Thomas Metzinger
The pre-scientific concept
of a “soul”:
A neurophenomenological hypothesis about its origin[1]
In this contribution I will argue
that our traditional, folk-phenomenological concept of a “soul” may have its
origins in accurate and truthful first-person reports about the experiential
content of a specific neurophenomenological state-class. This class of
phenomenal states is called the “Out-of-body experience” (OBE hereafter), and I
will offer a detailed description in section 3 of this paper. The relevant type
of conscious experience seems to possess a culturally invariant cluster of functional
and phenomenal core properties: it is a specific kind of conscious experience, which
can in principle be undergone by every human being. I propose that it probably
is one of the most central semantic roots of our everyday,
folk-phenomenological idea of what a soul actually is.
Interestingly, from a historical
perspective, present day philosophical and scientific discussions of mind have developed from a proto-concept
of “mind” that bears great similarity to the folk-phenomenological notion of a
“soul” just mentioned. This proto-concept of mind is a mythical,
traditionalistic, animistic and quasi-sensory theory about what it means to
have a mind. Just like the folk-phenomenological notion of a “soul” it can be
found in many different cultures. It has a semantic core, which corresponds to
the functional and phenomenological profile of the naïve notion of a “soul”. Therefore,
it is plausible to assume that, in their historical origin, both concepts are
deeply interrelated. The common causal factor in their emergence and
development – this is my second proposal - may consist in a yet to be
determined set of brain properties, namely those underlying the cluster of phenomenal properties later leading to
the relevant kind of first-person reports. If one connects the first, and systematic,
proposal I make in this paper with this second, historical observation, then
one naturally arrives at the conclusion that there may be a common neurofunctional substrate which
led human beings at different times, and in widely varying cultural contexts,
to postulate the existence of a soul and to first start developing a theory of
mind.
1.
The proto-concept of
“mind”
What is the “proto-concept of mind”?
In many cultures we simultaneously find pre-scientific theories about a
"breath of life" (e.g., the Hebrew ruach, the Arabic ruh, the Latin spiritus, the
Greek pneuma
or the Indian prana
vz. the five koshas, etc.; for historical details and further references see Verbeke 1974, Schrott 1974). This
typically is a spatially extended entity, keeping the body alive and leaving it
during phases of unconsciousness and after death. It has a material aspect,
though more subtle than that of the physical body. We are confronted with an
almost ubiquitous idea of what mind actually is, which in all its many
variations still is a sensory-concrete
idea of the mental as something that integrates parts, mostly of physical
organisms, but sometimes, in a wider sense, also of societies and groups of
human beings. In occidental philosophy of mind this proto-concept of mind has
developed through innumerable stages, starting from the pneumatology
of Anaximenes in the 6th century B.C.,
through Diogenes of Apollonia and the Aristotelian
distinction between breathed air and psychic pneuma
(which may perhaps count as the first attempt at a naturalist theory of mind in
Western philosophy). This development then continued through alchemist theories
of controlling nature by controlling mind and the Neoplatonists,
for whom the pneuma was an aureola
covering the soul and protecting it from contact and contamination by material
objects, on towards Christian philosophy, which finally denaturalized and personalized
the concept of mind (for details and further references see Oeing-Hanoff,
Verbeke, Schrott , Nobis, Marquard,
and Rothe 1974). In this way the Western history of
the concept of mind can be read as a history of a continuous differentiation of
a traditionalistic, mythical, sensory proto-theory of mind, which gradually led
to mind being a more and more abstract principle. Finally, culminating in
Hegel, it is devoid of all spatial
and temporal properties.
2.
The
folk-phenomenological concept of a “soul”
What is folk-phenomenology? Just like
folk-psychology generally it is a
naïve, prescientific way of speaking about the
contents of our own minds – folk-phenomenology
is a way of referring specifically to the contents of conscious experience,
as experienced from the first-person perspective. It generates no or little
theoretical progress (Churchland 1981), and is
characterized by an almost all-pervading naïve realism. However, in everyday
life, folk-phenomenology works remarkably well. At least it seems to. All of us are experienced
folk-phenomenologists, because all of us are used to self-ascribe certain
phenomenal properties when reporting the content of our phenomenal states to our
fellow human beings. In non-scientific contexts, we all know what we mean by
“soul”: Our soul is the innermost and essential part of ourselves, because it
is the prime candidate for the “true self”; it is the phenomenal locus of
identity; it bears a deep relation to the emotional layers of our self-model,
to the emotional core of our personality; and for many of us it is something of
which we secretly hope that it may survive physical death, because it is not
identical to our body. Folk-phenomenology follows Cartesian intuitions, and the
deeper reason for this fact may be that its ontology is mirrored in the
representational architecture of the human self-model (Metzinger 2003, section
6.4.1).
At this point it is interesting to
note how all conscious models of reality and the self in it can also be read as
ontologies and as epistemological metaphors. As phenomenal ontologies they are
non-propositional theories – internal, neurobiologically realized models –
about what actually exists from the
brain’s point of view. As epistemological metaphors they are theories about how
the organism actually comes to know about
the existence of this reality. Under a naïve-realistic interpretation they can
then become theoretical ontologies –
folk-phenomenology turns into folk-metaphysics, as it were. I propose that this is precisely what
happened in the historical transition from truthful, first-person
phenomenological reports about OBEs to the proto-concept of mind. Let us
therefore take a closer look at this highly interesting class of phenomenal
states.
3.
Out-of-body experiences:
What first-person reports about “soul experiences” refer to
Could there be an integrated kind of
bodily self-consciousness, be it of a mobile body fully available for
volitional control or of a paralyzed body, which in its entirety is a phenomenal
confabulation - a hallucinated and bodily self at the same time? Is it
conceivable that something like a “globalized
phantom-limb experience”, the experience of a phantom body could emerge in a human subject? The answer is Yes. There is a well-known class of phenomenal states in
which the experiencing person undergoes the untranscendable
and highly realistic conscious experience of leaving his or her physical body,
usually in the form of an etheric double, and moving
outside of it. In other words, there is a class (or at least a strong cluster)
of intimately related phenomenal models of reality, the classical defining
characteristics of which are a visual
representation of one’s own body from
a perceptually impossible, externalized third-person perspective (e.g., as
lying on a bed or the road below oneself) plus a second representation of
one’s own body, typically (but not in all cases) as freely hovering above or
floating in space. This second body-model is the locus of the phenomenal self:
It not only forms the "true" focus of ones identity as consciously
experienced, but also functions as an integrated representation of all kinesthetic
qualia and all non-visual forms of proprioception.
Such experiences are called out-of-body-experiences (OBEs).
OBEs frequently occur spontaneously
while falling asleep, or following severe accidents and during surgical
operations. At present it is not clear whether the concept of an OBE possesses
one clearly delineated set of necessary and sufficient conditions. For
instance, the concept of an OBE may in the future turn out to be a cluster
concept constituted by a whole range of diverging (possibly overlapping)
subsets of phenomenological constraints, each forming a set of sufficient, but
not necessary conditions. On the other hand the OBE clearly is something like a
phenomenological prototype. There is
a core to the phenomenon, as can be seen from the simple fact that many readers
will have already heard about in one way or another.
On the level of conscious
self-representation a prototypical feature of this class of deviant phenomenal
self-models (PSMs; for the concept of a PSM, see
Metzinger 2003) seems to be the coexistence of (a) a more or less veridical
representation of the bodily self, from an external visual perspective, which
does not function as the center of the
global model of reality, and (b) a second self-model, which largely integrates
proprioceptive perceptions - although, interestingly, weight sensations only to
a lesser degree -, and which possesses special properties of shape and form
that may or may not be veridical. Both models of the experiencing system are
located within the same spatial frame of reference (that is why the are Out-of-body-experiences). This frame of
reference is an egocentric frame of
reference. The first interesting point seems to be that this second self-model
always forms the subject-component of what I have elsewhere called the
"phenomenal model of the intentionality-relation" (PMIR; see
Metzinger 2003, section 6.5). The PMIR itself – the first-person perspective as
consciously experienced, the ongoing relationship between subject and object as
phenomenally represented - is almost invariably portrayed as of a perceptual,
i.e., visual, nature. Phenomenologically, you simply see yourself.
If, for instance, after a severe accident, you find
yourself floating above the scene viewing your injured body lying on the road
beside your car, there is a perceived self (the "object-component",
which, technically speaking, is only a system-model,
but not a subject-model), invariably
formed by a more or less accurate visual representation of your body from an
exteriorized perspective, and a perceiving
self (the "subject-component", the phenomenal self-model or PSM,
i.e., the current self- or subject-model), as hovering above the
scene, both of which are integrated into one overall global model of reality,
which is centered on the second self-model. The second self-model can either be
one of a full blown agent, i.e., endowed with the characteristic form of
phenomenal content generating the subjective experience of agency (see Metzinger
2003, section 6.4.5), or only what Harvey Irwin (1985, p. 310) has aptly called
a "passive, generalized somaesthetic image of a
static floating self". However, before entering into a brief
representationalist analysis of OBEs, let us first take a quick detour and look
at some more frequent, real-world phenomenological cases. Have you ever had the
following experience?
The bus to the train station had already
been late. And now you have even queued up in a line at the wrong ticket
counter! Nevertheless you manage to reach your train just in time, finding an empty compartment and, completely
exhausted, drop into the seat. In a slightly unfocussed and detached state of
mind you are now observing the passengers sitting in the train on the other
side of the platform. Suddenly you feel how your own train starts to
move, very slowly at first, but accompanied by a continuous acceleration, which
you can feel in your own body. Two or three seconds later, with the same degree
of suddenness, your bodily sensation disappears and you become aware that it
actually is the other train, which
has now started to slowly leave the train station (see also Metzinger 1993, p.
185f).
What you have
just experienced is a very rudimentary form of an out-of-body-experience, a
hallucinated bodily self. The center of your global model of reality was
briefly filled by a kinesthetic and proprioceptive hallucination, a
non-veridical model of the weight and acceleration of your body, erroneously
activated by your brain. The dominating visual model of your environment,
largely formed by the input offered through the "picture frame" of
the train window, was underdetermined. In the special input configuration
driving your visual system it allowed for two consistent interpretations:
either it is the other train or it is
the train, in which you are presently
sitting, which has just started to move. The visual model of reality allowed
for two equally consistent interpretations. At the same time there was a state
of general physical and emotional arousal, accompanied by an unconscious state
of expectancy about what is very likely going to happen next, and very soon.
The information-processing system, which you are, has selected one of
the two possible interpretations in accordance with constraints imposed by a
preexisting internal context and, as it is a system which always tries to
maximize overall coherence, "decided" to simultaneously activate a
suitable self-model, one that can be integrated into the new phenomenal model
of the world without causing any major problems. Unfortunately, the chosen
model of the world was wrong. Therefore, the activation of
the accompanying kinesthetic-proprioceptive self-model led the system into a
very brief hallucinatory episode. As transparent models of reality and
the self are always fully interpreted and intranscendable
for the system currently operating under them, a hallucinated bodily
self ensued. Its content was the content of a phenomenal self-simulation,
activated by an erroneous automatism leading the system astray, while not being
recognized as such. A possibility was depicted as a reality. As the dominant
visual model of reality is being updated, this briefly "deviating"
form of self-modeling leading to the subjective experience of a real body being
slowly accelerated is immediately terminated - and with a mild degree of
irritation or amusement we recognize that we have just fooled ourselves.
This may count as the minimal case of
a phenomenal self-simulation fulfilling no proper function for the system - in this case leading to a partially empty,
illusionary experience of the body as a whole and in motion. It does not
satisfy the adaptivity-constraint (it has no function
for the system as a whole; see
Metzinger 2003, section 3.2.11), and its most striking neurophenomenological
feature is the internal emulation of kinesthetic “motion” qualia, of a form of
sensory content we normally take to be as strictly stimulus-correlated. The
solution to this problem is to acknowledge that visual kinesthetic information,
generally being richer than mechanical kinesthetic information, can overrule
the second type in cases of conflict, because vision “… is not only an exteroceptive sense, as is classically assumed, it is also
an autonomous kinesthetic sense.” (Lishman
and Lee 1973, p. 294). What is still missing in this introductory case
study is a stable, exteriorized visual perspective onto the physical body. Let
us now proceed to look at two classical phenomenological descriptions of OBEs,
as spontaneously occurring in an ordinary non-pathological context:
I awoke at night – it must have been at
about 3 a.m. – and realized that I was completely unable to move. I was
absolutely certain I was not dreaming, as I was enjoying full consciousness. Filled
with fear about my current condition I only had one goal, namely being able to
move my body again. I concentrated all my will-power and tried to roll over to
one side: Something rolled, but not my body – something that was me, my whole
consciousness including all of its sensations. I rolled unto the floor beside
the bed. While this happened, I did not feel bodiless, but as if my body
consisted of a substance constituted of a mixtue
between the gaseous and the liquid state. To the present day I have never
forgot the combination of amazement and great surprise, which gripped me while
I felt myself falling unto the floor, but the expected hard bounce never took
place. Actually, had the movement unfolded in my normal body, my head would
have had to collide with the edge of my bedside table. Lying on the floor, I
was seized by terrible fear and panic. I knew that I possessed a body, and I
only had one great desire – to be able to control it again. With a sudden jolt
I regained control, without knowing how I managed to get back to it. (Waelti
1983, p.18; English translation TM)
The average
prevalence of OBEs ranges from 10 % in the general population to 25% in
students, with extremely high incidences in certain subpopulations like, to
take just one example, 42% in schizophrenics (Blackmore
1986; for an overview and further references see Alvarado 1986, 2000, p. 18p;
Irwin 1985, p. 174p). However, it would be false to assume that OBEs typically
occur in people suffering from severe psychiatric disorders or neurological
deficits. Quite the contrary, most OBE-reports come from ordinary people in
everyday life situations. Let us therefore stay with non-pathological
situations, and look at another paradigmatic example, again reported by Swiss
biochemist Ernst Waelti:
In a dazed state I went to bed at
I lay down horizontally in the air and floated across the bed, like a swimmer,
who has pushed himself from the edge of a swimming-pool.
A delightful feeling of liberation arose within me. But soon I was seized by
the ancient fear common to all living creatures, the fear of losing my physical
body. It sufficed to drive me back into my body. (Waelti 1983, p. 25; English
translation TM)
Figures 1 - 4.
Legend: “Phenomenal
kinematics of the PSM during OBE-onset: the classical Muldoon-scheme. From:
Muldoon,
Sylvan and Carrington, Hereward. The Projection of
the Astral Body (
Figures 5 - 6.
Legend: “Kinematics
of the phenomenal body-image during OBE onset: Two alternative, but equally
characteristic motion patterns, as described by Swiss biochemist Ernst Waelti
(1983).”
Sleep
paralysis is not a necessary precondition for OBEs. They frequently occur
during extreme sports, for instance in high-altitude climbers or marathon
runners.
A Scottish woman wrote that, when she was
32 years old, she had an OBE while training for a marathon. “After running
approximately 12-13 miles … I started to feel as if I wasn’t looking through my
eyes but from somewhere else. … I felt as if something was leaving my body, and
although I was still running along looking at the scenery, I was looking at
myself running as well. My ‘soul’ or whatever, was floating somewhere above my
body high enough up to see the tops of the trees and the small hills. (Alvarado 2000,
p. 184)
The classical
OBE contains two self-models, one visually represented from an external
perspective and one forming the center of the phenomenal world from which the
first-person perspective originates. Recently it has been shown that phenomenal
states closely resembling the OBE can be induced by stimulating the right
angular gyrus with electrodes, leading to the
empirical hypothesis that a disintegration of somatosensory and vestibular
information may be an important factor in generating the OBE (Blanke, Ortigue, Landis, and Seeck 2002). What makes the conceptual analysis of OBEs
difficult is the fact that many related
phenomena do exist, e.g., autoscopic hallucinations
and heautoscopy during epileptic seizures in which
only the first criterion is fulfilled (for a neurological categorization see
Brugger, Regard, and Landis 1997, for an analysis focusing on the relevance of
different degrees of body-centredness in spatial
perspective taking, see Brugger 2002). Devinsky, Feldmann, Burrowes and Bromfield (1998, p. 1080) have differentiated between autoscopy in the form of a complex hallucinatory perception
of one’s own body as being external with "the subject’s consciousness
(...) usually perceived within his body" and a second type, the classical
OBE, including the feeling of leaving ones body and viewing it from another
vantage-point. The incidence of autoscopic seizures
is possibly higher than previously recognized, Devinsky
and colleagues found a 6.3 percent incidence in their patient population (Devinsky, Feldmann, Burrowes and Bromfield 1998, p.
1085). Here is one of their case studies, demonstrating how OBEs can also
develop from etiologies like epileptic seizures.
CASE 7. – A 29-year-old woman has had absence seizures since the age of 12
years. The seizures occur five times a week without warning. They consist of a
blank stare and brief interruption of ongoing behavior, sometimes with
blinking. She had an autoscopic experience at age 19
years during the only generalized tonoclonic seizure
she has ever had. While working in a department store she suddenly fell, and
she said,
the next thing I knew I was floating just below the ceiling. I could see
myself lying there. I wasn’t scared; it was too interesting. I saw myself
jerking and overheard my boss telling someone to "punch the timecard
out" and that she was going with me to the hospital. Next thing, I was in
space and could see Earth. I felt a hand on my left shoulder, and when I went
to turn around, I couldn’t. Then I looked down and I had no legs; I just saw
stars. I stayed there for a while until some inner voice told me to go back to
the body. I didn’t want to go because it was gorgeous up there,
it was warm - not like heat, but security. Next thing, I woke up in the
emergency room.
No abnormalities were found on the
neurological examination.
Seizures
involving no motor symptoms or loss of consciousness and not being recognized
by the patient may actually be more frequent than commonly thought (for a case
study of a patient who first experienced
OBEs for a number of years and only later suffered from generalized seizures,
see Vuilleumier, Despland, Assal, and Regli 1997, p. 116). One
important feature of OBEs is that the phenomenal representation of the
perceiving, acting self is confabulatory, while the representation of the
remaining physical body from an external perspective is generally accurate. For
instance, OBEs during seizures frequently clearly depict convulsive movements
and automatisms very accurately, from a viewpoint above the body.[2] For
many people who have actually lived through these phenomenal states this is an
argument against the possibility of their hallucinatory nature. However, it has
to be noted that in the second self-model forming the object-component of the
consciously modeled subject-object-relationship veridical and confabulatory
content is frequently integrated into
a single whole. To remain with the last set of case-studies just referred to,
one patient noted that his body perceived from an external perspective was
dressed in the same clothes he was wearing, but curiously always had combed
hair even when he knew his hair was uncombed before the onset of the episode (case 4; p. 1081). Another telling
phenomenological difference is that some patients will visually experience
their body seen from above as not transparent and actually casting a shadow
(e.g., case 4), as in other cases
the double will be transparent, but slightly smaller than life-size (case 9; p. 1082), while for other
patients the body seen appears solid, but does not cast a shadow (case 2,
p. 1081). It may be relevant to note that even in spontaneous OBEs, clearly
occurring in non-pathological contexts, the non-veridical or self-contradictory
nature of particular forms experiential content may very well be cognitively
available, not only after, but during
the experience. Remember our very first case-study, the report by Swiss
biochemist Ernst Waelti: “Actually, had the movement unfolded in my normal
body, my head would have had to collide with the edge of my bedside table.”
(Waelti 1983, p.18; English translation TM)
Phenomenal kinesthetics and the underlying spatial frame of reference
seem to be slightly dissociated in this case. This very fact itself in turn is
available for cognitive processing, and for the formation of autobiographical
memory.
As Alvarado (1997, p. 16) remarks,
little systematic work has been conducted about the phenomenology of the
experience (see also Alvarado 1986b; 2000, p. 186p). The content of OBEs
certainly is globally available for attention and cognitive access. Volitional
availability, however, is a highly variable component of the experience (for an
overview of the phenomenology see Irwin 1985, p. 76pp; for an analysis of
different case-studies cf. Blackmore 1982a, p. 56pp;
for further references see Alvarado 2000). Many OBEs are dominated by a sense
of passively floating. The two self-models that are active during an OBE are
embedded into a coherent global state, into a single multi-modal scene forming
an integrated model of reality. They are also activated within a window of
presence, i.e., the experience has no phenomenological characteristics of
recollection or future planning – an OBE is something that is happening now. In fact, a considerable subset of
OBEs is accompanied by the subjective experience of "hyperpresence"
or "hyperrealism,“ particularly in those cases
where a blending into or additional episodes of religious ecstasy are reported.
The phenomenal reality as modeled in the OBE certainly is a convolved and a dynamic
reality (see Metzinger 2003, sections 3.2.4 and 3.2.5). OBEs are also
first-person states: They clearly unfold under a single and unified
first-person perspective generated by a PMIR. What makes them unique is that
the object-component of the PMIR is formed by a self-model, which is not a subject-model. You see your own body,
and you recognize it as your own, but presently it is not the body as subject, the body as the locus of knowledge and of
lived, conscious experience. Of course, numerous exceptions exist in the colorful reports and the
folklore about this kind of bodily self-consciousness, but the conceptually
most interesting feature of the OBE probably is that it is accompanied by
situations in which the subject- as well as the object-component of a
phenomenal model of the current subject-object-relationship is taken by a model
of the self: you see your own body lying on the bed below you.
Interestingly, this does not lead to a multi- or decentered
overall state of consciousness. Only one of the currently active self-models
functions as the "locus of identification". Typically, it is only the
etheric double hovering above, which is represented
as the attentional subject, as the currently thinking
self, and as the agent deliberately moving through space (see the
marathon-runner example for an exception). In general it also seems safe to say
that prototypical OBEs are fully transparent states: the model of reality
generated during the experience is not experienced as a model, although in experienced subjects and practitioners this
fact may well be cognitively
available during the episode. It is precisely the transparency of OBEs, which
has led generations of experiencers and theoreticians
in many cultures and for many centuries in the past to naive realistic
interpretations of this deviant form of phenomenal self-modeling. However, it
must be noted, many OBE subjects also report a "dreamlike quality, as if
being awake in a dream". Of general dream variables like the prevalence of
flying dreams, vividness, dream recall etc. the occurrence of lucid dreams is
the most consistent predictor of OBEs (Alvarado 2000, p. 194p; see also section
7.2.5 in Metzinger 2003). Susan Blackmore (1986)
found that subjects reporting deliberate, as compared with spontaneous, OBEs
have a better ability to control and terminate dream content and more frequent
flying dreams. An important hypothesis, which has to be empirically followed
up, therefore, is that OBEs are just an additionally constrained subset of
lucid dreams (see also Blackmore 1982b).
In short, one may predict that a more
systematic approach to the phenomenology of OBEs will yield different degrees
of global transparency and opacity accompanying the experience, and will have
to investigate the interrelatedness of this feature with other variables. OBEs
can certainly be functionally characterized as offline-activated states, because
they typically occur when the body is asleep, paralyzed after an accident or
during the effect of an anesthetic agent. In these situations, globally
available somatosensory input will be minimal. The PSM loses an important
source of content, driving and functionally anchoring it in internal stimulus
sources under normal circumstances. Harvey Irwin (1985, p. 308pp) has presented
a theory of the OBE in which the notion of being “out of touch with somatic
processes” plays a decisive role, either in terms of functional loss of input
or in terms of attentional unavailability through
habituation. An interesting question, finally, is if OBEs satisfy the adaptivity-constraint: Can there be a teleofunctionalist analysis of OBEs? What function could this type
of experience have for the organism
as a whole? Here is a speculative proposal by Devinsky,
Feldmann, Burrowes, and Bromfield:
There are several possible benefits that dissociative phenomena, such as autoscopy,
may confer. For example, when a prey is likely to be caught by its predator,
feigning death may be of survival value. Also, accounts from survivors of
near-death experiences in combat or mountaineering suggest that the mental
clarity associated with dissociation may allow subjects to perform remarkable
rescue maneuvers that might not otherwise be possible. Therefore, dissociation
may be a neural mechanism that allows one to remain calm in the midst of
near-death trauma. (Devinsky, Feldmann,
Burrowes and Bromfield
1998, p. 1088)
It is not at
all inconceivable that there are physically or emotionally stressful
situations, in which an information processing system is forced to introduce a
"representational division of labor" by distributing different
representational functions into two or more distinct self-models (as in what
was in the past called “multiple personality disorder”, see Metzinger 2003, section
7.2.4). The OBE may be an instance of transient functional modularization, of a
purposeful separation of levels of representational content in the PSM. For
instance, if cut off from somatosensory input, or if flooded with stressful
signals and information threatening the overall integrity of the self-model as
such, it may be advantageous to integrate the ongoing conscious representation
of higher cognitive functions like attention, conceptual thought and volitional
selection processes into a separate
model of the self. This may allow for a high degree of integrated processing,
i.e., for "mental clarity,“ by functionally encapsulating and thereby modularizing different functions like proprioception or attention and cognition in order to
preserve at least some of these functions in a life-threatening situation.
Almost all necessary system-related information is still globally available, and higher-order processes like attention and
cognition can still operate on it as it is presented in an integrated manner,
but its distribution across specific subregions in
phenomenal space as a whole has now dramatically changed. Only one of the two
self-models is truly "situated" in the overall scene, integrated into
an internally simulated behavioral space, only one of them is immediately
embodied and virtually self-present. As it is fully transparent, it is a
full-blown phenomenal self instantiating the phenomenal property of selfhood for
the system. Typically, both self-models integrated within a single OBE are
constituted by spatial as well as non-spatial mental content. Interestingly,
the bodily self-model forming the object-component in this type of first-person
experience never changes much in its spatial properties: the physical body
viewed from an external perspective is very rarely distorted or changed in
shape and size. However, the subject-component of the intentionality-relation
modeled in these states may greatly vary (note how just the opposite principle
holds for ordinary waking states). Some OBErs see or
feel themselves in a weightless replica of their original body, some of them
experience themselves as being in no body at all or in another kind of
indeterminate form, such as a ball of light or an energy pattern (Alvarado
1997, p. 18; Green 1968) or even as “pure consciousness” (Alvarado 2000, p. 186).
This may
point to the fact that spatial content is not strictly necessary in realizing
the function fulfilled by the second self-model for the system as a whole. In
other words, those higher functions as attention, cognition and agency, which
are integrated by the "dissociated" self, now are only weakly
embodied functions. In order to be carried out they do not need the
integration into a spatially characterized, explicit body image. Attentional and cognitive agency can functionally be decoupled from the process of
autonomic self-regulation and the spatial self-representation necessary for
generating motor behaviour. Conceptually, this is an important insight about
the human mind. As it is plausible to assume that also non-cognitive creatures
like animals could undergo the type of fully disembodied OBE described above, we
may conclude that attentional agency actually is one
of the essential core properties underlying the conscious experience of
selfhood: Spatial self-representation and cognitive self-reference are not
necessary for selfhood.
However, the prototypical OBE clearly takes
place in an egocentric frame of reference possessing a spatial,
bodily self-model as its origin. In this context, it may also be interesting to
note that certain technological setups in virtual reality experiments – so
called “second person VR” and “telepresence systems”
(Heeter 1992, p. 264) – seem to precisely achieve the
same effect, by creating the conscious experience of viewing one’s own body as
embedded into and interacting with a virtual world or the experience that there
is a “real you” not currently inhabiting your body. What such technical systems
offer is an additional functional module (a graphic image or a robot body)
through which subjects can control their own behavior.
Participants in VR experiments of this type frequently describe their
phenomenology simply as being an
out-of-body experience, even if they have never had a natural OBE before (op.cit.). If empirical evidence
could be generated which shows that the spatiality of the attentional
and cognitive self-model hovering above the self-as-object-component in the
OBE-model of reality is not a strictly necessary condition, this would support
the functional modularization hypothesis here proposed.
It is
surprising to see how theorists researching virtual environments today not only
employ phenomenological notions like “presence” or “situatedness”,
but have already coined a terminological notion for what, under the self-model
theory of subjectivity, would be the spatial partition of the PSM modeling
motor properties of the organism: the “virtual body” (VB; Barfield, Zeltzer, Sheridan, and Slater 1995, p. 505). A VB is a part
of an extended virtual environment, a dynamic and high-dimensional tool that
can be used to control a robot at a distance, employing the virtual body as an
interface. However, these authors also
point out how the issue of “identification” is crucial in the context of teleoperator systems controlling distant robots, and how
users of a virtual environment may actually reject their VB - just as some
neuropsychological patients do (ibid., p. 506). Most illustrative, however, is
the notion of a “slave robot”: To achieve telepresence,
an operator has to rely on a high correlation between his own movements as
sensed “directly” and the actions of the slave robot; and he ideally has to
achieve an identification between his own body and
that of the slave robot. A VB, just like a PSM, is an advanced interface to
functionally appropriate and control a body. In the VB-case, the body may be
thousands of miles away, and the interface used will (hopefully) only be
episodically transparent. In the PSM-case, Mother Nature has solved all major
interface problems millions of years ago, including a VB and extensive internal
user modeling: Target system and simulating system are identical; and conscious
subjectivity is the case in which a single organism has learned to enslave
itself. Interestingly, this does not turn the system into a slave robot, but
into an increasingly autonomous agent. Autonomy is conscious self-control, and
an OBE is a situation in which self-control has been divided into different
functional modules.
From a systematic, philosophical
point of view, any thorough analysis of deviant phenomenal models of the self
is of highest relevance. However, the general quantity and quality of available
scientific research is particularly low for OBEs, but also for
neurophenomenological state-classes or related interest, like dissociative identity disorder (DID) or lucid dreams. It is
hard to find empirical work that lives up to the methodological or conceptual
standards of current cognitive neuroscience or analytical philosophy of mind.[3] Notable
exceptions in this direction are Harvey Irwin, John Palmer and Susan Blackmore. Irwin proposes a model involving a shift in attentional processing during episodes of weakened
somatosensory input and a kinesthetic completion of the somaesthetic
body image mediated by a visual model of the environment, constructed from memory
sources (Irwin 1985, p. 306pp). As somaesthetic input
is lost, other presentational subformats – like
vision and kinesthesia – become more dominant and take its role in stabilizing
the PSM. As Alvarado (2000, p. 203) points out, Irwin’s model has received
support from studies relating absorption and visuospatial
abilities to the OBE and positively correlating synaesthesialike
items from a specific absorption scale to OBE frequency. John Palmer analyses
OBEs as compensatory processes after events threatening the integrity of the
overall self-model by causing fundamental changes in the body schema (see
Palmer 1978). For Palmer, OBEs are just one of many routes the system can take
to rescue its threatened phenomenal identity, to preserve the overall coherence
of the self-model. As Alvarado (2000, p. 202) puts it, in Palmer’s view the
“OBE, then, is an attempt to prevent the jeopardy to one’s identity from
reaching awareness and precipitating a crisis.” Susan Blackmore,
to whom I am grateful for many exceptionally stimulating discussions,
explicitly employs the concept of a "model of reality”. Explicitly
operating under the information-processing approach and analyzing the
representational needs and resources of persons undergoing OBEs, she arrives at
a theory describing OBEs as episodic models of reality, constructed by brains
cut off from sensory input during stressful situations and having to fall back
to internal sources of information. For instance, she drew attention to the
fact that visual cognitive maps reconstructed from memory, interestingly, are
organized from a birds-eye perspective in the majority of subjects and
predicted that these persons would be more prone to having OBEs (see, for
example, Blackmore 1982a, p. 164pp; 1987). She also
points out an important phenomenological feature of intended bodily motion in the OBE-state: frequently, the
way in which OBErs move around in the currently
active model of reality is not smooth, as in walking or flying, but occurs in
discrete jumps from one salient point in the cognitive map to the next salient
point. What Blackmore’s observation draws attention
to is that, whatever else OBEs are, they certainly are internally simulated
behavioral spaces. This phenomenological observation
may point to the fact that frequently these behavioral spaces, typically
simulated by a brain under great stress, are spatially underdetermined -
i.e., they are coarse-grained internal simulations of landmarks and salient
spots in certain perceptual scenes, which were seen in and acted upon at an
earlier stage in life. The general idea in Blackmore’s
theory is that OBEs are transparent phenomenal simulations of a world, which
are highly realistic because they include a partially veridical representation
of a phenomenal body and are organized from an external
"third-person" visual perspective (Blackmore
1984, 1987).
All these approaches are in good
keeping with the self-model theory of subjectivity. It is interesting to note
that all three of them are explicitly presented as psychological theories, not making the assumption of any
non-physical carrier substance for conscious experience being in existence or
actually leaving the body during an OBE. They are parsimonious by being simulational, and not representational, theories of the
OBE; because they do not assume that there is an actual representatum
in the environment of the physical body, corresponding to the PSM as an
exteriorized second entity. However, taking a more careful look at abstract,
non-spatial aspects of the phenomenal self in these states, one discovers how
the subject-component of the PMIR in the OBE-state is not completely empty. An attentional and a cognitive subject engaging in selective
processing are modeled, and actually in
existence: OBErs generally have good control over
their attentional and their thought processes as such
– even if almost all the content of
these processes may be hallucinatory.
From a philosophical perspective,
OBEs are interesting for a number of reasons. First, from the purely systematic
perspective of a representational theory of mind, they present us with a unique
phenomenal configuration: OBEs are global, phenomenal models of reality, in
which two self-models, but only one first-person perspective exist. That is, we
have a more or less stable, centered model of reality that contains a PMIR. The
interesting point is that during some episodes the subject- as well as the
object-component of the transparent model of the intentionality-relation is
constituted by a representational structure actually purporting to depict the
experiencing person herself. What OBEs show is that self-models are not
necessarily subject-models: You can
represent something as your own body, without representing it as an
agent to which you are identical – and you can do so under a perceptual model of the
subject-object-relation. OBEs are like a “perceptualized”
variant of reflexive self-consciousness. OBEs also constitute a strong argument
for the thesis that, while an accompanying bodily self-model may be fully
“confabulated” by subpersonal mechanisms fighting for
global coherence, the phenomenal locus of the self is always where the locus of
cognitive and attentional agency is. Interestingly, this is not true for bodily agency (recall the Marathon-example). It is easy to conceive
of systems that are not cognitive, but only attentional
agents (for instance, animals) but which have OBEs. Therefore, the experience
of attentional agency may be the core of phenomenal
selfhood and perspectivalness and the origin of all
consciously experienced intentionality.
More generally, the phenomenological
concept of an OBE seems to be a cluster concept, and the phenomenal state-class
picked out by this concept is characterized by a high degree of variability in
phenomenal content. However, there seem to be a number of further and essential
features. In whatever way the etheric "double“
or Doppelgänger leaving the physical body is
phenomenally modeled, it is always the cognitive and attentional
subject - the self-model modeling the system as a cognitive and attentional agent (see Metzinger 2003, sections 6.4.3 and
6.4.4) - which forms the phenomenal "locus of identity,“ which invariably
is represented as the subject-component of the represented
subject-object-relationship, thereby generating the structural feature of the
overall model of reality which I have described as its perspectivalness.
There are higher-order types of self-consciousness with the arrow of the PMIR
pointing downwards from a second-order self-representation to a first-order
self-representation – as in phenomenologically inward-directed attention and self-related
cognition. OBEs are unique in being simulations of perceptual PMIRs, frequently pointing
“downwards” in a much more literal sense, establishing a
system-system-relationship modelled within a spatial frame of reference. It is as if in situations where the self-model cannot be anchored
in internal somatosensory input anymore (see Metzinger 2003, section 5.4)
higher cognitive functions like attentional
processing or categorical thought simply take over in centering the global model of reality. In this way some persons
undergoing an OBE truly are disembodied, thinking selves in a neurophenomenologically reduced version of the original
Cartesian sense. However, the information that is not subjectively available to
them, of course, is that all this is just a model
of reality generated by their central nervous system.
This leads to a number of issues,
which are of a more general philosophical interest. For anyone, who has
actually undergone that type of experience, it will be almost impossible not to
become an ontological dualist afterwards (for instance, 73% of respondents to
an early study by Karlis Osis
claimed having a new attitude about life after death after experiencing an OBE,
67% reported a reduction in their fear of death, and 66% in a study done by Gabbard and Twemlow claimed to
have actually adopted a belief in life after death; see these and further
references in Alvarado 2000, p. 188; for a recent empirical study of near-death
experiences in cardiac arrest survivors, see Parnia,
Waller, Yeates, and Fenwick 2001). In all their
realism, their cognitive clarity and general coherence these phenomenal
experiences will almost inevitably lead the experiencer
to later concluding that conscious experience can, as a matter of fact, take
place independently of the brain and
of the body: What was phenomenally possible in such a clear and vivid manner
simply must be
metaphysically possible. Although many OBE reports are
certainly colored by the interpretational schemes offered by the metaphysical
ideologies available to the respective person in its respective time and
culture, such experiences have to be taken seriously. Although their conceptual
and ontological interpretations will in most cases be seriously misguided, the
truthfulness of centuries of reports about "ecstatic" states,
soul-travel and "second bodies" as such can hardly be doubted.
4. Conclusions
What has to be seen is that
first-person reports about this specific type of phenomenal state are available
in abundance not only from all times, but also from many different cultures.
There is a culturally invariant core to the phenomenon. The experience of a
soul-like entity, an etheric or astral body leaving
the physical body during sleep, after accidents and in death is what I would
like to call a "phenomenological archetype" of mankind. Following
this line of thought I will close by drawing three independent, but
complementary conclusions.
First, the phenomenological archetype
which, today, we call an "out-of-body experience" actually is a neurophenomenological archetype: the
functional core of this kind of phenomenal state is formed by a culturally
invariant neuropsychological potential common to all human beings. Call
this the CINP-hypothesis for OBEs. Under certain conditions, the brains of all human beings, through specific
properties of their functional and representational architecture, which have
yet to be empirically investigated, allow for this set of phenomenal models of
reality. Probably this set of models of reality is a discrete set, forming an
individual, clearly circumscribed goal for empirical research. A distinct, minimally
sufficient neural correlate for the OBE-state in humans is likely to exist,
and, in principle, a functionalist analysis of the phenomenon can be developed
from a more fine-grained representationalist analysis. Maybe, in some distant
future, even machines can engage in soul-travel.
I believe that the notions of a PSM
and of a PMIR (see Metzinger 2003) could serve as an excellent starting point
in operationalizing the OBE. However, this assumption
may be false, and it will also be important to find out how high the degree of
cultural invariance in OBEs actually is. Maybe the OBE is not a distinct theoretical entity, but – for example - just a subcluster of prelucid dreams, or
a tendency towards depersonalization and certain schizotypal
personality traits (Wolfradt and Watzke
1999). In any case, the second point which makes OBEs an interesting target for
philosophical analysis is that they likely also form a neuroanthropological constant, a potential to, given the
necessary neurofunctional configuration, undergo a certain type of experience
shared by all human beings. Animals could have OBEs too: It is obvious that
non-linguistic creatures not embedded into a cultural environment could undergo
these experiences as well. However, it is only in humans that OBEs could be strong first-person phenomena (in the
sense of Baker 1998, as discussed in Metzinger 2003, section 6.4.4; see also
Metzinger, in press), namely by being in addition self-ascribed on a conceptual level. On our planet, so far,
only human beings had OBEs and the
capacity to think and communicate about them, because only they had the necessary
brain structures. We were the first beings capable of conceptually self-ascribing
these experiences to ourselves, culturally embedding them through
folk-phenomenological discourse and the formation of a proto-concept of mind. The
potential to undergo “strong” OBEs, then, is a neuroanthropological
constant. Therefore, let us call this second interim conclusion the
NAC-hypothesis for OBEs.
The third important aspect, which
makes OBEs interesting from a history-of-ideas perspective - and which also
highlights the relevance that rigorous, empirical research programs would possess
from a purely meta-theoretical perspective - has to do with the earliest origins
of theoretical self-awareness. My
last proposal is that the class of phenomenal states, which today we call OBEs
and which points to a commonality in the neurofunctional architecture
underlying the process of human, conscious self-modeling, actually is the
historical root of what I have called the "proto-concept of mind”. It was
this proto-concept of mind, which eventually developed into Cartesian dualism
and idealistic theories of consciousness.
Put shortly, it is the particular kind of phenomenal content described
in the previous section, which first led human beings to believe in a soul. Call this simply the
“soul-hypothesis”: After the evolution of brains had reached a stage at which
OBEs in terms of strong, conceptually mediated forms of phenomenal
self-modeling became possible, it was only natural to – on a theoretical
level – assume that something like a soul actually does exist. Given the
epistemic resources of early mankind, it was a highly rational belief to assume
the possibility of disembodied existence. And it was the PSM of Homo sapiens, which made this step
possible.
As I briefly pointed out in section
1, the history of the concept of mind was one of increasing differentiation and
abstractness. At the beginning we
have a theory of something concrete, an etheric and
spatially extended double, a breath of life. At the end we find something entirely unworldly, an abstract, ideal
principle. It is interesting to note how the best theories of mind available
today again turn it into a concrete
process, fully endowed with temporal and spatial properties. However, in the
light of present-day cognitive neuroscience it is even more intriguing to see
how, at the beginning of human theorizing about mind and consciousness we find
a very similar basic motive across very different cultural contexts: the idea
of a “subtle body”, which is independent of the physical body and the true
carrier of higher mental functions like attention and cognition (Mead 1919).
Historically, the dualist tradition in philosophy of mind is rooted in these early proto-theories.
These theories, I would like to propose, may in turn be motivated by
naïve-realistic interpretations of early first-person reports about OBEs. At
the beginning of this paper I noted how may of the deviant models of reality
and self characterizing altered states of consciousness and pathological
neurophenomenological configurations may have a hidden heuristic potential,
because they can also be read as metaphysical or epistemological metaphors. In
a way, they are the brain’s own philosophy. As phenomenal ontologies they are
non-propositional theories – internal, neurobiologically realized models –
about what actually exists from the
brain’s point of view. Taken as an ontological metaphor, the phenomenology of
OBEs inevitably leads to dualism, and to the concrete idea of an invisible,
weightless, but spatially extended second
body. This, then, may actually be the folk-phenomenological ancestor of the
soul, and of the philosophical proto-concept of mind: It is the OBE-PSM. Centuries
of phenomenological reports describing it as a subtle body pointed in the right direction, because we can now
begin to see how it actually is a purely informational
structure modeling bodily self-experience in the absence of somatosensory
input. Therefore, in order to not only have an empirically grounded theory of
conscious experience, but to also understand the neurofunctional and
neurophenomenological underpinnings of the persisting intuition that such a
theory leaves out something highly important, it will be of highest relevance
to achieve a fuller understanding of this type of phenomenal experience. What I
have briefly sketched as the CINP-, the NAC-, and the soul-hypothesis may be a
good starting point to take phenomenology seriously: The traditional concept of
an immortal soul, which can exist independently of the physical body, may have
a phylogenetically new neurophenomenological correlate in the type of deviant phenomenal
self-modeling described in this contribution.
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