Minimal Phenomenal Experience

Metzinger, Thomas

doi:10.31231/osf.io/5wyg7

Cited by 28 publications

(58 citation statements)

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“…27 However, the phenomenological prototype to which all such reports about the environment, but it can also extend to the likelihood of egoic self-knowledge, to the capacity of "predicting oneself into existence" (Friston, 2010;Hohwy, 2016). 27 Fourth (and not discussed in this paper, but see Metzinger, 2019), a first analysis of the relevant literature clearly shows that the attempt to develop a finer-grained and more empirically grounded phenomenology of "pure consciousness" episodes is confronted by a number of serious methodological obstacles. They are the problem of embodied theory contamination (cf.…”

Section: The Phenomenology Of Phasic Vs Tonic Alertnessmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…In such episodes, the hypothetical phenomenal character of MPE would become a stand-alone feature; "pure awareness" would be the only aspect that could later be reported (see Winter et al, 2020, for a recent single-case study). Empirically plausible examples are "witness consciousness" 11 during lucid dreamless sleep (for an introduction, see section 5 in Metzinger, 2019) and deep meditative states during the practice of calm abiding and highly focused attention, for example in Buddhist jhāna practice.…”

Section: Case Study #2mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…• Expectation of knowledge: Fourth, there is a specific quality of subjective confidence, an ongoing expectation of epistemic states. Computationally, wakefulness can be described as a statistical hypothesis, a representation of the probability that veridical perception will actually occur (Metzinger, 2019). 26 25 On the functional level of analysis, tonic alertness and the orientation reflex can be dissociated:…”

Section: The Phenomenology Of Phasic Vs Tonic Alertnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Minimal phenomenal experience

Metzinger¹

2020

PhiMiSci

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This is the first in a series of instalments aiming at a minimal model explanation for conscious experience, taking the phenomenal character of “pure consciousness” or “pure awareness” in meditation as its entry point. It develops the concept of “minimal phenomenal experience” (MPE) as a candidate for the simplest form of consciousness, substantiating it by extracting six semantic constraints from the existing literature and using sixteen phenomenological case-studies to incrementally flesh out the new working concept. One empirical hypothesis is that the phenomenological prototype of “pure awareness”, to which all such reports refer, really is the content of a predictive model, namely, a Bayesian representation of tonic alertness. On a more abstract conceptual level, it can be described as a model of an unpartitioned epistemic space.

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Section: The Phenomenology Of Phasic Vs Tonic Alertnessmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Case Study #2mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Phenomenology Of Phasic Vs Tonic Alertnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Minimal phenomenal experience

Metzinger¹

2020

PhiMiSci

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109

150

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“…Inspired by Thompson's (2014Thompson's ( , 2015a analysis of dreamless sleep, I (Windt, 2015b) describe minimal phenomenal experience as purely temporal experience in which a phenomenal now plus a sense of duration is preserved; in this view, temporal experience is both necessary and sufficient for phenomenality. Thompson, 2015b) suggests that minimal phenomenal experience might involve the bare feeling of being alive; Metzinger (2018) proposes that it is linked to the feeling of wakefulness and arousal.…”

Section: Simulation and Beyond: From Dreaming To Dreamless Sleep Exmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consciousness in sleep: How findings from sleep and dream research challenge our understanding of sleep, waking, and consciousness

Windt

2020

Philosophy Compass

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Sleep is phenomenologically rich, teeming with different kinds of conscious thought and experience. Dreaming is the most prominent example, but there is more to conscious experience in sleep than dreaming. Especially in non‐rapid eye movement sleep, conscious experience, sometimes dreamful, sometimes dreamless, also alternates with a loss of consciousness. Yet while dreaming has become established as a topic for interdisciplinary consciousness science and empirically informed philosophy of mind, the same is not true of other kinds of sleep‐related experience, nor is it true of sleep itself. I argue that this is a mistake. Conscious experience in sleep is more diverse than dreaming and we need to explain its different forms as well as the alternation between conscious and unconscious sleep states. We also need to ask how different kinds of sleep‐related experience relate to foundational issues about sleep and wakefulness as well as sleep stages. I survey recent findings and theoretical developments from sleep and dream research to show how the traditional view of sleep and its relation to wakefulness and consciousness is flawed. I then suggest that by refining our frameworks of sleep‐related experiences and sleep staging in tandem, we can work toward a better view. As we are only beginning to understand the diversity of consciousness in sleep, an important aim is programmatic: We need a philosophy of sleep and of consciousness in sleep, not just a philosophy of dreaming, and a future theory of sleep needs to integrate phenomenological considerations with neuroscientific and behavioral evidence. Working toward such a theory will radically transform our understanding of sleep, wakefulness, and our conscious minds.

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“…The third group of theories are based on hierarchical predictive coding (Egner and Summerfield, 2013). These theories see the primary brain function as generating predictive models, usually Markov or Bayesian, for the purpose of enabling internal control (Friston et al, 2012;Webb and Graziano, 2015;Metzinger, 2018). In Graziano's (2015) attention schema model, consciousness as awareness is equated with the internal predictive model or schema of attention, which is thought to have evolved for optimizing attention control.…”

Section: Neural Correlates Theories and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nondual Awareness: Consciousness-as-such as non-representational reflexivity

Josipovic¹

2018

Preprint

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I introduce arguments toward a non-representational reflexivity theory of consciousness-as-such to address one of the key issues in the science of consciousness today: lack of understanding of the nature of consciousness itself. An expanded map of consciousness is outlined, which includes, in addition to the well-known contents of awareness and levels of arousal, the indeterminate substrate and consciousness-as-such or nondual awareness. The central idea presented is that consciousness-as-such is a non-conceptual nondual awareness, whose essential property is non-representational reflexivity. This property makes consciousness-as-such phenomenologically, cognitively and neurobiologically a unique kind, different from and irreducible to any contents, functions and states, including the indeterminate substrate. Our previous hypothesis on the precuneus network for nondual awareness is further discussed in relation to non-representational reflexivity, and in the light of other hypotheses on the neural correlates of consciousness-as-such.

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Minimal Phenomenal Experience

Abstract: This paper sketches a new and empirically testable theory about what "pure consciousness" or the simplest form of phenomenal experience is.

Cited by 28 publications

References 60 publications

Minimal phenomenal experience

Minimal phenomenal experience

Consciousness in sleep: How findings from sleep and dream research challenge our understanding of sleep, waking, and consciousness

Nondual Awareness: Consciousness-as-such as non-representational reflexivity

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