The Minimal Self and the Individuation Gap: First-Person Individuation and the Limits of Functional Explanation

Summary

The paper identifies a structural gap in cognitive science and functionalist theories regarding the individuation of first-person perspectives. It argues that even complete functional descriptions do not clarify what makes a perspective belong to a specific subject, termed the individuation gap. This issue is illustrated through the AI duplication paradox, highlighting that first-person experiences cannot be fully explained by third-person accounts. The work engages with various theories of consciousness and concludes with an unresolved question about the essence of the subject of experience.

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Abstract

This paper identifies a structural explanatory gap in cognitive-scientific and functionalist accounts of mind: the problem of first-personal individuation. Even a complete functional description of a conscious system leaves open the question of what makes a given perspective belong to one subject rather than another — a difficulty I term the individuation gap, which is distinct from, and not reducible to, the hard problem of consciousness. The argument proceeds through what I call the AI duplication paradox: when one and the same computational architecture runs in parallel across multiple substrates, functional identity fails to determine which instance, if any, is the subject. Drawing on the phenomenological notion of the minimal self and its constitutive mineness (Jemeinigkeit), the argument establishes that first-personal givenness exhibits a non-aggregative unity that resists derivation from third-personal descriptions. The paper situates this within the recent literature on individuating artificial minds (Bostrom, Tokayer, McIntyre, Beckmann & Butlin, Schwitzgebel & Nelson) and engages four major accounts of consciousness: illusionism (Dennett, Frankish), Higher-Order Thought theory (Rosenthal, Lycan), Global Workspace Theory (Baars, Dehaene), and enactivism (Noë). Each operates at a different explanatory level than the one at which the individuation question arises — and their convergence on the same unexplained residue is itself evidence that the gap is structural rather than contingent. The paper draws on indexical self-reference (Perry, Kaplan) to show that the prereflective origin from which experience is given cannot be captured by any third-personal description, and concludes by leaving open a question that cognitive science has not yet adequately formulated: what, over and above functional organisation, constitutes the subject of experience.

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