Being no one : the self-model theory of subjectivity / Thomas Metzinger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Metzinger, Thomas, 1958- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cognitive neuroscience.

Consciousness.

Self psychology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 699 pages) : illustrations

Other Title:

MIT Press CogNet.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2003]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

According to Thomas Metzinger, no such things as selves exist in the world: nobody ever had or was a self. All that exists are phenomenal selves, as they appear in conscious experience. The phenomenal self, however, is not a thing but an ongoing process; it is the content of a "transparent self-model." In Being No One, Metzinger, a German philosopher, draws strongly on neuroscientific research to present a representationalist and functional analysis of what a consciously experienced first-person perspective actually is. Building a bridge between the humanities and the empirical sciences of the mind, he develops new conceptual toolkits and metaphors; uses case studies of unusual states of mind such as agnosia, neglect, blindsight, and hallucinations; and offers new sets of multilevel constraints for the concept of consciousness. Metzinger's central question is: How exactly does strong, consciously experienced subjectivity emerge out of objective events in the natural world? His epistemic goal is to determine whether conscious experience, in particular the experience of being someone that results from the emergence of a phenomenal self, can be analyzed on subpersonal levels of description. He also asks if and how our Cartesian intuitions that subjective experiences as such can never be reductively explained are themselves ultimately rooted in the deeper representational structure of our conscious minds.

Contents:

1.1 Consciousness, the phenomenal self, and the first-person perspective 1

2 Tools I 13

2.1 Overview: Mental representation and phenomenal states 13

2.2 From mental to phenomenal representation: Information processing, intentional content, and conscious experience 15

2.2.1 Introspectability as attentional availability 32

2.2.2 Availability for cognitive processing 38

2.2.3 Availability for the control of action 39

2.3 From mental to phenomenal simulation: The generation of virtual experiential worlds through dreaming, imagination, and planning 43

2.4 From mental to phenomenal presentation: Qualia 62

2.4.1 What is a quale? 66

2.4.2 Why qualia don't exist 69

2.4.3 An argument for the elimination of the canonical concept of a quale 83

2.4.4 Presentational content 86

2.5 Phenomenal presentation 94

2.5.1 The principle of presentationality 96

2.5.2 The principle of reality generation 98

2.5.3 The principle of nonintrinsicality and context sensitivity 100

2.5.4 The principle of object formation 104

3 The Representational Deep Structure of Phenomenal Experience 107

3.1 What is the conceptual prototype of a phenomenal representatum? 107

3.2 Multilevel constraints: What makes a neural representation a phenomenal representation? 116

3.2.1 Global availability 117

3.2.2 Activation within a window of presence 126

3.2.3 Integration into a coherent global state 131

3.2.4 Convolved holism 143

3.2.5 Dynamicity 151

3.2.6 Perspectivalness 156

3.2.7 Transparency 163

3.2.8 Offline activation 179

3.2.9 Representation of intensities 184

3.2.10 "Ultrasmoothness": The homogeneity of simple content 189

3.2.11 Adaptivity 198

3.3 Phenomenal mental models 208

4 Neurophenomenological Case Studies I 213

4.1 Reality testing: The concept of a phenomenal model of reality 213

4.2 Deviant phenomenal models of reality 215

4.2.1 Agnosia 215

4.2.2 Neglect 222

4.2.3 Blindsight 228

4.2.4 Hallucinations 237

4.2.5 Dreams 251

4.3 The concept of a centered phenomenal model of reality 264

5 Tools II 265

5.1 Overview: Mental self-representation and phenomenal self-consciousness 265

5.2 From mental to phenomenal self-representation: Mereological intentionality 265

5.3 From mental to phenomenal self-simulation: Self-similarity, autobiographical memory, and the design of future selves 279

5.4 From mental to phenomenal self-presentation: Embodiment and immediacy 285

6 The Representational Deep Structure of the Phenomenal First-Person Perspective 299

6.1 What is a phenomenal self-model? 299

6.2 Multilevel constraints for self-consciousness: What turns a neural system-model into a phenomenal self? 305

6.2.1 Global availability of system-related information 305

6.2.2 Situatedness and virtual self-presence 310

6.2.3 Being-in-a-world: Full immersion 313

6.2.4 Convolved holism of the phenomenal self 320

6.2.5 Dynamics of the phenomenal self 324

6.2.6 Transparency: From system-model to phenomenal self 330

6.2.7 Virtual phenomenal selves 340

6.2.8 Adaptivity: The self-model as a tool and as a weapon 344

6.3 Descriptive levels of the human self-model 353

6.3.1 Neural correlates 353

6.3.2 Cognitive correlates 361

6.3.3 Social correlates 362

6.4 Levels of content within the human self-model 379

6.4.1 Spatial and nonspatial content 380

6.4.2 Transparent and opaque content 386

6.4.3 The attentional subject 390

6.4.4 The cognitive subject 395

6.4.5 Agency 405

6.5 Perspectivalness: The phenomenal model of the intentionality relation 411

6.5.1 Global availability of transient subject-object relations 420

6.5.2 Phenomenal presence of a knowing self 421

6.5.3 Phenomenal presence of an agent 422

6.6 The self-model theory of subjectivity 427

7 Neurophenomenological Case Studies II 429

7.1 Impossible egos 429

7.2 Deviant phenomenal models of the self 429

7.2.1 Anosognosia 429

7.2.2 Ich-Storungen: Identity disorders and disintegrating self-models 437

7.2.3 Hallucinated selves: Phantom limbs, out-of-body-experiences, and hallucinated agency 461

7.2.4 Multiple selves: Dissociative identity disorder 522

7.2.5 Lucid dreams 529

7.3 The concept of a phenomenal first-person perspective 545

8.1 The neurophenomenological caveman, the little red arrow, and the total flight simulator: From full immersion to emptiness 547

8.3 Being no one 625.

Notes:

"A Bradford book."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 635-662) and indexes.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Metzinger, Thomas, 1958- Being no one.

ISBN:

9780262279727

026227972X

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.