Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline an integrative, high-level, neurocomputational theory of brain function based on temporal codes, neural timing nets, and active regeneration of temporal patterns of spikes within recurrent neural circuits that provides a time-domain alternative to connectionist approaches. Design/methodology/approach – This conceptual-theoretical paper draws from cybernetics, theoretical biology, neurophysiology, integrative and computational neuroscience, psychology, and consciousness studies. Findings: The high-level functional organization of the brain involves adaptive cybernetic, goal-seeking, switching, and steering mechanisms embedded in percept-action-environment loops. The cerebral cortex is conceived as a network of reciprocally connected, re-entrant loops within which circulate neuronal signals that build up, decay, and/or actively regenerate. The basic signals themselves are temporal patterns of spikes (temporal codes), held in the spike correlation mass-statistics of both local and global neuronal ensembles. Complex temporal codes afford multidimensional vectorial representations, multiplexing of multiple signals in spike trains, broadcast strategies of neural coordination, and mutually reinforcing, autopoiesis-like dynamics. Our working hypothesis is that complex temporal codes form multidimensional vectorial representations that interact with each other such that a few basic processes and operations may account for the vast majority of both lowand high-level neural informational functions. These operational primitives include mutual amplification/inhibition of temporal pattern vectors, extraction of common signal dimensions, formation of neural assemblies that generate new temporal pattern primitive “tags” from meaningful, recurring combinations of features (perceptual symbols), active regeneration of temporal patterns, content-addressable temporal pattern memory, and long-term storage and retrieval of temporal patterns via a common synaptic and/or molecular mechanism. The result is a relatively simplified, signal-centric view of the brain that utilizes universal coding schemes and pattern-resonance processing operations. In neurophenomenal terms, waking consciousness requires regeneration and build up of temporal pattern signals in global loops, whose form determines the contents of conscious experience at any moment. Practical implications: Understanding how brains work as informational engines has manifold long-reaching practical implications for design of autonomous, adaptive robotic systems. By proposing how new concepts might arise in brains, the theory bears potential implications for constructivist theories of mind, i.e. how observer-actors interacting with one another can self-organize and complexify. Originality/value – The theory is highly original and heterodox in its neural coding and neurocomputational assumptions. By providing a possible alternative to standard connectionist theory of brain function, it expands the scope of thinking about how brains might work as informational systems.

Key words: Cognition, consciousness, neural nets, cybernetics, autopoiesis, brain.

The concept of consciousness has been the source of much confusion over the past two decades. Current orthodoxy in ‘consciousness studies’ has it that the key to understanding the concept of consciousness is to grasp the idea of qualia. But the appearance of mystery here is the product of conceptual confusion. There is nothing to ‘the qualitative character of experience’ beyond the individual character of a specific experience and how the subject felt in undergoing it, and here there are no mysteries beyond empirical ignorance and conceptual mystification.

Context: Current theories of art, particularly those developed from a neuroscientific perspective, fail to take adequate account of the role, methods or motivations of the artist. The problem is that the lack of the artist’s voice in interdisciplinary theoretical research undermines the basis of current theoretical models. Problem: How can artists purposefully engage with contemporary consciousness studies? The aim of the research was to develop new methodologies appropriate for cross-disciplinary research and to establish what value, if any, neuroaesthetic or phenomenological theories of art could hold for contemporary arts practice. Method: My approach to the topic was to explore the application of neuroaesthetic and phenomenological theory through practice-based research in contemporary art. Results: The paper maps out a proposed avenue of research, and some initial findings, rather than the results of an inquiry. Implications: This paper will be of interest to those who work in philosophy of art and visual perception and those who are exploring empirically-based research methodologies in philosophy. Insights will be beneficial to arts practitioners, philosophers and scientists researching aesthetic experience. Constructivist content: The paper explores Noë’s sensorimotor theory of perception and the extended temporal relation between visual elements of an artwork as its forms are created in consciousness.

Key words: Visual perception, neuroaesthetics, visual arts practice, consciousness, Alva Noë

Upshot: We respond to three main challenges that the commentaries have raised. First, we argue that to deal successfully with the hard problem of consciousness, it is not enough to posit a remedy by which to move beyond the hard problem. Second, we argue that it makes no sense to explain identity. Yet this does not commit us to definitions by fiat. The strategy we pursue here, and in the target article, is not to explain identity but to explain away the appearance of non-identity. Finally, while we are sympathetic to Varela’s call for a paradigm shift in consciousness studies, we argue here, and in the target article, that this call can only be properly successful if the hard problem is dismantled.

Context: Neurophenomenology, as formulated by Varela, offers an approach to the science of consciousness that seeks to get beyond the hard problem of consciousness. There is much to admire in the practical approach to the science of consciousness that neurophenomenology advocates. Problem: Even so, this article argues, the metaphysical commitments of the enterprise require a firmer foundation. The root problem is that neurophenomenology, as classically formulated by Varela, endorses a form of non-reductionism that, despite its ambitions, assumes rather than dissolves the hard problem of consciousness. We expose that neurophenomenology is not a natural solution to that problem. We defend the view that whatever else neurophenomenology might achieve, it cannot close the gap between the phenomenal and the physical if there is no such gap to close. Method: Building on radical enactive and embodied approaches to cognitive science that deny that the phenomenal and the physical are metaphysically distinct, this article shows that the only way to deal properly with the hard problem is by denying the metaphysical distinction between the physical and the phenomenal that gives the hard problem life. Results: This article concludes by discussing how neurophenomenology might be reformulated under the auspices of a radically enactive and embodied account of cognition. That is, only by denying that there are two distinct phenomena - the physical and the phenomenal - can the neurophenomenological project get on with addressing its pragmatic problems of showing how neuroscientists may be guided by first-person data in their analysis of third-person experimental data, and vice versa. Implications: The topic addressed in this article is of direct value to consciousness studies in general and specifically for the project of neurophenomenology. If the neurophenomenological project is to deal with the hard problem, it must denude itself of its non-reductionist background assumption and embrace a strict identity thesis. Constructivist content: Radical enactive and embodied approaches to mind and consciousness adopt a view of consciousness as a dynamic activity - something an organism enacts in ongoing engagement with its environment. These approaches therefore share with constructivist approaches an action-based view of mind.

Key words: Consciousness, radical enactivism, neurophenomenology, hard problem of consciousness.

A number of recent publications have argued that a scientific approach to consciousness needs a rigorous approach to first-person data collection. As mainstream experimental psychology has long abandoned such introspective or phenomenological method, there is at present no generally agreed upon method for first-person data collection in experimental consciousness studies. There are, however, a number of recent articles that all claim to provide a unique contribution to such a methodology. This article reviews these suggestions and extracts their core features. It is argued that the suggested methods are generally overlapping and compatible, and a number of concrete methods that easily are applied to experimental studies are put forward.

Context: The enactive approach to cognition affirms the relevance of the study of lived experience within cognitive science. Problem: Taking experience as the phenomenon of investigation, while at the same time recognizing it as a necessary medium of any scientific activity implies theoretical, epistemological, and methodological challenges that have to be addressed in order to undertake the scientific study of experience. At the same time, it calls for a development of an alternative, non-objectivist and non-representationalist framework for and by addressing those challenges. Method: After presenting the development of the idea of cognition as enaction and pointing to its consequences for the understanding of science, we situate the study of experience within the enactive approach, presenting neurophenomenology as the methodological implementation of the enactive framework that motivated the development of first-person methods. We distinguish the micro-phenomenological interview and descriptive experience sampling as examples of such methods, reviewing their distinctive features. Results: Understanding first-person research against the background of the enactive approach is shown to be crucial for bringing about the radical epistemological shift that an enactive position entails. Implications: The examination of the relationship between first-person research and enaction makes it possible to clarify the ground from which to address the specific challenges that arise in studying lived experience. Investigating these challenges is necessary for developing a coherent research program for the enactive scientific study of experience.

Key words: Consciousness studies, descriptive experience sampling, enaction, first-person methods, lived experience, micro-phenomenological interview, radical neurophenomenology, reflexivity

In this interview Francisco Varela traces the history of the development of consciousness studies and discusses the developments in contemporary cognitive neurosciences that have allowed consciousness to become an object of scientific study. From the experimental side, advances in non-invasive brain-imaging techniques make possible original research on neural correlates during cognitive tasks. But a non-reductionist science of cognition must take into account not only the brain, but also the fact that experience happens in the entire organism (embodiment), that itself is situated or “coupled” with the world. The notions of emergence and reciprocal causality are keys for conceptualizing this embodied, situated subject of experience. Finally, phenomenological reduction is seen as a necessary partner in scientific research, providing “first-person” accounts of experience that are correlated to the “third-person,” or experimental data, i.e. the neurophenomenology research program.

Key words: neurosciences, consciousness, reductionism, phenomenology, emergence, in life.

In this chapter I re‐examine the basic conditions required for a study of conscious experiences in the light of progress made in recent years in the field of consciousness studies. I argue that neither dualist nor reductionist assumptions about subjectivity versus objectivity and the privacy of experience versus the public nature of scientific observations allow an adequate understanding of how studies of consciousness actually proceed. The chapter examines the sense in which the experimenter is also a subject, the sense in which all experienced phenomena are private and subjective, the different senses in which a phenomenon can nevertheless be public and observations of it objective, and the conditions for intra‐subjective and intersubjective repeatability. The chapter goes on to re‐examine the empirical method and how methods used in psychology differ from those used in physics. I argue that a reflexive understanding of these relationships supports a form of “critical phenomenology” that fits consciousness studies smoothly into science.

The article considers whether, and how, current scientific studies of consciousness might benefit from insights of mystical traditions. Although considerable effort has been expanded towards introducing mysticism into mainstream cognitive science, the topic is still controversial, not least because of the multifariousness of meaning associated with the term (from “illogical thinking” through “visions” and “raptures” to “paranormal” and “psychopathological phenomena”). In the context of the present article, mysticism is defined as a set of practices, beliefs, values etc. developed within a given religious tradition to help the practitioner realize the experiential and existential transformations associated with mystical experiences, i.e. experiences characterized by the breakdown of the subjectobject dichotomy. It is then examined in which areas mysticism so defined might provide beneficial for consciousness studies; broadly, three such areas are identified: phenomenological research (mysticism as a repository of unique experiential material and practical know-how for rigorous phenomenological analyses), the problem of the self (mysticism as a repository of experientialexistential insights into one’s fundamental selflessness), and the so-called hard problem of consciousness (mysticism as a unique experiential-existential answer to the mind-body problem). It is contended that, contrary to popular belief, cognitive science could benefit from insights and practices found in mystical traditions, especially by way of grounding its findings in the lived experience and thereby (potentially) demystifying some of its self-imposed abstract conundrums.

Key words: mysticism, philosophy of (cognitive) science, phenomenology, consciousness, epistemology