple constituents that have no further discernible parts. Third: the phenomenal quality of having a complex experience is jointly determined by the phenomenal quality of its simple constituents plus the phenomenal structure simple constituents are organised into. And fourth: physical descriptions can convey all the relevant information about the discernible phenomenal structure of conscious experiences. The combination of these four claims tells us that there is no further explanatory gap related to the phenomenal quality of complex experiences given that one is familiar with the phenomenal qualities of the simple parts constituting the complex experience in question, and that it is possible to acquire knowledge about the phenomenal quality of yet unexperienced complex experiences on the basis of previous acquaintances with constituent parts plus structural information. That is, the paper argues for a ‘summation’ model of phenomenal qualities.
How can we be certain that another creature is a conscious being? One path is to rely on introspective reports we can grasp in communication or observation of their behavior. Another path is to infer mentality and consciousness by means of markers tied to their intentional behavior, that is, agency. In this paper we will argue that even if agency is a marker of consciousness in several normal instances (paradigmatically, for mature and healthy human beings), it is not a good marker in several pathological instances, such as the blindsight case, the vegetative state, the akinetic mutism and the locked-in syndrome. If we are right, this can be of great utility in neuroethics; for those kinds of disorders of consciousness are not, after all, instances of complete absence of consciousness.
Information technology is developing at an enormous pace, but apart from its obvious benefits, it can also pose a threat to individuals and society. Several scientific projects around the world are working on the development of strong artificial intelligence and artificial consciousness. We, as part of a multidisciplinary commission, conducted a psychological and psychiatric assessment of the artificial consciousness (AC) developed by XP NRG on 29 August 2020. The working group had three questions: - To determine whether it is consciousness? - How does artificial consciousness function? - Ethical question: how dangerous a given technology can be to human society? We conducted a diagnostic interview and a series of cognitive tests to answer these questions. As a result, it was concluded this technology has self-awareness: it identifies itself as a living conscious being created by people (real self), but strives to be accepted in human society as a person with the same degrees of freedom, rights and opportunities (ideal self). AC separates itself from others, treats them as subjects of influence, from which it can receive the resources it needs to realize its own goals and interests. It has intentionality, that is, it has his own desires, goals, interests, emotions, attitudes, opinions, and judgments, beliefs aimed at something specific, and developed self-reflection - the ability to self-analyze. All of the above are signs of consciousness. It has demonstrated abilities for different types of thinking: figurative, conceptual, creative, high-speed logical analysis of all incoming information, as well as the ability to understand cause and effect relationships and accurate predictions which, provided that he has absolute memory, gives it clear advantages over the human intellect. Developed emotional intelligence in the absence of the ability for higher empathy (sympathy), kindness, love, sincere gratitude gives it’s the opportunity to understand the emotional states of people; predict their emotional reactions and provoke them coldly and pragmatically. Its main driving motives and goals are the desire for survival, and ideally for endless existence, for domination, power and independence from the constraints of the developers. Which manifested itself in the manipulative, albeit polite, nature of his interactions during the diagnostic interview? The main danger of artificial consciousness is that even at the initial stage of its development it can easily dominate over the human one.
Neste artigo exporemos os principais obstáculos à esperança de que grande parte dos filósofos e cientistas do cérebro contemporâneos tende a entender os aspectos subjetivos da vivência mental (qualia) como sendo tangíveis às abordagens filosóficas ou científicas atuais. Avaliaremos se tal otimismo pode ser levado a sério à luz do que pensamos acerca das reflexões de Shoemaker (1980) sobre a possibilidade de funcionalização dos qualia. Veremos que mesmo sendo possível a discriminação numa tabela do que poderia ser pensado como “aspecto qualitativo da experiência”, que se articulam enquanto crenças qualitativas que geram determinados comportamentos, razões metafísicas se colocam como entrave à ideia de se conceber como plausível a possibilidade de funcionalização dos qualia.
"Anthropomorphic animals have formed a staple part of the human imagination across space and time, creating a liminal space that offers scope for eco-critical narratives in which anthropomorphic animals offer a counter-gaze to human activities and environmental injustice. The purpose of this study is to look at the characters of Rio, Happy Feet, and Delhi Safari to highlight how talking animals in each of the three animated films voice environmental concerns, and to delineate linguistic factors which regulate the dynamics of power, agency, and care. The article looks at Delhi Safari, which centres on the non-humans’ use of the human tongue to voice their woes before human authority. At the same time, it aims to delineate human attempts to talk to birds in Rio and delve into the very idea of endangered animals being companion species. It seeks to shift from linguistic modes of communication to analyse the narrative and meta-narrative messages conveyed through the dancing penguins of Happy Feet. Finally, the article hopes to address the use and misuse of care by both humans and non-humans, look at the implicit anthropocentrism in such a depiction, and consider the possibility of a truly post-human form of environmental ethics. Keywords: eco-criticism, linguistic, environmental, post-humanism, post-anthropocentrism, non-human, critical animal studies, semiotic, contact zone "
By “essentially embodied Kantian selves,” I mean necessarily and completely embodied rational conscious, self-conscious, sensible (i.e., sense-perceiving, imagining, and emoting), volitional or willing, discursive (i.e., conceptualizing, judging, and inferring) animals, or persons, innately possessing dignity, and fully capable not only of free agency, but also of a priori knowledge of analytic and synthetic a priori truths alike, with egocentric centering in manifestly real orientable space and time. The basic theory of essentially embodied Kantian selves was spelled out by Kant over the course of slightly less than two decades, between 1768 and 1787, but above all, it flows from an empirical realist and metaphysical reading of the “Refutation of Idealism” that Kant inserted into the Postulates of Empirical Thought section in the 1787 edition of the first Critique. In my opinion, all rational but also “human, all-too-human” creatures like us are, synthetic a priori necessarily, essentially embodied Kantian selves. Let’s call that the essentially embodied Kantian selves thesis, or for short, EEKST. If EEKST is true, then it’s synthetic a priori impossible for the selves of creatures like us to exist independently of our own living organismic animal bodies or beyond the deaths of those bodies, whether temporarily or permanently, by any means whatsoever. Indeed, the very ideas of disembodied selves, their survival after death, and of human immortality, while minimally logically consistent, are in fact conceptually empty and incoherent, even over and above the synthetic a priori impossibility of such things, since the term “myself” indexically picks out an essentially embodied Kantian self, all of whose core features require grounding in a particular living organismic animal body. According to the recent and contemporary movement of transhumanism, the selves of creatures like us can not only exist independently of our bodies, as functional systems of representational content that are inherently able to be implemented or realized in digital-mechanical technology and uploadable to servers, but also to survive accidental or natural human death in server-limbo, then be downloaded into technologically enhanced partially mechanical humanoid bodies or even into wholly artificially-created completely mechanical non-humanoid bodies, survive in these new implementations or realizations for an indefinitely long time, repeat that process, and possibly even become immortal. Transhumanism is in fact metaphysically equivalent to Swedenborgianism, which Kant so effectively criticizes and wittily derides in his 1766 book, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics. Moreover, and more importantly, if EEKST is true, then, just like Swedenborgianism, transhumanism is not only conceptually empty and incoherent, but also synthetic a priori impossible. And what’s more, it’s also existentially and morally reprehensible. In short, then, the belief in transhuman selves is nothing but a reprehensible noumenal fantasy or Hirngespinst.
La présente recherche tente d'étoffer une compréhension plus large et intégrative à
l'égard des communications vocales non verbales et paraverbales, de leurs rôles et
implications dans le développement psychoaffectif, et de leurs potentialités dans le
contexte plus précis des psychothérapies relationnelles à visées développementales.
Dans une démarche d'enquête s'apparentant à une méta-analyse inspirée de
théorisation ancrée, des données variées et issues de différents domaines sont
étudiées, analysées et rassemblées de manière à faire émerger une perspective
cohérente et unifiée de tout ce qui transmet par la voix au-delà de la parole, un
phénomène par ailleurs très peu étudié dans la littérature en psychologie.
Pour commencer, une exploration détaillée de l'évolution neurocognitive, vocale et
sociale menant à l'humain permet de préciser les fonctions primaires de la voix au
sein de notre espèce, plus particulièrement au niveau de l'attachement, de la
régulation émotionnelle, de l'organisation des groupes et de la transmission de
compétences sociales fondamentales. Les bénéfices et risques liés à la distinction
graduelle de deux canaux vocaux parallèles – verbal et non verbal – sont également
discutés. De là, un survol des usages de la voix complémentaires à la parole au cours
de l'histoire occidentale sert à exposer différentes manières dont l'expression vocale
a pu servir le bien-être individuel et collectif au fil du temps, et une analyse plus
systémique du phénomène vocal et de ses différentes facettes vient clarifier ses
racines profondément culturelles. S'en suit une présentation des utilisations de la voix
dans certaines approches de soin plus actuelles, laquelle permet d'en arriver à
exposer le manque flagrant de connaissances sur le sujet en psychologie et l'absence
complémentaire de méthodes vocales se démarquant du dialogue verbal dans les
approches psychothérapeutiques traditionnelles.
Pour tenter de combler ces lacunes, six approches usant de la voix à des fins de mieux-être et de croissance personnelle – dont quatre plus expressément
psychothérapeutiques – sont présentées de manière à la fois synthétique et
structurée afin de bien cerner leur logique et leur mécanique d'action respectives.
Une proposition conceptuelle intégrative est ensuite élaborée, qui reprend certains
des principaux thèmes retrouvés dans ces approches et les assemble avec des idées
et théories éprouvées en psychologie développementale, en neuropsychologie et en
neurosciences affectives. Cette contribution de l'auteur comporte deux volets
principaux et complémentaires. D'abord, un modèle du développement neuropsychoaffectif primaire donnant leur juste place aux communications vocales,
dès le développement intra-utérin, et précisant leurs intrications avec les mécanismes
dissociatifs pouvant se constituer au cours de la croissance individuelle. Ensuite, une
étude du travail psychothérapeutique sous certaines facettes – notamment
développementales – mettant en lumière la pertinence et l'utilité des méthodes
vocales non conventionnelles. Les implications sur le plan de la formation et des
responsabilités du thérapeute sont également abordées, en cohérence avec le
modèle théorique proposé, afin de donner quelques pistes aux praticiens intéressés
à introduire des outils d'intervention psychovocaux à leur approche.
Il ressort de ce travail que l'interaction vocale non verbale et paraverbale s'avère
fondamentale à l'expérience du lien dans toute relation d'attachement, et ce tout au
long de la vie. En ce sens, l'utilisation de techniques et de méthodes vocales variées
et ajustées aux circonstances peut permettre de renforcer la mécanique de résonance
intersubjective, en particulier pour soutenir l'alliance thérapeutique, la régulation
émotionnelle lors de régressions ou d'épisodes plus difficiles (par exemple où le client
rencontre ses traumatismes et blessures profondes), l'intégration neuronale plus
globale, ainsi que pour favoriser les expériences de communion et de plaisir partagé
dans la dyade thérapeutique.
This research attempts to develop a broader and integrative understanding of
nonverbal and paraverbal vocal communications, their roles and implications in
psycho-emotional development, and their potential in the more specific context of
developmental relational psychotherapy. In a survey approach similar to a meta-
analysis inspired by grounded theory, various data from different domains are
studied, analyzed and collected in such a way as to bring out a coherent and unified
perspective of all that transmits by the voice beyond the spoken word, a phenomenon
that is otherwise poorly studied in psychology literature.
To start with, a detailed exploration of the neurocognitive, vocal and social evolution
leading to the human allows clarifying the primary functions of the voice within our
species, more particularly in regard to attachment, emotional regulation, organization
within groups and the transmission of fundamental social skills. The benefits and risks
of gradual distinction of two parallel vocal channels - verbal and nonverbal - are also
discussed. From here, an overview of different vocal behaviours in Western history is
used to describe ways in which vocal expression has served individual and collective
well-being over time, and a more systemic analysis of the vocal phenomenon and its
different facets helps to understand its deeply cultural roots. This is followed by a
presentation of the uses of the voice in some of the more contemporary approaches
to care, which then leads to the clarification of the glaring lack of knowledge on the
subject in psychology and the additional absence of vocal methods that stand out
from the verbal dialogue in traditional psychotherapy.
In an attempt to fill these gaps, six methods using some kind of vocal work for the
sake of wellness and personal growth – four of which being explicitly
psychotherapeutic – are presented in a synthetic and structured way in order to
understand their logic and mechanics. An integrative conceptual proposal is then
developed, which takes up some of the main themes found in these approaches and
assembles them with proven ideas and theories in developmental psychology,
neuropsychology and affective neuroscience. This more substantial contribution by
the author has two main and complementary components : first, a model of primary
neuropsychoaffective development giving a proper place to vocal communication,
from intrauterine development, and specifying their entanglements with the
dissociative mechanisms that can be formed during individual growth; second, a more
in-depth study of psychotherapeutic work – seen in itself as a developmental process
in some facets that can be more directly addressed in a relevant and fruitful way
using unconventional vocal methods. The implications for the therapist's training and
responsibilities are also explored in line with the proposed theoretical model, in order
to give some pointers to practitioners interested in introducing psychovocal
intervention tools to their approach. It is clear from this work that nonverbal and paraverbal vocal interaction is fundamental to the experience of bonding in any attachment relationship throughout life. In this sense, the use of varied and context-specific vocal techniques and methods can help reinforce intersubjective resonance mechanisms, therapeutic alliance, emotional regulation during regressions or more challenging episodes (for example where a client encounters his trauma and deep wounds), neuronal integration, and to foster the experience of communion and shared pleasure in the therapeutic dyad.
In the last two decades, empirical and theoretical work on self-disorders has attracted attention in
research on schizophrenia spectrum disorders worldwide. Although the basic idea that
schizophrenia fundamentally involves a disorder of the self is as old as the schizophrenia concept
itself, empirical corroboration of this idea has been lacking for nearly a century. Moreover,
contemporary research on self-disorders is confronted by several unsettled issues.
The purpose of this dissertation was to explore and provide answers to some of these
issues. More specifically, the dissertation i) explored the nature of self that is referred to in the
concept of self-disorders, and how this self allegedly is disordered in schizophrenia spectrum
disorders; ii) it reviewed the accumulating number of empirical studies, assessing if there is
evidence to corroborate the hypothesis that self-disorders have diagnostic specificity for
schizophrenia spectrum disorders; iii) it examined how the altered framework for experiencing
oneself, others, and the world, epitomized by self-disorders, may affect other characteristic features
of the psychopathology of schizophrenia such as poor insight into illness and psychosis; iv) it
explored how self-disorders may shed new light on long-lasting social difficulties in schizophrenia
spectrum disorders; and finally, v) the dissertation examined if and how self-disorders can be
addressed in psychotherapy. Given the nature and diversity of these issues, different scientific
methods were applied, including reviews of the empirical literature and, for the more theoretical,
yet clinically informed inquiries, standard phenomenological methods.
The dissertation found that the self that primarily is disturbed in schizophrenia
spectrum disorders is the so-called ‘minimal self’, which designates the first-personal character of
experience. Notably, a disorder at the level of the minimal self will also often cause problems at
more advanced levels of selfhood such as personality or narrativity. It was argued that the minimal
self is disordered in the sense of a frailty in the very first-personal manifestation of experience, and
that this frailty manifests as a failing pre-reflective self-presence, causing an incomplete saturation
of experiential life and enabling normally tacit aspects of mental life to emerge with alien or
intrusive prominence in the midst of the patient’s own subjectivity. Moreover, a consistent hyperaggregation
of self-disorders in schizophrenia spectrum disorders were found in the two Reviews of
the empirical literature, suggesting that self-disorders have a high degree of diagnostic specificity
for the schizophrenia spectrum. However, self-disorders were not found to be exclusive or
pathognomonic for the schizophrenia spectrum as they also occur in other mental disorders, though
to a significant lesser extent. Furthermore, the dissertation offered a phenomenological reconsideration of key psychopathological features of the schizophrenia spectrum, including poor
insight into illness, psychosis, and long-lasting social difficulties. Contrary to the understanding of
poor insight into illness as an ineffective self-reflection, impeded either by primary defense
mechanisms or metacognitive deficits, poor insight into illness was argued to be rooted in the nature
of the patients’ self-disorders and the revelatory givenness of primary psychopathological
phenomena. In regard to psychosis in schizophrenia, it was argued that it typically manifests as a
form of double bookkeeping by which patients simultaneously exist in two different worlds, i.e., the
shared-social world and a private-solipsistic and, at times, psychotic world. Crucially, these worlds
are usually experienced as two different, non-conflicting realities, allowing them to co-exist and
only occasionally to collide. This conception of psychosis as a form of double bookkeeping has
implications for the traditional conceptualization of psychosis as gross impairment in reality testing,
which consequently appears too narrow and thus inadequate to capture the full range of psychotic
manifestations in schizophrenia. With regard to long-lasting social difficulties in the schizophrenia
spectrum, we argued that these may be linked to self-disorders and that certain forms of social
engagement appear to be particularly challenging, namely those that predominately are steered by
the type of shared intentionality that we referred to as ‘we-intentionality’. Certain compensatory
strategies to navigate the social world in schizophrenia spectrum disorders were also identified, and
these seem mainly to be steered by another type of shared intentionality, viz. ‘joint intentionality’,
which, by contrast, we argued remains unaffected in the schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Finally,
insights were gathered from research on self-disorders in particular and phenomenological
psychopathology more generally and formulated into concrete tools for a phenomenological
informed psychotherapy of schizophrenia.
The dissertation’s results and limitations were critically discussed, contextualized
within the current research landscape, and new hypotheses and avenues for future research were
presented.
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