Homeostatic Feelings and the Emergence of Consciousness

Consciousness arises when three processes operate together: continuous generation of interoceptive feelings (experiencing the body's internal state), continuous production of sensory images from the organism's perspective, and a combination of these into subjectivity about those images. The biological basis involves peripheral and central interoceptive and exteroceptive physiology for the first two components, while the third depends on integration across the spinal cord, brainstem, diencephalic nuclei, and mesial cerebral cortices.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract In this article, we summarize our views on the problem of consciousness and outline the current version of a novel hypothesis for how conscious minds can be generated in mammalian organisms. We propose that a mind can be considered conscious when three processes are in place: the first is a continuous generation of interoceptive feelings, which results in experiencing of the organism's internal operations; the second is the equally continuous production of images, generated according to the organism's sensory perspective relative to its surround; the third combines feeling/experience and perspective resulting in a process of subjectivity relative to the image contents. We also propose a biological basis for these three components: the peripheral and central physiology of interoception and exteroception help explain the implementation of the first two components, whereas the third depends on central nervous system integration, at multiple levels, from spinal cord, brainstem, and diencephalic nuclei, to selected regions of the mesial cerebral cortices.