The world is the totality of facts, not of things. (L. Wittgenstein)
Tractatus notwithstanding, reality (world) is neither things nor facts but rather the totality of events and relations.
Event is any change in the physical world. Relation is how events interact.
Three types of events are pertinent to the exploration of uniqueness – (i) entities, (ii) experiences and (iii) behaviors. Entity (thing, object, being, state, process) is a configuration of events and relations. Experience (experiencing) is a sequence of events in one’s body resulting in the (formation of) activity of consciousness (sensations, awareness, ideation). A body (organism) is an entity. Consciousness is an experience. Behavior (behaving) is a sequence of observable events manifested by the body.
Behavior and experience are unique reciprocal (dialectical) relations between the physical matter (world, universe) and consciousness where (i) experiencing is a process of transforming biophysical events into an activity (acts) of consciousness and (ii) behavior is a reciprocal process of transforming acts of consciousness into observable events (changes) in the physical world. Most broadly, experiencing is a process of becoming aware (conscious) (of something). It is an activity of the nervous system whereby selected biophysical events outside and inside of one’s body are transformed into (an experience of) an activity (acts) of consciousness. In humans, the formation of consciousness is manifested in three basic modes of experiencing – (i) sensations, (ii) awareness and (iii) ideation.
(i) The experience of sensation is a reaction (re-action) of sensory receptor to an event (stimulus) whereby specific attributes of the stimulus are detected and converted (con-verted) into (an experience of) a specific sensation (activity) within each sensory modality. Sensations are selectively bundled, elaborated and integrated into awareness of the stimulus (event).
(ii) The experience of becoming aware includes (i) attention – focusing on and amplifying an experience (sensation, ideation) and (ii) representation (re-presentation) – formation of a neurocognitive equivalent (model, map) of sensation or ideation. The formation of a representation is the neurocognitive event underlying the experience of becoming aware of the event (object, sensation, ideation). The (process of) formation of a neurocognitive representation is experienced as becoming aware of something.
(iii) Ideation is an experience consisting of (i) recognition (re-cognition) – matching a new representation with similar ones encoded previously in memory and (ii) formation of related thoughts, images and meaning embedded in a language and knowledge. It is a neurocognitive process whereby representations are transformed (trans-formed) into an experience of knowing, thinking, understanding and imagining.
The three modes of consciousness – sensations, awareness and ideation are mutually dialectical and continuously react to and reflect each other. There is (i) awareness of own sensations and ideation, (ii) ideation about own sensations and awareness,(iii) sensations (feelings) in reaction to (the activity and content of one’s) awareness and ideation and (iv) there is ideation about one’s ideation.
Awareness of any event is always incomplete. Only selected sensations and ideation are represented in awareness, based, mainly, on the salience of the event (stimulus), its relevance in one’s consciousness and corresponding allocation of attention. Other ones may not be represented at all or are represented peripherally only, within a continuum of degree of focus.
A complete experience typically involves (i) awareness of (being) an experiencing agent (subject), the “I”, an experience-r) – the one who experiences; (ii) the content (of awareness) – what is experienced and (iii) a relation – specific sensory or ideational activity (modality,function, process) linking the experiencer and the content (seeing, hearing, feeling,thinking, remembering, imagining).
The “I”, the “experience-r” and how one “knows” that one “exists”
The “I” is an experience. It is one’s body represented and experienced in one’s consciousness as a unique stream of sensations, awareness and ideation. It is the body experiencing itself as its own representation in consciousness.
The awareness of (own) being is a (representation of) distinct interoceptive (proprioceptive) sensation of embodied existing, experienced as (i) the position, contour and mass of one’s body and, upon ideational recognition and reflection, as (ii) “I am”, “I exist”, “I am here” or “I am aware of my own existing, here and now”.
There are two aspects to the “I am” (“I exist”) – (i) the “I” and (ii) the “am” (“exist”).
The “I” typically means (points to) (i) one’s body, as demarcated by the skin and, (ii) the agency (free will choice, control) of one’s actions, whereas the “am” / “exist” aspect refers to the activities of the body – sensations, awareness, ideation and behavior.
The “I am” / “I exist” experience is, essentially, a (proto-) ideation about one’s awareness (representation) of own body and its activities – ideation about (i) proprioception (awareness of the position of the mass of the body), (ii) sensory input (sensations) – “I exist because I (can) hear / feel / smell / see / taste” (Sensatio ergo sum); (iii) ideation – e.g. “I exist because I (can) think / imagine / remember / plan” (Cogito ergo sum); (iv) one’s movement (behavior) – e.g. “I exist because I (can) move” ( Facio ergo sum) and (v) one’s agency – e.g. “I exist because I (can) choose to control the activity of my body (free will) (? ergo sum).
The flow of sensations continuously detecting the presence of one’s body and its activities is (selectively) bundled into awareness of own being-there (existing) and the formation of an experience of the experience-r (the agent / subject) of one’s (subjective) experience and the “I” of one’s ideation and discourse about it.
It is one’s body detecting, representing, becoming aware, recognizing and “knowing” of its own existence (being), it is the body becoming conscious of itself.
Since awareness is, fundamentally, the body’s representation of its own activity – the sensory receptors (sensations), the brain (ideation) and the body as a whole (behavior) – it can be also said that the experiencing agent (subject), the “I“, the experience-r, are (a state of) being-aware or just awareness itself. They can be thought of as awareness-of-own-being or simply as being-awareness (awareness-being) – bare awareness of awareness itself, before it becomes an awareness of something else (intentionality).
The “I am” (“I exist”) experience can then be thought of as comprising of (i) bare awareness (attention); (ii) awareness of being aware (iii) body’s awareness of itself and its own activities (being-awareness)
Although the basic awareness of own existence, the “I”, the experience-r, do not have the full structure of more complex (subjective) experience, it can , and often does, become a main content of experience when it becomes a focus of one’s attention and consciousness.
The content.
The content is the “what” of one’s experience. It is what one is aware of – a representation (image, idea, concept) of something (some-“thing”), an “entity” or an “activity” experienced (represented) in one’s awareness.
More technically, it is a representation of any relevant neurocognitive change (an event) in one’s perception (sensation) and / or cognition (ideation). Anything appearing in one’s awareness becomes the CONTENT of one’s (subjective) experience, including the sensation of own existence (being-awareness) and the contents of one’s ideation.
The relation
The relation between the experiencing ”I” (the experience-r) and the content of experience is a specific neurocognitive process (function, activity) within one’s consciousness that specifies how a particular content is experienced – thinking, remembering, imagining, seeing, feeling, planning, etc.
Formation of the (subjective) experience.
Phylogenetic formation
Why there is something rather than nothing?
Why there is (subjective) experience?
Physical worlds are (exist) because the physics of their existence is possible.
Life happens because it is biologically possible.
Experiencing happens because it is neurocognitively possible.
Consciousness happens because it is phenomenologically possible.
The physical world evolves towards life and consciousness. It is a continuous movement (unfolding) of the original event, Big Bang, from the still unknown (to us) to the yet unknown, but likely the same, Multiverse, governed by the “principle” of possibility – where change happens because it is possible for it to happen. Randomness, mutation and natural selection are local manifestations of this biophysical possibility on Earth.
Life (self-organization, metabolism, growth, reproduction, adaptation), guided, at least on Earth, by randomness, mutation and natural selection, has been evolving towards intelligence, culture, languages and the gradual discovery and mastery of ideas, symbols, concepts and laws governing the life itself. At some point life-as-civilization made a turn towards science and technology and, most recently, towards the artificial (AI), virtual (VR) and the modified (e.g. genetic engineering, Singularity) where life sciences and technology begin to shape the future of life itself. It is not clear any longer how the natural selection functions now, if at all. Further, unforeseen changes and future stages are likely to follow but are yet unknown. The final destination of this process does not exist, it continues endlessly.
Life is a necessary step in the evolution of physical matter towards consciousness. Randomness, change (mutation), adaptation, survival and natural selection are the evolutionary foundation of life on Earth. However, more broadly, the evolution itself has been, all along, a continuum of transformations of physical matter towards consciousness where life, in its totality, is, arguably, an interim step in a movement towards self replication (re-production) of the physical world as consciousness – a representation (re-presentation) and experience of the world itself as its own ideational reflection (re-flection). The replication and reflection are themselves manifestations of the fundamental principle of action-reaction (causality, karma) underlying most activity within the physical universe.
In that context, life is necessary to evolve and sustain the biophysical (organic) sphere allowing the physical world to reproduce (replicate) itself as its own representational reflection. It is a self replication-as-reflection along increasingly more complex steps of re-action (sensations, behavior), re-presentation (awareness), re-cognition and, ultimately, ideational re-flection – formation of thoughts and images (ideation).
The transformation of physical events into activity of consciousness is, also, essentially, transmission of energy. Among inanimate entities the transmission of energy causes physical (and chemical) changes (re-actions) (e.g movement, thermodynamic). In nature and life, it leads to biophysical and biochemical reactions (e.g. photosynthesis, metabolism) and can result in observable behavior (growth, reproduction, adaptation).
Phylogenetically, the emergence and evolution of (i) the nervous system, (ii) the memory and (iii) ideation and language have been central in the formation of the (subjective) experience.
(i) The advent of the rudimentary nervous system made sensations and reflexive behavior a clear adaptive advantage. Subsequent development of the brain’s processing capacity made awareness and emotional responding possible. Further evolution of the cortex, in a dialectic with the emerging civilization and culture, allowed formation of thoughts, images, symbols, meaning, language and narratives about them.
(ii) Memory is about encoding, storing and retrieving neurocognitive representations.The ability to hold a representation of an event (sensation) in working memory allowed more comprehensive analysis, improved recognition, multitasking and adaptive specificity of reacting to it. Short and long term memory enabled formation of progressively more complex representations of events enhancing adaptive learning, anticipation and efficacy of future responses. Encoding any experience in memory allows it to be be remembered later in time and to become a content of possible future experience(s) about one’s own experiencing (self-consciousness)
(iii) Phylogenetic evolution of the neocortex in interaction with nascent civilization and culture of the time led to the emergence of ideation, speech and language.
Events, sensations and representations in awareness, could now be reflected (re-flected), experienced and expressed in a new way, as thoughts, meaning and understanding embedded in spoken and symbolic / abstract languages. Associative memory, complex learning, creativity and all other neurocognitive / executive functions became possible and flourished leading to the progression of knowledge, science and technology as we know them today.
Ontogenetic formation
What is the limit of (subjective) experience?
In general, ontogeny is about how UNIQUENESS of the BODY, the PERSON, EXPERIENCE and BEHAVIOR develop in time.
The process is set in motion by begingless transgenerational forces embedded in the LOCATION, culture, language and the UNIQUENESS of multiple generations of parents and their extended families. After conception, genetic, epigenetic and maturational EVENTS become key in the in-utero development. After birth, epigenetics of biophysical maturation and attachment bonds with parents become central in shaping one’s experience of own body and most of the early temperamental “set points” of constraint, positive / negative emotionality and behavior. Proprioception and proto-awareness of activities of one’s body and its existence among (the bodies of) other people, events and relations begin to shape preliminary boundaries of “me”, “you” and “others”. Within the first three years, learning, memory and language acquisition lead to the formation of early representations and ideation and the experience of own consciousness (sensations, awareness, ideation) begins to guide behavior. By the age of ten, early precursors of three major domains of future adult functioning – (i) Homeostatic Regulation (activation, emotionality, constraint) (ii) formation of the I / Self (subjectivity, identity) and (iii) Interpersonal Relatedness (intersubjectivity, autonomy, agency, love / care) are formed. By the age of eighteen, experience of one’s body, gender, sexual orientation, identity and interpersonal / societal desires and goals are tentatively established and begin to shape the unique flow of one’s internal states, consciousness and behavior. Formation and demarcation of the unconscious, nonconscious and conscious aspects of one’s (subjective) experience is well under way, including full, partial and fragmented representations of own sensations, awareness and ideation resulting, for some, in the formation of unique vulnerabilities to symptoms of psychopathology.
Narrativization of own experience begins to unfold as a story, an autobiography of one’s unique participation in life among others. Further along, capacity for relational intimacy, societal productivity and internal integrity of own experience and behavior become central in navigating the challenges of relationships, parenthood, career and social participation. Eventually, at some point, temporality and the inevitability of aging present unique challenges to the BODY, the PERSON, BEHAVIOR and EXPERIENCE and one begins to orient towards endings and the reality and uniqueness of own death. Capacity for generativity and cumulative, lifelong impact on others become key in passing one’s legacy on to the next and future generations.
Phenomenological formation
The physical world (Universe) unfolds. It unfolds as space.Time is a way of calibrating it. Life is a manifestation of it on Earth. An organism embodies it as an unfolding of internal states. Consciousness represents and reflects it as the flow of experiencing.
Phenomenological formation of experience involves (i) formation of primary experience and (ii) formation of secondary experience about one’s primary experience.
(i) Formation of the primary experience
Experiencing begins when a physical event (e1), at a particular location in space (s1) and at a particular time (t1), comes in contact with and is transformed into an activity of the nervous system and the brain. In the brain, the (energy of the) event activates three separate neurocognitive processes – (i) re-activation or amplification of the “ I AM” experience of embodied being (existing) (the“experience-r”); (ii) representation of the event as a sensation or ideation (CONTENT) (e.g. blue sky); (iii) connections (RELATIONs) (see, think, remember) between the “experience-r” (“I AM”) and the representation leading to the formation of a full new experience (E1) (I am thinking [about] blue sky).
The new experience is then immediately encoded in memory (m1) and can be brought back (remembered, recalled) at any time in the future.
One physical event (e1) can lead to multiple experiences (E1,E2,E3…EN) and multiple events (e1, e2, e3….eN) can result in only one experience (E1).
Each experience (E) is also a new event and can lead to the formation of another, new experience (E2). The previous experience (E1) then becomes a new CONTENT (event) for the subsequent experience (E2).
(ii) Formation of the secondary experience
A secondary experience unfolds when an aspect of one’s own experience becomes a content of experiencing, it is an experience about one’s own experiencing. Some of the manifestations of the secondary experience include (i) awareness of being aware (awareness of own awareness); (ii) sensations (feelings) about own awareness or ideation; (iii) ideation about own sensations or awareness and (iv) ideation about own ideation.
Experiencing unfolds in time. Because of the progression of time, each new experience itself becomes a new event in the physical world and in one’s consciousness and may lead to the formation of the next experience as its new content. In the most immediate form, each experience directly affects the formation of the subsequent one. Furthermore, because each experience is encoded by and leaves a trace in one’s memory, it can be remembered (recalled) and become a new event and content for multiple experiences later in time.
It is this progression of subsequent experiences in time rather than the regression ad infinitum of the subject (agent) in one’s mind (an homunculus paradox) that makes the so called “self-consciousness” possible and explains how one experiences the flow of one’s own experiencing. The progression of time in the presence of the awareness of own being (I AM) makes the experience of “self-consciousness” – experience (awareness, consciousness) of one’s own experiencing – possible, without invoking the infinite regression question. Furthermore, even if the I AM experience is not immediately present in one’s awareness, previous experiences can be automatically attributed to oneself (one’s BODY) anyway based on the history of it typically being so.
The progression of experiencing in time corresponds also to continuous unfolding of internal states (I-STATES) of which experience is one of four main components. Experience (E1) in the present I-state (I-STATE1) is always different than any subsequent experience (E2) in the new I-state (I-STATE2). The movement of I-states in time, creates a continuous flow of neurocognitive, experiential, behavioral and spatiotemporal EVENTS, moment after moment, establishing new ontological and phenomenological vantage (perspectival) points, extended and contained within each new present moment of time (now), from which all previous primary experiences can be secondarily experienced (self-consciousness).
How long is the “present moment” of experiencing?
The temporalization of experiencing (primary and secondary) in time is predicated on one’s experience of the “present moment” – when and how it begins, when and how it ends, and how long it is. A new moment of experience begins when a new content appears in one’s consciousness, a new representation in one’s awareness. It ends when the representation (content) is replaced by a subsequent one. The duration of the phenomenological “present moment” is bracketed, on the short end, by one’s neurocognitive capacity to form a separate representation (awareness) of a sensation or ideation in response to an event. It is the minimum length of time needed to experience two events as separate two rather than a continuous one. On the long end, it is predicated on how long a unique single one representation can remain in awareness before another one appears (sustained attention, working memory).
Time and memory make experience and consciousness possible. Experiencing can unfold as a succession of discrete events or as a continuation of the same, original event where, in both cases, a relevant event (e1) occuring at time (t1) is represented in awareness as a primary experience (sensation or ideation) (E1) at a new time (t1+1) which then becomes a content of a secondary experience (E2) at time (t1+2). Subsequent experiences continue in time (t1+n) throughout the three modes of experiencing in one’s consciousness, forming associated memories available for recall (remembering) in the future. In both the discrete and the continuous model, experiencing is temporalized, (unfolds in time), is predicated on availability of memory (working and associative) and involves a time difference (gap, delay) between different modes and stages of primary and secondary experiencing.