Self-Evidencing for Consciousness

Abstract

Here is a simple argument about consciousness and self-evidencing: if selfevidencing provides the fundamental explanation of what the brain does, and if brain activity gives rise to consciousness, then self-evidencing also explains how consciousness arises.However, this argument does not imply that self-evidencing immediately explains consciousness.Self-evidencing happens in all self-organizing organisms, many of which are not conscious.So, to zero in on consciousness, more is needed-only some types of selfevidencing pro cesses underpin consciousness.The task of this chapter is to begin identifying these.The philosophy and science of consciousness are fraught with scientific and philosophical difficulty, requiring careful methodological and theoretical choices.The chapter therefore proceeds by navigating through vari ous decision points in the science of consciousness.This helps identify a proj ect for connecting self-evidencing and consciousness, which I believe is scientifically tractable, philosophically in ter est ing, and metaphysically realistic.In the wider perspective, the stage-setting that I pre sent in the first three sections of the chapter also serves to demonstrate how self-evidencing interfaces with existing scientific endeavors in the mind, cognition, and life sciences.Self-evidencing delivers an all-encompassing, fundamental construct for every aspect of these sciences, and it is impor tant to demonstrate how it can engage in constructive, piecemeal conversation with par tic u lar domains.The following sections of the chapter then proceed to explore a key aspect of self-evidencing and consciousness-namely, the detachment of internal states from external states.This is the stepping stone for identifying types of active inference that speak to par tic u lar properties of consciousness.This allows us to build up, piece by piece, a self-evidencing account 9 Self-Evidencing for Consciousness