Neurophenomenology, Enaction, and Autopoïesis

Summary

Neurophenomenology, initiated by Francisco Varela, seeks correlations between lived experience (via explicitation interviews) and brain states (via neuroimaging). However, such correlations alone do not solve the hard problem of consciousness. The author argues that interpreting them requires situating the brain within an embodied, living organism, placing neuroscience in the context of cognitive science (enaction) and cognitive science in the context of biology (autopoiesis).

Study at a glance

Abstract

The project of neurophenomenology, initiated by Francisco Varela, aims at establishing correlations between descriptions of lived experience (as elicited by the explicitation interview technique) and brain states (as measured with increasing precision and detail by the new brain imaging techniques). However, on their own, such correlation aggravates rather than solve Chalmers’ “hard problem”–how can a neuronal state be a state of consciousness? The question that arises is thus how to interpret such correlations. I will argue that this requires putting the brain in the body of an animal living in the world. Epistemologically, this amounts to putting neuroscience in the context of cognitive science (Varela’s concept of enaction) and cognitive science in the context of biology (Maturana and Varela’s concept of autopoïesis). . Three attentional networks contribute to distinguishing conscious from nonconscious cognitive events: orienting to sensory stimulation, activating patterns from memory, and maintaining an alert state. Present-time consciousness . Phenomenological studies reveal a basic three‑part structure of the present, with threads into past and future horizons. These structural invariants link naturally to observations in cognitive neuroscience, which show that there is a minimal time required for the emergence of neural events that correlate to a cognitive event. This noncompressible time framework can be analyzed as a manifestation of the long‑range neuronal integration in the brain linked to a widespread synchrony. voluntary The nature of as expressed in the initiation of a voluntary action is inseparable from consciousness and its examination. Recent studies give an important role to neural correlates, which precede and prepare voluntary action, and the role of imagination in the constitution of a voluntary act. To the long-standing tradition of objectivist science this sounds anathema, and it is. But this is not a betrayal of science: it is a necessary extension and complement. Science and experience constrain and modify each other as in a dance. This is where the potential for transformation lies. It is also the key for the difficulties this position has found within the scientific community. It requires us to leave behind a certain image of how science is done, and to question a style of training in science which is part of the very fabric of our cultural identity”.

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