Connecting first- and third-person perspectives

An optimistic view on the Hard Problem

Feb 6, 2007
University of Amsterdam
Mathijs de Bruin (0420891)
Abstract
This essay will pose a physicalist view on the Hard Problem based upon the introduction of
neurophenomenology by Varela. It will contend that a dualistic paradigma is unupholdable
for the practice of connecting first- and third person’s perspective. Instead I will propose a
monistic realm as the basis for perception, yielding a more dynamical distinction between
perceiver and perceived. From this some general deductions will be made about (self-)per­
ception which will be related to physically measurable (neural) phenomenon.

a Postulating an object and a subject as naturally distinct entities.

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Table of contents
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 4

2. Neurophenomenology ........................................................................................... 6

3. Metaphysics ........................................................................................................... 7

4. Cognition ............................................................................................................... 9

5. Physicalism ........................................................................................................... 11

6. Embodiment ......................................................................................................... 13

7. Semantics .............................................................................................................. 14

8. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 15

References ................................................................................................................. 16
1. Introduction
In this essay I am going to discuss some philosophical issues concerning current attempts at
connecting first-person to third person accounts, based on an initial proposal of Varela under
the denominator neurophenomenology.1
Since then much general theoretical and practical progress has been made within the do­
main of radical embodimentb, both weakening skeptical arguments as well as forcing the
venture to limit its explanatory scope. Shifts in the conception of causation in neural dy­
namics and improvements in brain imaging techniques have made it possible to give a much
better specification of what exactly it is neuroscientists should be looking for in finding the
physiological emergence of subjectivity.
Yet although some progress has been made in research there remains, nevertheless, a
problem in the conflicting assumptions between (neuro)science and phenomenology.2 Al­
though Varela and colleagues wave this critique away as not being a practical limitation to
their research it seems to me to be a fundamental flaw in any paradigm to have a contra­
diction at its basis.
What is needed here is something fundamentally different than the classical object-
subject dualism that still prevails in the larger part of contemporary scientific practice. For
this type of research to work we might have to assume a different, monistic, realm from
which the experienced dualism naturally emerges upon perception.
Using this as my basis I will attempt to show that this conception of reality yields a rela­
tive stability of the ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ components in perception and deduce from it
an inherent non-essentialisticc nature of both perceiver and perceived.
Building further upon these arguments there are some general properties of (self-)per­
ception that I will be discussing which can be used to link a cognitive model of perception to
a physiological one – effectively narrowing the scope to only a limited number of physical
processes that could yield the self-perceptive qualities of consciousness.
Having hinted a possible account for the process of (cognitive) self-perception, it might
become possible to directly deliver some aspects of consciousness over to the empirically
verifiable domain, enabling us to do ‘objective’ neural research and relate them to experi­
enced phenomena within the ‘subjective’ domain.

b Which seems to be what Varela and colleagues are currently calling it.
c Denoting the lack of a single identity; there is no singular ‘objective’ one can point at nor is there a singular
‘subject’ to point at. Yet there are similar and consist perceptions allowing for the idealized impression of a
clearly delimited ‘object’ and ‘subject’.

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 One of the consequences of the adaptation of a paradigm like this would however intro­
duce a certain vagueness of the border between the ‘subjective’ and the ‘objective’ domain
(hence the quotation marks). This vagueness appears relatively straight-forward for percep­
tion entirely within the ‘subjective’ domain but it also stays (marginally) present in the
‘objective’ domain and thus necessary limits the certainty of knowledge attained through
perception.
Nevertheless there remains a strong enough basis for the stability of both ‘objective’
and ‘subjective’ truth, though one might expect the first to have a relatively firmer empirical
basis than the second.

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2. Neurophenomenology
This chapter I would like to use for generally describing the venture of radical embodiment
as it sprang from Varela’s neurophenomenology1 and some theoretical and practical critique3
put up against it. Initially it has been proposed by Varela to connect first-person accounts to
a third person view by connecting accounts from phenomenological introspection to data ac­
quired using neural imaging techniquesd.
In this framework a single person or a group of persons trained in a certain phenomeno­
logical methodology would be able to describe certain parts of his or her own subjective
experience. At the same time this person’s neural activity would have to be monitored, ideally
making it possible to extract a causal relationship between subjective phenomena and ob­
jective measurements.
One philosophical problem arises here in the combination of the two methodologies for
they require conflicting assumptions as their basis for perceiving reality. Where phe­
nomenology assumes the primacy of subjective experience over the objective, scientific
realism assumes the direct opposite of this. What seems to happen here is a repetition of the
initial problem phenomenology sprang up from in conflict with its counterpart in science.
Where, according to phenomenology, classical science fails to give an account for the sub­
jective realm concerned in a perception and phenomenology has trouble giving one for the
objective properties of it. When Varela is confronted with this dilemma he responds that his
approach is a pragmatic one, putting these theoretical problems aside as they do not seem to
be practically limiting consciousness research4. Instead he presupposes the existence of some
kind of ‘second-person’ view from which both first- and third-person’s perspectives are in­
terpreted.4
Another problem, less theoretic in nature, is to what degree and by what means it is pos­
sible for one person to be able to reflect on his or her subjective state of mind. Currently
there is no sufficiently satisfyinge explanation for the fact that we (as conscious beings) are
able to perceive ourselves, let alone an explanation guaranteeing the (possibility for) correct­
ness of this self-perception.
There are, however, few proposed methods for introspection with no way to confirm
the usability and the comparability of the subjective information thereby acquired – for there
is no way of directly confirming the actual methodology used for exploring the subjective do­
main.

d Such as fMRI, EEG, MEG and PET.

e One that does not allow for conflicting perceptions amongst different methodologies for introspection.

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3. Metaphysics
Both scientific realism and phenomenology implicitly presuppose the traditional dualist con­
ceptions of the object and subject. The problem arises from the choice in primacy with
regards to knowledge about reality. In case the objective is granted the primacy, subjective
experience is often seen as an epiphenomenon. The phenomenological point of view
considers, instead, the subjective domain as having the ontological primacy. Here, the objec­
tive (or; intersubjective) is seen as emergent from the subjective. It follows that either way of
conceiving the dualism yields the part carrying the primacy as irreducible, thus making a fu­
sion of both impossible. This forms the basis for what has commonly been called the Hard
Problem.
Consecutively, it seems a good idea to leave the object-subject dualism alone for a mo­
ment, and see whether we can deduce a view upon reality that does not require there to be a
strict distinction between objective and subjective. A new perspective which might deliver us
from the actual foundations for the Hard Problem.
Let’s suppose there was only one metaphysical realm, accounting for the appeared emer­
gence of what was previously described as the ‘objective’ and the ‘subjective’, what would be
the consequences? First of all, since there exists neither a trancedental object nor subject,
there could be no perception of this realm as-is. Any knowledge about this realm would have
to be attained indirectly and any truth formalized about it would have to be limited in nature.
Having assumed this metaphysical realm with no directly conceivable properties I am
going to simply assume one property; the possibility of perception. About this possibility I am
making the seemingly fair assumption that it requires for there to be both a perceiver and a
perceived. Both will have to contain some part of the overlying monistic realm and thus a
certain amount of information about it.
By further assuming that this monistic realm allows for perception to be consistentf we
have come to a possible explanation of the relative stability of perceived reality (previously
the ‘objective’). However, because neither the perceiver nor the perceived need to be identi­
cal over a series of perceptionsg there is no guarantee for reality to be conceived univocally.
Different views on reality can occur and represent what was traditionally referred to as ‘sub­
jective’.

f Meaning that the information a perception contains about the perceived cannot conflict with the informa­
tion about it contained in other perceptions.
g A deepening of this argument (with regards to self-perception) will be given further on in Cognition.

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 Moreover, the fact that we (as embodied beings) experience a similar reality can, within
this framework, only be explained by the fact that we have a similar scope of perception; the
amount and nature of the information we perceive is very similar across humans.
Therefore, a sufficiently deviating embodiment could theoretically yield a cognitive
representation of reality which has absolutely no overlap with our own experienced reality.

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4. Cognition
In trying to find a more concrete solution for what is effectively still the Hard Problem I am
going to explicitly assume what Varela seems to do more implicitly: that phenomena con­
ceived of as consciousness consists of a perception of one’s self. But on perceiving one’s self,
who or what exactly is it that is perceiving and what is it that can be called the perceived?
Taking this limited conception of consciousness and combining it with the assumption
of consciousness as a cognitive process we can start to formulate a very general model of
consciousness, using Shannon’s information entropy5 as a conceptual model for cognitive in­
formation.6
This will yield a cognition C1 and the perception of this cognition C2, which is itself also
a cognition. Here C2 would not only have to include some information about C1 but will also
have to denote in some way the fact that it is a perception of and not C1 itself, which I will
afterwards be calling MC for meta-cognition. From this it follows directly that C1 and C2
could never be identical, for C2 will also have to include a certain amount of information MC
that is necessarily not present in C1.
This latter argument deals, rather harshly, with the ideal of complete consciousness of
oneselfh. Nevertheless it is very clear that a form of self-perception does seem to exist in a
very undeniable way, which can be explained by applying the proposed temporal character of
consciousness. For if there is a cognition C1 at a moment t1 and there is a certain amount of
time required for there to emerge consciousness of it in the form of a perhaps (partly) over­
lapping cognition C2 at a time t2 there could be a very strong sensation of consciousness of a
certain cognition, requiring though that, at t2, the initial cognition C1 is not existent in the
same place in cognitive spacei currently occupied by C2. In practice this would imply that any
stable form of complete self-perception will necessarily be smoothed out over time, ex­
cluding some of the more fine-grainedj cognitions.
Conclusively, self-perception will decrease in temporal resolution upon increasing the
amount of perceived cognitive space. Accordingly, decreasing the amount of cognitive space
covered by self-perception will make an increased temporal resolution of this perception pos­
sible. Not entirely unlike the Heisenberg principle in quantum mechanics, where there is a
similar relationship between the amount of information that can be obtained about the im­
pulse of a particle and its current position.

h Within the context of dualistic perception.

i Available cognitive space being the amount of cognitive information containable in a given implementation
of the cognitive system. More concretely, assuming that all of cognition takes place in the brain, it is the
amount of cognitive information that can be contained within our brain.
j Relating to the temporal dimension of cognition.

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 Furthermore, since the existence of a meta-cognition MC adds extra information to a cer­
tain cognition and the amount of available cognitive space is physically limited, it seems a
realistic assumption that the amount of information about a certain cognition C1 in the per­
ception of this cognition C2 will be significantly lower than the amount originally contained
in C1. Posing a general limit on the the amount of information attainable about oneself.

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5. Physicalism
Continuing on the conception of consciousness as self-perception and the previously de­
duced theoretical properties, and boldly adding to it the non-trivial assumption that human
cognition in its entirety takes place in the brain, we find ourselves asking the question: what
could this presumed consciousness physically look like?
In approaching this question it seems probable that an answer could come from the di­
rection of neuroscience. In this area of science a predominating conception is that a major
part the cognitive information in our brain is carried by non-linear neural oscillations. This
means that brain circuitry forms a typical collection of oscillators consisting in both smaller
and larger groups of neurons or even whole brain areas.7
This view is contained within a causal framework that does not just assume complex
processes emerge on a large scale from numerous smaller scaled processes, rather it takes
there to be a reciprocal relationship. The smaller scaled processes, together, constitute the
large scale dynamics but are at the same time also governed by them.8
Effectively this means that the collection of larger groups of neurons, on a whole, limit
the possible states for smaller groups of (or individual) neurons, whereas at the same time
these individual neurons cause the emergence of these same large scale patterns. This is type
of interaction is thought to occur on various different scales and has already been suggested
to account for both ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ aspects of timing as well as many other forms
of complex behavior often associated with consciousness.9
Within this model cognitive information would be represented by periodic patterns (os­
cillations) on different scales, yielding different types of information on a number of different
scales. One amongst a number of techniques for analyzing these patterns is using Fourier
transformations, making the frequencies over which these periodic patterns occur visible. Us­
ing advanced mathematical mapping techniques combined with increased performance of
both spatially and temporally high-resolution brain imaging it becomes possible to visually
map brain activity patterns. The availability of these new possibilities to look at neural activity
will hopefully enable us to, eventually, make reliant models of the way our brains store and
process information.10
Optimistically, assuming that modeling of cognitive information in the form of neural
circuitry is possiblek, could we suggest an abstract model of self-perception for it – without
knowing any of the cognitive model’s intrinsic properties?

k Implying there to be some common underlying structure for the neural representation of cognitive
information, which of course remains open to empirical verification.

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 For this we will have to return to the general properties I assumed earlier; that of the
process of perception as implying a perceiver and a thing perceived. Before, I assumed that
the cognition C2 representing a perception contains a certain amount of information about
the perceived cognition C1. This off course suggests the transfer of information from C1 to
C2.
Now let’s try to see this in the form of oscillatory neural patterns. Suppose C1 to be rep­
resented by a pattern P1 covering a spatial areal A1 and C2 to its respective pattern and area P2
and A2. Then it seems fair to suggest that, if sufficient understanding of the representation of
cognitive information is available, there would be a certain way to recognize the information
contained within P2 in A2 about P1 in A1 and perhaps even capture the way this information
is transported through the brain from A1 to A2. All of this without requiring any direct
semantic knowledge about the cognitive content discussedm.
What this could look like in practice has already been suggested in research by Varela
and colleagues; the replication of information from one cognition to another equates the
(partial) replication one periodic oscillatory pattern to another, yielding the emergence of syn­
chronism amongst spatially separated areas of the brain.
This kind of neural synchronism is in fact what is found to be happening as part of di­
verse perceptual processes in the brain. Nevertheless it becomes very hard to empirically
identify these processes as equating self-perception since other processes might very well fall
within the same specification. The proposed framework is thus best to be seen as an ex­
clusion of what we can reasonably assume self-perception not to be.

l Through a mapping from the cognitiv space mentioned earlier to physical space, where different oscillatory
patterns can simultaneously occupy the same physical area, in a way similar to that of other wave patterns.
m Apart from the projected method for representing cognitive information in the brain, in as far as it can be
said to contain semantic information.

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6. Embodiment
Now that I have done some exploration of the implications of my proposed assumptions re­
lating to self-perception, it seemed a sound next step to hint for the extension of this
framework to the more general notion of ‘normal’ embodied perception.
This would require a way of describing information in a way that does not limit us to just the
cognitive domain. We could expect to find periodic patterns running through feedback loops
running outside of the brain – via the body to the outside and back again.
Patterns we can speculate about include ones merely regulating human homeostasis but
also include interactions with the outside worldn, as well as interactions with other human be­
ings. Especially considering the last mentioned example I would like to stress that the used
notion of information, by itself, reaches in no way back to the notion of consciousness.o
Since the constituents of perception need not be perceivable themselves it becomes
imaginable for something resembling collective consciousness to emerge amongst individuals
without requiring the separate individuals to be consciously aware of it. This way occurring
patterns that resemble those found in individual perception might appear in periodic be­
havioral patterns of groups of individuals, thus causing the emergence of a directp collective
consciousness.
As these patterns are all very open to empirical verification within this framework, it
might allow for some interesting research in social behavior.

n Imagine an activity as simple as holding a pen which requires a fair amount of periodic feedback, and is in
fact a fairly complex computational process.
o But refers to cognition instead.
p Not mediated by an explicit (codified) external representation such as language.

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7. Semantics
Since the used notion of information is completely content independent we do not require
any knowledge about the actual meaning of a perceived cognitive or embodiedq pattern. This
makes the framework fairly neutral towards semantical assumptions.
We can, nevertheless, suggest a few properties that follow from the suggested research
method of looking at periodic patterns. This means we have to assume meaning to be repre­
sented in periodic oscillatory patterns, occurring both in the neural domain as well as in the
body and world surrounding it. This means that the patterns corresponding to our idea of
meaning are likely to be of a similar nature of cognitions or the embodied equivalent of them
as proposed in previous paragraph.
Because periodic patterns are fairly easy to analyze using frequency spectra it might become
possible to isolate more- and less-distinct patterns that correspond to different semantical en­
tities. Here the well-separated entities would correspond to a relatively shark peak in the
spectrum corresponding to a certain area in the brain whilst the other would be signified by a
more flat line over a frequency spectrum.
Due to the large similarity in the embodied perception of human beings as it follows from
the metaphysical assumptions on perception earlier, it is not unfair to expect there to be a
large similarity in patterns since some of the oscillatory feedback loops are thought to run
outside of the body.
Furthermore, by taking in consideration that some of these loops run through other people,
we might conclude a direct and literal sharing of meaning amongst individual human beings
by what is more commonly referred to as body language.
Perhaps even more complex forms of codified language, both natural and formal, might be
conceived of this way. Here we would expect formal linguistic entities to be more discrete
than natural ones and thus be more clearly identifiable as separate patterns.
Nevertheless I should like to make it clear that these last few conceptions are of an incom­
plete and premature nature and are not to be seen as a definitive perspective of the author. A
proper exploration of semantics from the point of view of the proposed framework would
require, at the very least, a writing of similar proportions.

q As suggested in paragraph 6 on Embodiment, page 13.

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8. Conclusion
The conception of self-perception proposed in this essay makes a fair amount of non-trivial
assumptions and requires to significantly limit our conception of consciousness but has as its
advantage the large potential for empirical investigations.
Although not a complete solution for the Hard Problem with this view I hope to have
covered a limited solution for the problems it has caused in the theoretical basis for a scien­
tific practice.
Nevertheless, the theory leaves open a few big gaping holes which would be much better
looking once properly filled. One of these is the proposed model for the representation of
cognitive information in the neural structure of the brain. Which, if possible to determine at
all, will not pose scientific researchers with an easy task. Here we will have to expect a large
success in the area of neural and cognitive informatics.
Another aspect requiring further analysis is the proposed metaphysical conception of
perception; while leaving alone the classical object-subject dualism seems to become an in­
creasingly larger part of scientific practice a proper and sufficiently complete philosophical al­
ternative has still not become commonly accepted. This is not just a problem in psychology
and neuroscience but also emerges in other areas of science where research forces us to ques­
tion the role of the perceiver such as in contemporary elementary physics.r
Lastly, there arise questions on the implications the framework has for the conception of
semantics. The perspective of cognition as a physiologically implemented and analyzable pro­
cess also enables us to speculate about meaning as being a physically perceivable
phenomenon. One might be able to do this within a (self-)perceptive context and, using the
same framework previously used for the analysis of cognitive patterns, draw some interesting
conclusions.

r Where, currently, the process of perception is commonly seen as an reciprocal interaction with the per­
ceived.

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References
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[5] Shannon, C E, 'A Mathematical Theory of Communication', Bell System Technical Journal,
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