The Emergence of Primary Anoetic Consciousness in Episodic Memory

Abstract

Based on an interdisciplinary perspective, we discuss how primary-process, anoetic forms of consciousness emerge into higher forms of awareness such as knowledge-based episodic knowing and self-aware forms of higher-order consciousness like autonoetic awareness. Anoetic consciousness is defined as the rudimentary state of affective, homeostatic, and sensory-perceptual mental experiences. It can be considered as the autonomic flow of primary-process phenomenal experiences that reflects a fundamental form of first-person “self-experience,” a vastly underestimated primary form of phenomenal consciousness. We argue that this anoetic form of evolutionarily refined consciousness constitutes a critical antecedent that is foundational for all forms of knowledge acquisition via learning and memory, giving rise to a knowledge-based, or noetic, consciousness as well as higher forms of “awareness” or “knowing consciousness” that permits “time-travel” in the brain-mind. We summarize the conceptual advantages of such a multi-tiered neuroevolutionary approach to psychological issues, namely from genetically controlled primary (affective) and secondary (learning and memory), to higher tertiary (developmentally emergent) brain-mind processes, along with suggestions about how affective experiences become more cognitive and object-oriented, allowing the developmental creation of more subtle higher mental processes such as episodic memory which allows the possibility of autonoetic consciousness, namely looking forward and backward at one’s life and its possibilities within the “mind’s eye.”

Implementing Goal-Directed Foraging Decisions of a Simpler Nervous System in Simulation

“…It is a rudimentary form postulated as an evolutionary precursor to higher conscious functions of self-awareness in contexts of semantic and episodic memory (Tulving, 1985; Denton et al, 1999; Vandekerckhove and Panksepp, 2011; Vandekerckhove et al, 2014). In more complex animals, the simple immediate consciousness persists in the subpallial mechanisms that generate motivation and reward to drive homeostatic behavior, and which thereby sustain and direct the higher cognitive functions (Vandekerckhove and Panksepp, 2011).…”

Understanding of anesthesia – Why consciousness is essential for life and not based on genes

“…It is obvious that consciousness is essential for any organism to have online access to their sensory information about their environments 193,198 . Importantly, consciousness gives all organisms ability to act as agents of their own interest 199,200 which is essential for their survival. This is essential for organisms to navigate successfully in complex environments that challenge their survival.…”

Affective neuroscience, emotional regulation, and international relations

“…Homologous structures in the ancient mammalian brain, Panksepp theorizes, are scaffolding for a primordial yet coherent self. They stimulate 'anoetic' consciousness (Vandekerckhove et al 2014), consciousness without cognitive content, upon which secondary and tertiary processes constitute higher-level, knowing consciousness. This affective consciousness runs counter to positions of some IR scholars, who view affects operating non-consciously.…”

“…It looks at secondary processes, which provide learned responses to environmental stimuli and engender basic 'noetic', or knowing, consciousness. It then explores tertiary processes that precipitate 'auto-noetic', or selfaware, consciousness(Vandekerckhove et al 2014). The section integrates theorizations of neuro-and psychodynamics from depth neuropsychology, conceptualizing how affective and cognitive processes intermesh in autonoetic consciousness.With neural predispositions, we can theorize a generalizable motivation arising with cortical self-awareness, a force relevant for interpreting social phenomena in IR.…”