1. The notion of “the minimal self” and types of conscious experience Ryszard Auksztulewicz Studenckie Koło Kognitywistyczne Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza

2. Minimal self (Gallagher 2000) ● Phenomenologically (in terms of how one experiences it): – Consciousness of oneself as an immediate subject of experience – Unextended in time – Depends on brain processes and an ecologically embedded body ● Unessential features of self stripped away, a basic, immediate, primitive 'something' that we are willing to call a self

3. Strawson's Mental Self (1997) (1) a thing (2) a mental thing (3) synchronically single (4) diachronically single (5) ontically distinct from all other things (6) a subject of experience (7) an agent (8) character / personality

4. The Self as an agent ● Movement / action constituting the self Sense of agency: The sense that I am the one who is causing or generating an action = [intended state vs. efference copy] comparator Sense of ownership: The sense that I am the one who is undergoing an experience = [actual state vs. predicted state] comparator Minimal self

5. The self and consciousness ● Feinberg: questions regarding the self identical to questions regarding consciousness ● (1) unification, (2) subjectivity, (3) location ● Marcel – non-reflexive consciousness = phenomenal experience; sensation – reflexive consciousness ● awareness of our phenomenal experience = type of knowledge ● awareness of self = not a different type of experience, but a matter of the object of its focus (suggesting attention)

6. Consciousness without self (?) - asomatognosia ● asomatognosia: – right parietal lesion => patient A.R. denies the ownership of the contralateral limb – attributes the hand to his mother – screams when the hand is squeezed ● patient F.B. (Bottini, Bisiach, Sterzi, Vallar, 2002) – attributes the hand to her niece – warned that 'the niece's hand' will be touched, reports tactile sensations ● asomatognosia as a Capgras syndrome (= delusional misidentification syndrome) for body parts (Vié, in: Feinberg, 2005) ● Capgras syndrome for persons (under-personalization) and places (inversed: Frégoli syndrome)

7. Consciousness without self (?) - schizophrenia ● Delusions of control, intrusive thoughts and verbal hallucinations = sense of ownership without sense of agency ● Problem: – is no sense of agency equal to no sense of minimal self? (agent vs. author) ● Depersonalisation as a candidate for a consciouss sensation without the sense of minimal self

8. Between FPP and self-consciousness first-person perspective non-reflective self-awareness sense of agency reflective self-consciousness narrative/conceptual self-consciousness Minimal self

9. Conclusions ● Sense of agency and ownership are heterogenous; it should be doubted that they stand for a homogenous self ● Minimal self as a specification of FPP (from the phenomenon of consciousness to the act of consciousness) ● Focus on operationalising / naturalising the sense of agency and ownership

10. References ● Gallagher, S. (2000). Philosophical conceptions of the self: implications for cognitive science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(1), 14-21. ● Strawson, G. (1997). The Self. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 4, 5/6, 405-428. ● de Vignemont, F., Fourneret, P. (2004). The sense of agency: A philosophical and empirical review of the “Who” system. Consciousness and Cognition, 13, 1-19. ● Feinberg, T.E., Keenan, J.P. (2005). Where in the brain is the self? Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 661-678. ● Marcel, A.J. (1988). Phenomenal experience and functionalism. In: Marcel, A.J., Bisiach E. (eds) Consciousness in contemporary science. Oxford Clarendon Press. pp. 121-158.