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Chapter Eleven Temporality and the Living Present

Chapter Eleven Temporality and the Living Present. The Enactive Approach. Time-consiousness as dynamicsystems (Gallagher and Varela 2003) Neurophenomenology – temporal dynamics and brain activity (Lutz and Thompson 2003). Page 312. Experience and the Flow of Action.

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Chapter Eleven Temporality and the Living Present

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  1. Chapter ElevenTemporality and the Living Present

  2. The Enactive Approach • Time-consiousness as dynamicsystems (Gallagher and Varela 2003) • Neurophenomenology – temporal dynamics and brainactivity (Lutz and Thompson 2003) Page 312

  3. Experience and the Flowof Action • Examples of my everydaylifeactingsas for example, washing, dressing, eating, playing guitar, and etc. • Temporal structureofexperience. • Merleau-Pontyideaof: Bodilyintentionality or motor intentionalitycharachterizeshabitual actions and bodilyskills. • Dreyfus calls it absorbedskillfulcoping – however, it does not have a ’subject-object’ struture. • Skillfulcoping, I don’tneed a mental representation of my goal. Ratheracting is experienced as a steadyflowofskillfulactivity in responsetoone’s sense of the situation. • Complex relation betweenembodied action and the temporal structureofexperience • Husserl and Merleau-Ponty: Kinesthetic, bodilymovementintentionalstructure as ”I can” ratherthan ”I think” Page 312-313

  4. Nonreflective ”I can” • Consciousness is not a detached observation or reflective-awareness, butrather a nonreflectiveattunementto the interplayof action and milieu. Finally, thisinterplay has a certain temporal form or structure. • Eachmaneuver undertaken by the playermodifies the characterof the field and establishes in it new linesof force in which the action in turnunfolds and is accomplished, againaltering the phenomenalfield– Merleau-Ponty. • In skillfulcoping, weexperienceouractivity as a steadyflow. Page 314

  5. DynamicInteractive Temporal Structure Perception-Action Loop AbsorbedSkillfulCoping No Subject-ObjectStructure Passive and Intransitive Life-World Nonreflective ”I can” structure PrereflectiveSelf-AwarenessAnimatesSkillfulCoping Page 314 - 317

  6. Time-Consciousness and Prereflective Self-Awarenes • Objectspersist and undergochange and transformation; processesunfold and develop in time; and events arise, endure, and end. • As Merleau-Pontysays, the perceptualsynthesis is a temporal synthesis. • The tree as remembered, the tree as a perceived, and the tree as antcipatedare all intended as one and the same tree. • Husserl’saccountof the structureoftime-consciousness is meanttoexplainboth sorts ofawareness – howwecan be awareof temporal objects (outertime-consciousness) and howwecan be awareofourownebbing and flowingexperiences (inner time-consciousness). Page 318 -

  7. Consciousnessof the Present • Consciousnessof the present moment must rather be an experienceof the present as having temporal width. • Duration-block. • Gallagher 1998. Moreprecisely, the duration-block of the present moment is an intentionalobjectoftime-consciousness. • AccordingtoHusserl, time-consciousness has a threefoldstructure; primal impression, retention, and protention. page 318 - 319

  8. Now-PhaseStructure • The retention and the protentionare not past or future in respectto the primal impression, but ’simultaneous’ with it. CBA O3 O1 O2 The relation between the primal impression-retention-protention and the different temporal phasesof the object - Dan Zahavi. page 319-

  9. The StructureofTime-Consciousness Page 320 - 321

  10. TwotypesofIntentionality • The firsttype is the unificationofconsciousness over time. Thisunificationhappensautomaticallybecause retention retains the previousphasesofconsciousness, specificallytheirinterlocking primal impressions, rentention, and protentions. Husserl calls this retention ofconsciousness the horizonal or lengthwiseintentionalityoftime-consciousness. • The second typeofintentionalityensures the continuityof the experienced temporal object. Thisintentional process alsohappensautomatically, because the retention ofconsciousnessnecessarilyincludes the retention of the intentionalobjectbelongingto the previousphasesofconsciousness. Husserl calls thistypeofintentionality the transverseintentionalityoftime-consciousness. page 322

  11. Time-consciousness and prereflectiveself-awareness • Eachphaseofphaseofexperienceretains not only the intentionalcontentsof the just-pastexperience, butalso the just-pastphaseof the experienceitself, includingitsretentional-impressional-protentionalstructure. • Three levelsoftemporality; • Externaltemporality (such as melodies) • Experiencesofthoseobjects or intentionalactsdirected at them. • Experiencesofthoseintentionalactsthemselves. Page 322 - 323

  12. Inner time-consciousness • Through inner time-consciousnessone is aware not onlyof the streamofconsciousness (prereflectiveself-awareness), butalsoof the acts as demarcated temporal objects in subjectivetime (reflectiveself-awareness) and of transcendent object in objectivetime (intentionalconsciousness– Zahavi . • Inner time-consciousness is simplyanothername for the prereflectiveself-awarenessofourexperience, a streaming self-awarenessthat is not itself an intentionalact, a temporal unit, or an immanent object (Hua 10/127), but an intrinsic and irrelational feature ofourconsciousness. • Inner time-consciousness the absolute consciousness or the absolute flow is supposedto be the deepestleveloftime-consciousness.

  13. The Absolute Flow • The absolute flow is self-constituting, thankstoitshorizontal or lengthwiseintentionality. The flowofconsciousnessretains and protendsitself – includingretainingitsprotendingofitself and protendingitsretainingofitself– and is in thiswayself-unifying. • The absolute flow is self-organizing. • William James, in experiencing the silencebefore the thunder, we do not deedtohavefirst an experienceofsilence and then an experienceofthunder– butthunderbreakinguponsilence and contrastingwith it. • Invariant structureoftime-consciousness, whichpresumablyconstitutes the listeningexperience as such in anypossible situation. Page 325 -

  14. SummaryofPrereflective Self-Awareness and Inner Time-Consciousness • The absolute flowofexperiencingsimply is the pre-reflectiveself-manifistationofourexperiences – Zahavi. • Putanotherway, the structureof inner time-consciousness – primal impression-retention-protention – is exactly the structureofprereflectiveself-awareness and alsoprecisely the absolute flow. • The absolute flow is the standing-streaming living present. • The living present is streaming because it is the continuous transformation (intentionalmodification) of the about-to-happeninto the happening into the just-happened. Page 328 -

  15. Neurophenomenology and Time-Consciousness Page 329 -

  16. Varela’sStrategy in studytime-consciousness • Find a common structurallevelofdescriptionthatcaptures the dynamicsofboth the impressional-retentional-potentionalflowoftime-consciousness and the large-scale neural processesthoughtto be associatedwithconsciousness. • Neuroscientistsalsoincreasinglybelievethat moment-to-moment, transitive (object-directed) consciousness is associatedwithdynamic, large-scale neural activityratherthananysinglebrain region or structure. • This problem is known as the large-scale integration problem – Varela et al. 2001. Page 330 -

  17. Time-Scales • Duration of the 1 scale: 250 – 500 ms (large-scale integration) • 1/10 scale – elementarysensorimotor and neural events of 10 – 100 ms. • 10 scale – descriptive and narrative assessmentsinvolvingmemory. Page 331 -

  18. Phasesynchrony • Quantitative and qualitativedifferencesbetween the perception and no-perception conditions. Between 200 and 260 ms, a first period of significantsynchronizationwasobserved in the perception conditionbut not in the no-perception condition. • Self-organizingneurodynamics. According to Varela, this dynamicscan be described as having a retentional-protentionalstructure. Page 332 - 335

  19. DynamicalModels • The dynamicalmodels and the data shows that this synchronization is dynamicallyunstable and willthusconstantly and successivelygiverise to new assemblies – these transformations define the trajectories of the system. • Recall that the absolute flow is an invariant structure of experience, not a changingcontent of experience. Page 336 - 337

  20. Time-consciousness Husserlargusthat it would be impossibletoexperience temporal objectsifourconsciousnessof the present moment were the experienceof the punctual or instantaneousnow. The present is a ’durationblock’ a temporal expansecontainingpast, now and futurephases.

  21. Neurophenomenology • Phenomenologicalaccountsof the structureofexperience. • Formal dynamicalmodelsofthesestructural invariants. • Realizationofthesemodels in biological system.

  22. Large-scaleNeural Integration Hypothesis 1: For everycognitiveact, there is a singular, specific neural assemblythatunderliesitsemergence and operation. Hypothesis 2: A specificneuaralassembly is selectedthrough the fast, transientphase-lockingofactivated neurons belongingtosubthreshold, competing neural assemblies. Hypothesis 3: The integration-relaxation process at the 1 scalearestrictcorrelatesof present-timeconsiousness.

  23. Integration of Neural Assemblies

  24. DynamicInteractive Temporal Cell Assemblies Invariant StructureofExperience Varela, Self-Organization BayesrulePr(A|B) Graph-models G(V,E) Life-World MetastableStructure

  25. Experimental Neurophenomenology • First-person descriptionofsubjectiveexperience. • Third-person data, for they record observations ofbiobehavioralphenomenamade by scientist from theirthird-person perspective.

  26. Waves ofConsciousness • Time-consciousness has the phenomenalstructureof a standing-streaming, an unceasingyetcontinuallychangingflowof moments ofawareness.

  27. Neurophenomenology and the Neural CorrelatesofConsciousness D. Chalmers (2000) distinguishesbetweentwotypesof neural correlatesofconsciousness: • NCC-neural corelatesofbackgroundstatesofconsciousness. • Content NCCs • The matchingcontentdoctrine

  28. Problems with the MatchingContentDoctrine • Noe and Thompson 2004: Thesecorrelates do not provideanycaseof a match between the contentof a neural system and the contentof a consciousstate. • Rather, experience is intentional ”world-presenting”, holistic – constituted by interrelated perceptions, intentions, emotions, and actions. Intransitivilyself-aware has a nonreflectivesubjectivecharacter.

  29. Neurophenomenology • It derives from embodieddynamicism in itsenactive version and thusdoes not assume the standard representationlistviewof the brain. • Varela: Bodilyactivity in skilfulcopingsculpts the entiredynamical landscape oftime-consciousness.

  30. NeckerCube • The perception of the NeckerCube is a metastabledynamicstructureratherthan a building-block content. • Mind itself is a spatiotemporalpatternthatmolds the metastabledynamicpatternsof the brain (Kelso, 1995)

  31. Optical Illusions

  32. Neurophenomenology and Naturalism The synthesisofconsciousness is completely different from the external combinations ofnatural elements…Insteadof spatial mutualexternality, spatial intermingling and interpretation, and spatial totality

  33. Now-PhaseStructure ABC Now-phase Weight-function Temporal flow of now-phases A C B Perceptual elements time t-1 t t+1

  34. T+1 T-1 T W1 W1 W2 W2 W3 W3 T+1 T-1 T Context and Temporal Objects Now-phase structure Now-phase structure A C B 12 14 13 Bias=0.3 Bias=0.3 Feedback Feedback 13 12 C B 14 A Weight function W1 < W2 > W3 Direction of the Attention Field A B C B 12 13 14 (e) (e) C

  35. Temporal Synthesis and Anticipation Focus of attention in the network is now pointing at this view (e) (a) (c) U2 U3 U1 U5 U4 Network of active units i.e. vision agents (e) (d)

  36. The PerceptualSynthesis is a Temporal Synthesis A1 A2 A3 *Meaning Affects + + + + + + + + Motor Schemas and Movements Actions Touch Classification of Histograms Audio Vision Gestalt Formation and Shape Integration Units Scale-Pyramid Representation U1 U2 U3 Scale: S16 Increasing RF Shape Filters Scale: S1 Filter Bank Scales: S1 – S16

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