How voluntary control over information and body movements determines "what it's like" to have perceptual, bodily, emotional and mental experiences.
Frontiers in psychology January 1, 2022 J Kevin O'Regan 1 citation
Two fundamental aspects of phenomenal experiences—their locus (whether they seem external, internal, or mental) and their imposingness (how present they feel, including spatio-temporal presence)—are linked to voluntary control over bodily actions. The external/internal/mental dimension depends on how voluntary bodily actions influence sensorimotor information flow. The degree of imposingness and spatio-temporal presence depends on how voluntary actions are impeded or aided by innate attention-grabbing mechanisms. This account, combined with prior work on inter- and intra-modal differences, suggests a path toward a scientific theory explaining why experiences feel like something rather than nothing.