Gordon S. (2013) Psychoneurointracrinology: The embodied self. In: Gordon S. (ed.) Neurophenomenology and its applications to psychology. Springer, New York: 115–148.
This chapter introduces a psychoneurointracrine model of the embodied self and examines the interrelationship between psychological, neurological, and intracrinological processes forming a mind-brain continuum within the person. Psycho (psychological) refers to constructs variously referred to as psyche, self, soul, mind, and consciousness. Neuro (neurological) refers to the composition and reactions within the nervous system. Intracrine (intracrinological) refers to the intracellular biosynthesis of steroids, the binding of receptors, and the formation of enzymes that catalyze the creation of hormones within the cell. It is argued that self has neural correlates in the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axes of the body, which are responsible for enactive engagement and the development of meaning through their connections to the higher-order functions of the brain. Two theories of enactive cognition explore this hypothesis: (1) the theory of psychoneurointracrine autopoiesis examines how the regulation of a steroid’s receptor is modulated by the person’s perception of experience, and (2) the theory of emergent global states explains how corticolimbic projections from the HPG-HPA axes integrate prereflective, autonomic, and subliminal experience in the development of meaning and emergence of self. This model depicts the growth-oriented dimension of the person or neurophenomenological self.
Karmiloff-Smith A. (2018) Précis of Beyond Modularity: A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive Science. In: Karmiloff-Smith A., Thomas M. S. C. & Johnson M. H. (eds.) Thinking developmentally from constructivism to neuroconstructivism: Selected works of Annette Karmiloff-Smith. Routledge, Oxon: 64–94.
Excerpt: Beyond modularity: A developmental perspective on cognitive science not only aims to reach developmental psychologists, but also strives to persuade cognitive scientists to treat cognitive development as a serious theoretical science contributing to the discussion of how the human mind/brain develops and is organized internally, and not merely as a cute empirical database addressing the question of the age at which external behavior can be observed. Nowadays much of the literature focuses on what cognitive science can offer the study of development. In Beyond modularity, I concentrate, on what a developmental perspective can offer cognitive science and attempt to pinpoint what is specifically human about human cognition.
Maldonato M. (2009) From neuron to consciousness: For an experience-based neuroscience. World Futures 65(2): 80–93. https://cepa.info/3832
Up until only a few decades ago, not many scholars recognized scientific dignity in the problem of consciousness. In the last few years this scenario has changed. The rapid development of non-invasive research techniques that explore cerebral functions has not only increased our knowledge on the correlations between mental processes and cerebral structures, but it has fed our hopes for the possibility of facing the ancient and elusive question about the mind–brain relationship with a new way of thinking. The meeting between neurosciences and phenomenology represents one of the most promising frontiers of current research. Neurophenomenology, a paradigm of research inaugurated by the Chilean neuroscientist Francisco Varela, tries to indicate a remedy to the various explicatory philosophical and scientific gaps, establishing a methodological and epistemological bridge between the so-called phenomenological reports in “first person” and the scientific evidence in “third person,” incorporating the experience on neurodynamic levels in an explicit and rigorous way and, above all, avoiding every alternative in the direction of any form of ontological reduction.
Purpose: This conceptual-epistemological paper deals with the old problem of inversion of thinking, as typified by traditional metaphysics-ontology. It is proposed that a thorough constructivism – which views structures of mind, nature, and all, as not derived from (not referring to) any pre-structured given mind-independent reality (zero-derivation, 0-D) – can go beyond this conceptual impasse; it can also serve as a fall-back position for positive ontologies. Practical implications: The practical result of 0-D is that all structures of experience are understood as tools serving individual and collective subjects. Conclusion: This conceptual correction results in a simplification for the understanding of some conceptual puzzles, such as the mind-brain relation, but also in a considerable increase of responsibility, because entities and agents formerly considered responsible, and outside the mind, are recognized to be extensions of the subjects.
Müller H. F. J. (2007) Brain in Mind: The Mind–Brain Relation with the Mind at the Center. Constructivist Foundations 3(1): 30–37. https://constructivist.info/3/1/030
Purpose: To show that the mind–brain relation can be understood from a perspective that keeps the mind at the center. Problem: Since at least the time of Augustine, the puzzle of the mind–brain relation has been how the mind is attached to, or originates from, the body or brain. This is still the prevalent scientific question. It implies assumption of a primary (ontological) subject–object split, and furthermore that subjective experience can be derived from, or even reduced to, a fictitious mind-independently pre-structured reality. This belief in mind-independent reality is closely related to the development and use of language. It in turn means that the mind cannot be real because it cannot be mind-independent and so disappears from discussion, preventing access to the mind–brain question. Solution: The problem requires an epistemology which keeps subjective experience at the center but does not interfere with objective methods. The un-testable proposition of mind-independent structures can be re-formulated as the use of templates for thinking: a method created by humans, a knowable tool, that is, “working” or “as-if” ontology-metaphysics. Truth and reality, including the reality of objective brain activity, then become working tools within ongoing subject-inclusive encompassing experience. Conclusion: The traditional mind–brain puzzle is the result of erroneous premises, and can be replaced by the question: how does working-objective knowledge originate within encompassing experience? This is a novel and contradiction-free approach to studies of the mind–brain relation and related questions.
Purpose: Understanding the place of Ernst von Glasersfeld’s Radical Constructivism (RC), and some of its implications, in the development of epistemology. Design: Characterization of two main options for the content of “knowledge” (without and with belief in mind-independent structures), sketch of their history in occidental thought; comparison of their properties concerning subjectivity, objectivity, second-order cybernetics, reliability of mental tools, and the needs and mechanisms for certainty and overall structures. Findings: Awareness that we structure mental working tools can, as RC suggests, replace belief in mind-independent reality, and this change dissolves the conceptual problem of metaphysics-ontology, but also eliminates the certainty expected from it, which raises the possibility of relativism. Working-concepts cannot be deconstructed because they imply no ontological claims. Subject(s) are necessarily included in all knowledge (which does not mean solipsism): because subjective experience encompasses all mental tools, including those of objectivity and mathematics, while in contrast the subject itself cannot become an objective system. Practical reliability of mental tools differs from subjective certainty, which requires an ontological leap of faith to positive beliefs: for specific tools including automata, and for positive holistic structures. However, in agreement with the constructivist view, holistic views can instead have an unstructured center, with reliability = viability, which prevents relativism. In sum, belief in mid-independent reality is needed for certainty if desired; for all other purposes constructivism is more helpful. Implications: The change in view suggested by von Glasersfeld’s work is of relevance for a number of fields of study with conceptual problems (such as the mind-brain relation). However, due to their generality, the implications will need evaluation in specific instances. The question of certainty needs attention for practical reasons.
Myin E. & Loughlin V. (2018) Sensorimotor enactive approaches to consciousness. In: Gennaro R. J. (ed.) Routledge handbook of consciousness. Routledge, Abingdon: 202–215. https://cepa.info/7443
Excerpt: This chapter will be devoted to unpacking the sensorimotor thesis that experience is something we do, and explicating how it helps to deal with the philosophical problem of consciousness. The key to understanding the sensorimotor position, so we propose, is to recognize it as a form of identity theory. Like the early mind/brain identity theorists, the sensorimotor approach holds that the solution to the philosophical problem of phenomenal experience lies in realizing that phenomenal experience is identical with something which, while at first sight might seem different, turns out not to be different after all. Like the classical identity theorists, sensorimotor theorists reject the claim that identities can and need to be further explained once identification is made. Sensorimotor theorists consequently oppose the idea that there is a genuine scientific issue with the identity relation between experience and what perceivers do. However, unlike other identity positions, the identification proposed by the sensorimotor approach is wide. That is, conscious experience is identified, not with internal or neural processes, but instead with bodily (including neural) processes in spatially and temporally extended interactions with environments.