Abstract
A new theory of the neuropsychological underpinnings of phenomenal consciousness, “asynchronous introspection theory,” is proposed that emphasizes asynchrony between different neurocognitive processes. We provide a detailed explanation of how a mind might arrive at a cognitive structure isomorphic to the cognitive structure that would emerge from experiential qualia. The theory suggests that a temporal illusion is created because of the mismatch between the real physical timeline and the neurally constructed timeline composed inside a person’s brain. This temporal illusion leads to the origination of a thought (a belief, or second-order, relational knowledge) that one has had a certain experience (a direct, “first-order” feeling) wherein the thought and the feeling seem synchronous to the person (subject) but, in fact, are not. This leads to the thought, “I had a feeling.” The theory is elaborated via a metaphorical “robot supervisor model” and is shown to explain many current problems of phenomenal consciousness.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61203336), the Major State Basic Research Development Program of China (973 Program) (No. 2013CB329502), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61662025.
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Chen, S., Zhou, C., Li, J. et al. Asynchronous Introspection Theory: The Underpinnings of Phenomenal Consciousness in Temporal Illusion. Minds & Machines 27, 315–330 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-016-9409-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-016-9409-y