Baby Steps in Conscious Experiences: a Developmental Perspective
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that approaching consciousness through adult visual perception is misleading and that the more productive question is how bodily sensory experience and self, body, and world perception begin in development. Proposes that inquiry should start with the developing body and introduces a distinction between two notions of experience that the author suggests may help clarify the "hard problem" of consciousness. |
Abstract
This chapter addresses the problem of conscious subjective experiences from a developmental perspective. The aim is to argue that tackling the nature of conscious experiences from the priviledged standpoint of adult (mostly) visual perception is misleading. Instead, I claim, the realy interesting question is : how do we open the doors of bodily sensory experiences at the dawn of our conscious life? How self, body and world perception gets off the ground? Humans rely on high level cognitive abilities to investigate sensory perception, yet bodily sensory perception is present and functional in developing individuals way before we are able to build scientific models of it as adults. Hence we must start with the body, and specifically with the developing body. I then introduce two notions of experience and suggest that this distinction may help us dissipate some of the foggy mystery around the “hard problem” of consciousness.