THOMAS METZINGER
Department of Philosophy, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany

Out of the Body and into the Mind

How can a conscious self emerge from the physical dynamics unfolding within an embodied brain? And how exactly is the appearance of such a conscious self related to the subjectivity of our target phenomenon - to the fact that it seems to be tied to individual first-person perspectives? Self-consciousness is not just another form of phenomenal content, and the conscious experience of selfhood is not just one detail problem among many others. If we aim at a comprehensive theory of consciousness which is conceptually coherent and firmly grounded in empirical data, then the phenomenal self will have to be right at the center of our efforts. I will briefly show how, metaphysically, no such things as selves actually exist and sketch a theory of the phenomenal self. In support of this claim I will also present new empirical data from an interdisciplinary project in which we try to experimentally generate whole-body illusions and artificial out-of-body experiences in a virtual reality setting. Empirically, I will propose a scientific research program for 'minimal phenomenal selfhood', i.e., a strategy that attempts to isolate the neurofunctional correlates of the simplest form of selfawareness.

Recommended reading
(2003). Being No One. The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
(2007). Self Models. Scholarpedia, p. 24066, www.scholarpedia.org/article/Self_Models
(2008). Empirical perspectives from the self-model theory of subjectivity: A brief summary with examples. In Rahul Banerjee and Bikas K. Chakrabarti (eds.), Progress in Brain Research, 168: 215-246. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

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