Context: More than 20 years ago Varela initiated a research program to advance in the scientific study of consciousness, neurophenomenology. Problem: Has Varela’s neurophenomenology, the solution to the “hard problem,” been successful? Which issues remain unresolved, and why? Method: This introduction sketches the progress that has been made since then and links it to the contributions to this special issue. Results: Instead of a unified research field, today we find a variety of different interpretations and implementations of neurophenomenology. We argue that neurophenomenology needs to give additional attention to its experiential dimension by addressing first-person methods’ specific challenges and by rethinking the relationship between the frameworks of the firstand third-person approaches.

This paper discusses the notion of the self or identity as central to the unfolding of F. Varela’s work. From the fundamental concept of autopoiesis to the neurophenomenology program, the view of identity as non- fixed, always virtual, acts as a guiding thread in his elaboration of a non-dualistic vision of mind and experience. The Buddhist notion of sunyata, or emptiness, elucidates this notion of the “selfless self”, and underlies the evolution of Varela’s work toward an embodied-enactive conception of mind.

Key words: francisco varela, cognitive neuroscience, neurophenomenology, buddhism, emptiness

This paper is an attempt to arrive at a species-specific characterization of human consciousness by considering its value as a biological adaptation. The analysis considers conscious phenomena in animals to motivate the distinction between self-consciousness and consciousness; the distinction is substantiated with neurological data. The relation between self-consciousness and language is considered in the light of the evolution of human language. Finally, a mechanism is postulated, based on current neurobiological knowledge, which makes it possible to account for self-consciousness as an epiphenomenon of language.

This paper presents a novel reading of ideas on temporal binding as a key for cognitive operations by means of fast (gamma band) phase synchrony. We advocate a view of binding of widely distributed cell assemblies transiently locked in a neural hypergraph which serves as a reference point to incorporate or interpret other less coherent concurrent neural events. The paper traces in some detail the empirical evidence concerning the gamma binding process and presents some implications for the constitution of a unified cognitive-mental space. Relevance: 

Key words: Cell assemblies, cognitive operations, gamma binding, neural hypergraph, phase synchrony.

This paper starts with one of Chalmers’ basic points: first-hand experience is an irreducible field of phenomena. I claim there is no ‘theoretical fix’ or ‘extra ingredient’ in nature that can possibly bridge this gap. Instead, the field of conscious phenomena requires a rigorous method and an explicit pragmatics for its exploration and analysis. My proposed approach, inspired by the style of inquiry of phenomenology, I have called neurophenomenology. It seeks articulations by mutual constraints between phenomena present in experience and the correlative field of phenomena established by the cognitive sciences. It needs to expand into a widening research community in which the method is cultivated further.

This text has a precise context and purpose. The context is the re­cent vigorous rekindling of the relations between Husserlian phe­nomenology and the contemporary science of mind, or cognitive science. This is what it is referred to as the naturalization of pheno­menology. My interest have centered on a rather specific line of na­turalization, provocatively called neurophenomenology, that I will introduce shortly. As a concrete application (or illustration) of this research style I have presented a new analysis of the phenomeno­logy of present time. The purpose of these pages is to critically exa­mine two central issues concerning the naturalization of phenome­nology that emerge from this exercise, and that cry out for further elucidation.

My purpose in this essay is to propose an explicitly naturalized account of the experience of present nowness based on two complementary approaches: phenomenological analysis and cognitive neuroscience. What I mean by naturalization, and the role cognitive neuroscience plays, will become clear as this essay unfolds.

In this text the author reviews the recent history of the preoccupation with the study of consciousness within the field of the cognitive sciences. A general categorization of approaches is provided, running from the neuro-reductionist or objectivist positions to those that leave an explicit place for subjective accounts in the study of conscious experience. Positioning himself in this latter category, the author defines the task of neurophenomenology as the exploration of the modes of circulation between first- and third-person accounts of experience. For this to be carried out, phenomenological method must be employed in order to produce and refine data from subjective experience. This data, it is argued, creates evidence that can then be related to empirical data, creating a relation of generative mutual constraint between first-and third-person perspectives on conscious experience.

Key words: consciousness, cognitive science, phenomenology, neurophenomenology

A good number of researchers take for granted that a first step toward a real science of consciousness is to discover its neural correlates. Yet there is a tendency to assume that we all agree on what a neural correlate of consciousness (NCC) would look like if we ever saw one. But the question is thorny and complex. It hides behind this apparent straight-forwardness a knot of conceptual, phenomenological, and empirical issues about the nature of consciousness and its relation to the organism and its brain. This paper will not attempt to address this broad issue head on (for more see Thompson and Varela 2000). My contribution in this presentation is more circumscribed: to highlight a complementary pair of notions that seem to be essential to clear the ground for further progress. This is the intrinsic complementarity between upwards and downwards causation (as they will be defined below). I intend to do this basically by bringing in to play two case studies or examples that make this pair of notions empirically relevant and then conclude with some remarks of a more general nature.