A complexity basis for phenomenology: How information states at criticality offer a new approach to understanding experience of self, being and time
Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology August 7, 2015 DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2015.07.010 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Citations | 28 |
| Key points | Argues that self-organized criticality states in complex biological systems, characterized by integrated feedback loops and feedback gain g = 1, constitute a new class of information state that supports phenomenal experience, the 'sense of self,' and the feeling of continuity in time passing. Proposes these states are 'embodied' and fulfill the claim that 'The self is a process,' with high internal correlations and René Thom-style catastrophes enabling non-digital information, gestalt cognition, and quantum teleportation. |
Abstract
In the late 19th century Husserl studied our internal sense of time passing, maintaining that its deep connections into experience represent prima facie evidence for it as the basis for all investigations in the sciences: Phenomenology was born. Merleau-Ponty focused on perception pointing out that any theory of experience must accord with established aspects of biology i.e. be embodied. Recent analyses suggest that theories of experience require non-reductive, integrative information, together with a specific property connecting them to experience. Here we elucidate a new class of information states with just such properties found at the loci of control of complex biological systems, including nervous systems. Complexity biology concerns states satisfying self-organized criticality. Such states are located at critical instabilities, commonly observed in biological systems, and thought to maximize information diversity and processing, and hence to optimize regulation. Major results for biology follow: why organisms have unusually low entropies; and why they are not merely mechanical. Criticality states form singular self-observing systems, which reduce wave packets by processes of perfect self-observation associated with feedback gain g = 1. Analysis of their information properties leads to identification of a new kind of information state with high levels of internal coherence, and feedback loops integrated into their structure. The major idea presented here is that the integrated feedback loops are responsible for our 'sense of self', and also the feeling of continuity in our sense of time passing. Long-range internal correlations guarantee a unique kind of non-reductive, integrative information structure enabling such states to naturally support phenomenal experience. Being founded in complexity biology, they are 'embodied'; they also fulfill the statement that 'The self is a process', a singular process. High internal correlations and René Thom-style catastrophes support non-digital forms of information, gestalt cognition, and information transfer via quantum teleportation. Criticality in complexity biology can 'embody' cognitive states supporting gestalts, and phenomenology's senses of 'self,' time passing, existence and being.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on philosophy of mind, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Psychosis as a state of aberrant salience: a framework linking biology, phenomenology, and pharmacology in schizophrenia. | 2003 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From dopamine to salience to psychosis--linking biology, pharmacology and phenomenology of psychosis. | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How do the brain's time and space mediate consciousness and its different dimensions? Temporo-spatial theory of consciousness (TTC). | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The phenomenology of deep brain stimulation-induced changes in OCD: an enactive affordance-based model. | 2013 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Looking for the Self: Phenomenology, Neurophysiology and Philosophical Significance of Drug-induced Ego Dissolution | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cited by 9
- Peircean cosmogony's symbolic agapistic self-organization as an example of the influence of eastern philosophy on western thinking. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology December 1, 2017
- Scientific Method, Complexity and Phenomenology in Human Knowledge Systems Research and Behavioral Science January 4, 2026
- Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: An Experimentally-Grounded Framework for Understanding Diverse Bodies and Minds. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience 2022
- Competitive Coherence Generates Qualia in Bacteria and Other Living Systems. Biology October 12, 2021
- Instability physics: Consciousness and collapse of the wave function Journal of Physics, Conference Series June 1, 2019
and 4 more in the library
Cites 5
- Consciousness as Integrated Information: a Provisional Manifesto Biological Bulletin December 1, 2008
- Consciousness in the universe: a review of the 'Orch OR' theory. March 1, 2014
- Focused attention, open monitoring and automatic self-transcending: Categories to organize meditations from Vedic, Buddhist and Chinese traditions. Consciousness and Cognition December 2010
- Studies of advanced stages of meditation in the tibetan buddhist and vedic traditions. I: a comparison of general changes. Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine December 1, 2006
- A framework for consciousness Nature Neuroscience February 1, 2003