The feeling of personal ownership of one’s mental states: A conceptual argument and empirical evidence for an essential, but underappreciated, mechanism of mind.

Abstract

I argue that the feeling that one is the owner of his or her mental states is not an intrinsic property of those states. Rather, it consists in a contingent relation between consciousness and its intentional objects. As such, there are (a variety of) circumstances, varying in their interpretive clarity, in which this relation can come undone. When this happens, the content of consciousness still is apprehended, but the feeling that the content "belongs to me" no longer is secured. I discuss the implications of a mechanism enabling personal ownership for understanding a variety of clinical syndromes as well normal mental function.

The phenomenology of REM-sleep dreaming: The contributions of personal and perspectival ownership, subjective temporality, and episodic memory.

“…Appropriation of content to the self is noninferential and prereflective. It is directly given to consciousness as "mine" (e.g., Klein, 2014aKlein, , 2015aLane, 2012;Zahavi, 2005Zahavi, , 2011. In James's (1890) colorful terms, personal ownership entails the feeling that one's subjective experiences are imbued with a sense of warmth and intimacy.…”

“…Readers may find this hard to accept. The relation between personally retrieved conscious content and personal ownership is a default mode (e.g., Klein, 2015a;Lane, 2012). To appreciate the experience of perspectival ownership in the absence of personal ownership requires we actually undergo that experience (e.g., Nagel, 1974).…”

“…The connection between content in consciousness and types of ownership is not intrinsic (X is an intrinsic property of Y if Y's having the Property X does not consist in Y also having a relation, Z, to something else). Rather it is one of contingency (i.e., it is annexed to, rather than a basic constituent, of the intentional object; Klein, 2013aKlein, , 2014aKlein, , 2014cKlein, , 2014dKlein, , 2015aLane, 2012). Patient R. B., for example, lost and subsequently regained personal ownership of the content retrieved into consciousness (e.g., Klein & Nichols, 2012).…”

Reconstructing memories, deconstructing the self

“…During the acute phase of depersonalisation, individuals report that what normally would be taken as memory feels like an alien intrusion (Sierra, Baker, Medford, & David, ). Klein () also mentions post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as symptomatic of the loss of sense of self.…”

Emergence of Qualia from Brain Activity or from an Interaction of Proto-Consciousness with the Brain: Which One Is the Weirder? Available Evidence and a Research Agenda

“…6. Feeling of personal ownership of one's mental states (Klein, 2015) Brain damages and induced brain activity modifications affect Qs.…”