Abstract:
The development of the interdisciplinary areas of cognitive, affective and action neurosciences contributes to the identification of neurobiological bases of conscious experience. The structure of consciousness was philosophically conceived a century ago (HUSSERL, 1913HUSSERL, E. Ideas: general introduction to pure phenomenology. Translation by F. Kersten. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1913.) as consisting of a subjective pole, the bearer of experiences, and an objective pole composed of experienced contents. In more recent formulations, Nagel (1974)NAGEL, T. What is it like to be a bat? Philos. Rev., v. 83, n. 4, p. 435-450, 1974. Avaliable on: <http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/maydede/mind/Nagel_Whatisitliketobeabat.pdf>. Access in: 16 ago.2018.
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refers to a “point of view”, in which qualitative experiences are anchored, while Velmans (1990VELMANS, M. Consciousness, brain and the physical world. Philosophical Psychology, v. 3, n. 1, p. 77-99, 1990., 1993______. A reflexive science of consciousness. In: BOCK, G.; MARSH, J. (ed.). Experimental and theoretical studies of consciousness. Chichester: John Wiley, 1993. p. 81-99., 2009______. Understanding consciousness. 2nd. ed. London: Routledge, 2009., 2017______. What and where are conscious experiences? Dualism, reductionism and reflexive monism. In: ALMQVIST, K.; HAAG, A. (ed.). The return of consciousness: a new science on old questions. Stockholm: Axel and Margaret Axson Johnson Foundation, 2017. p. 125-143.Avaliable on: <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312596560_What_and_where_are_conscious_experiences_Dualism_reductionism_and_reflexive_monism>. Access in: 16 ago.2018.
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) understands that phenomenal content is composed of mental representations “projected” to the space external to the brains that construct them. In Freudian psychology, the conscious mind contains a tension between the Id and the Ego (FREUD, 1913). How to relate this bipolar structure with the results of neuroscience? I propose the notion of projection [also used by Williford et al. (2012)WILLIFORD, K.; RUDRAUF, D.; LANDINI, G. The paradoxes of subjectivity and the projective structure of consciousness. In: MIGUENS, S.; PREYER, G. (ed.). Consciousness and subjectivity. Frankfurt a. M.: Ontos, 2012. p. 47-321.] as a bridge principle connecting the neurobiological systems of knowing, feeling and acting with the bipolar structure. The projective process is considered responsible for the generation of the sense of self and the sense of the world, composing an informational phenomenal field generated by the nervous system and experienced in the first-person perspective. After presenting the projective hypothesis, I discuss its philosophical status, relating it to the phenomenal (BLOCK, 1995BLOCK, N. On a confusion about a function of consciousness. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, v. 18, n. 2, p. 227-287, 1995., 2008______. Consciousness, accessibility, and the mesh between psychology and neuroscience. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, v. 30, n. 5-6, p. 481-499; discussion 499-548, 2008., 2011______. Perceptual consciousness overflows cognitive access. Trends Cogn Sci., v. 15, n. 12, p. 567-575, 2011.) and high-order thought (ROSENTHAL, 2006ROSENTHAL, D. M. Consciousness and its expression. In: ROSENTHAL, D. M. Consciousness and Mind. USA: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 307-319.; BROWN, 2014BROWN, R. Consciousness doesn’t overflow cognition. Frontiers in Psychology, v. 5, p. 1399, 2014. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01399. Avaliable on: <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4255486/>. Access in: 16 ago.2018.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article...
) approaches, and a mathematical model of projection (RUDRAUF et al., 2017RUDRAUF, D. et al. A mathematical model of embodied consciousness. J Theor Biol., v. 428, p. 106-131, 2017. doi: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2017.05.032.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2017.05.0...
). Eight ways of testing the status of the projective hypothesis are briefly mentioned.
Keywords:
Projection; Consciousness; Cognitive; Non-Conceptual; Feeling
