Beyond Neurocentrism: Toward an Embodied, Predictive and Integrative Framework for Consciousness

Abstract

The prevailing neurological orthodoxy equates the mind with neuronal activation. While empirically grounded, this reductionist paradigm fails to account for subjective experience, altered states of consciousness, and the profound influence of the body on cognition. This opinion challenges the neurocentric assumption and proposes a radical redefinition: The mind is an emergent, dynamic, predictive, and nonlinear process arising from the continuous integration of all intentional (cognitive) and non-intentional (affective, homeostatic, and interoceptive) psychological processes occurring throughout the living body, constantly reconciling internal bodily needs with external environmental demands. Drawing on predictive processing theory, embodied cognition, complex systems dynamics, and recent work on interoception and homeostatic feelings, it is argued that consciousness is not a binary neural switch but a nonlinear spectrum of bodilycognitive integration. This framework offers novel implications for psychiatry, medicine, artificial intelligence, and clinical diagnostics.