Intersubjectivity and bodies: The fluidity and the limits of consciousness

Summary

The articles in this issue present a paradox: consciousness is formed socially and is fluid and malleable, yet participants report strong feelings of relief when unburdened of certain components, suggesting intrinsic boundaries. Cathartic purging—vomiting, crying—provides emotional relief and mental clarity, linking consciousness to the body. A phenomenological approach reveals how participants experience modulations of consciousness, but risks treating the embodied experience as an ontological fact. Consciousness develops intersubjectively, through interactions with others, including disembodied beings. The authors suggest consciousness may be a property of bodies emerging in interactions, not a given precondition. Intentionality may be a trained effect of interactions rather than a spontaneous introjection. The key insight is to decenter the ego-centric focus on individual selves as seats of awareness.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The articles in this issue reflect an important paradox. The ethnographic research presented in these articles suggest that consciousness is formed socially and in interaction with environmental factors and, to some extent, is a learned attribute. In that sense, it would be fluid, malleable, and processual. On the other hand, there is evidence that it has some intrinsic boundaries, such that participants claim strong feelings of relief and clarity when they are unburdened of certain components of their consciousness. There is both an open and fluid aspect to consciousness, and also a bounded limit experienced by individuals. Furthermore, cathartic purging, which is an example of the apparent existence of individual limits, seems to imply that embodied participants have a threshold to how much consciousness or which type of consciousness they can handle at a given moment, such that they need to rid themselves of excesses or harmful elements. In that sense, consciousness may have a quantitative aspect, and not just a qualitative one. Perhaps most striking is that this individual boundary is inherently linked to the body, such that physiological reactions—such as vomiting, crying, and other forms of purging—provide emotional relief and mental clarity to the participants mentioned in these articles. Thus, another important element to consider is that consciousness is inextricably linked to individual bodies. According to the studies presented in this issue, it may be empirically unsustainable to assume that consciousness is somehow synonymous with or only linked to mind. Several of the articles adhere to a phenomenological approach. That is, they focus on pre-conceptual subjectivity as the grounding for approaching the phenomenon of consciousness. As seen in the articles, this approach allows for relevant descriptions of how participants experience their changes and modulations of consciousness, but it has an inherent risk, namely, it may lead scholars to assume that our phenomenological condition of experiencing the world as embodied individuals corresponds to an ontological fact. This is, for instance, the position accepted by Charles Laughlin. The observation of physiological effects of cathartic purging (Tereza Rumlerová et al., Maria Orozco and Shana Harris), or the somatic mode of attention that is trained with qigong (Alessandro Lazzarelli), also would support such a stance. Yet authors also note that consciousness is developed intersubjectively. Participants learn, through interactions with others, different ways of being aware of themselves and their surroundings by people who claim to be experiencing the same kind of things (Maria Orozco and Shana Harris, Alessandro Lazarelli, Agnes Dudek) or who teach and show them things (Tereza Rumlerová et al.). Such beings may be disembodied or only accessible in alternative realities (Jonathan Dickinson). So, perhaps it is wrong to assume that the smallest atomic unit of study for understanding consciousness is the embodied individual. Perhaps consciousness lies elsewhere, in the interaction with otherhood. Laughlin reminds us that empathy is, for Husserl, a special kind of intentionality. But Husserl's empathy is not sharing or co-experiencing others' feelings or affects, but rather, a recognition of others' fundamental ontological equality as sentient beings just like us. Yet, this is not what research participants sometimes claim. Often, they experience themselves as the other they are encountering (Jonathan Dickinson), something long-noted in studies of shamanism, where shamans don the robes of animals or other beings and become one of them (Agnes Dudek). In its intricate link to the body, perhaps consciousness is not a given pre-condition that adapts to changing bodies—which is how we experience it phenomenologically—but rather a property of bodies that emerges in changing interactions. Perhaps Husserlian intentionality is not a structural constitutive element of consciousness, but a trained effect of interactions with otherhood. An example of this is synesthesia, in which our habitual ability to distinguish things collapses and we encounter new combinations of sensory perceptions and associated affects. It has long been noted that sounds, smells and other sensory elements of rituals impact and modulate the experience, including emotions, such as the songs used in ayahuasca healing ceremonies (Owain Graham et al.). If we had always experienced sounds as colors, or perfumes as feelings, perhaps we would never think of them as distinct. Thus, returning to the paradox mentioned in the opening paragraph, it may be possible to model consciousness as the mediatory experience of interacting bodies, rather than an attribute of sentient individuals. It may be possible to understand intentionality as the way we have learned to apprehend the world, rather than a spontaneous introjection of otherness. Christopher Santiago's article traces the enduring devaluation of the phantasm in Western thought, possibly because recognizing it threatens a neat distinction between what is real and what is imagination. Yet, if consciousness is located in mediation and not in individual selves, then there is room to rethink the phantasm as the manifestation of intentionality and the way in which awareness becomes real for individuals. Considering the articles included in this issue, a key insight to pursue to further our theorization of consciousness may be to look closer at how we relate to our surroundings and decenter our ego-centric focus on our own individual selves as the seats of awareness.