Minimal Phenomenal Experience (Thomas Metzinger)

Minimal Phenomenal Experience: Towards a minimal-model explanation for consciousness “as such” One classical approach to explaining a complex target phenomenon is to define a minimal model - for example, of conscious experience as such. Is “pure awareness” a form of phenomenal character sui generis, which cannot be reductively defined or subsumed under a higher-order concept, a distinct class of conscious experiences? Does it exist? In the spirit of Blanke and Metzinger (2009), who introduced the concept of “Minimal Phenomenal Selfhood” (MPS; TICS 13(1): 7-13) I am currently developing a research program targeting the notion of “Minimal Phenomenal Experience” (MPE; originally introduced by Windt 2015), which brings together philosophy of mind, the phenomenology of meditation, and a neurocomputational model of “pure consciousness”. The talk will not present an argument or a ready-made theory, but only sketch the general idea, point to some preliminary psychometric data, propose a speculative predictive