Biol Res From autopoiesis to neurophenomenology ...Harvard and later with Humberto Maturana at the...

2 7Biol Res 36: 27-65, 2003

Corresponding Author: David Rudrauf. Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Imagerie Cérébrale, CNRS UPR 640,Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière, 47 Bd de l’Hôpital, 75651, Paris Cedex 13, France.Phone: (33-1) 42 16 11 72 - e-mail: [email protected]

INTRODUCTION

In this paper we will review FranciscoVarela’s ideas about what is now oftencalled the “hard problem” (Chalmers,1996): the issue of the relationships betweenour subjective experience and our objectivebio-physical embodiment.

Francisco Varela l iked to introducehimself by saying: “I’m a biologist who hasbeen interested in the biological roots ofcognitive phenomena” (Varela, 1990). Fromthis s tandpoint , he invest igated thebio logical basis of subject iv i ty andconscious experience throughout his life asa researcher. He did so in a very originalway, illuminating this fundamental issuewith deep and fascinating insights.

From autopoiesis to neurophenomenology:Francisco Varela’s exploration of the biophysics of being

DAVID RUDRAUF, ANTOINE LUTZ, DIEGO COSMELLI, JEAN-PHILIPPE LACHAUX,and MICHEL LE VAN QUYEN

Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Imagerie Cérébrale, CNRS UPR 640,Paris, France

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews in detail Francisco Varela’s work on subjectivity and consciousness in the biological sciences.His original approach to this “hard problem” presents a subjectivity that is radically intertwined with its biologicaland physical roots. It must be understood within the framework of his theory of a concrete, embodied dynamics,grounded in his general theory of autonomous systems. Through concepts and paradigms such as biologicalautonomy, embodiment and neurophenomenology, the article explores the multiple levels of circular causalityassumed by Varela to play a fundamental role in the emergence of human experience. The concept of biologicalautonomy provides the necessary and sufficient conditions for characterizing biological life and identity as anemergent and circular self-producing process. Embodiment provides a systemic and dynamical framework forunderstanding how a cognitive self—a mind—can arise in an organism in the midst of its operational cycles ofinternal regulation and ongoing sensorimotor coupling. Global subjective properties can emerge at different levelsfrom the interactions of components and can reciprocally constrain local processes through an ongoing, recursivemorphodynamics. Neurophenomenology is a supplementary step in the study of consciousness. Through a rigorousmethod, it advocates the careful examination of experience with first-person methodologies. It attempts to createheuristic mutual constraints between biophysical data and data produced by accounts of subjective experience. Theaim is to explicitly ground the active and disciplined insight the subject has about his/her experience in abiophysical emergent process. Finally, we discuss Varela’s essential contribution to our understanding of thegeneration of consciousness in the framework of what we call his “biophysics of being.”

Key terms: Autonomous systems; Brain dynamics, Consciousness, Embodiment, Francisco Varela,Neurophenomenology.

In the last years of his life, he proposed ascientific research program, which he calledneurophenomenology (Varela, 1996), thataimed to address the problem pragmatically.This program has already produced interestingresults (Lutz et al, 2002) and is currentlybeing conducted by colleagues from hisFrench Brain Dynamics team, including theauthors of this paper. With more than 180published articles and 10 books (not tomention the many books he edited),Francisco’s work extends into many scientificf ields: cybernetics, neurophysiology,theoretical biology, mathematics,immunology, epistemology, neuropathology(epileptology), brain imaging and braindynamics.

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Francisco Varela was a mentor to all ofthe present authors: one year after hispremature death, this article serves both ashomage and as an occasion to share onepossible synthesis of his work with thescientific community. One of its goals is todisclose the coherence of his thinkingthroughout his career, situating his laterand f inal v iews on the bio logy andphenomenology of consciousness withinthe framework of his general theory ofautonomous systems. Th is theory,developed early on, is essential for a fullunderstanding of what he meant by“embodied mind” (Varela et al, 1991;Thompson and Varela, 2001).

Although this article is presented as asynthesis, we have chosen to include alarge corpus of quotes and references inorder to provide the reader with concretepoints of access to these abstract andcomplex ideas. We have used a system ofnotes so as not to interrupt the flow of thetext.

The f ramework sketched here isnecessarily partial in relation to the richnessand multiplicity of Francisco Varela’sthought, which includes not only reflectionson theoret ical biology, immunology,neuroscience, phenomenology and theepistemology of science, but also on ethicsand spirituality, domains of profoundpersonal commitment for him.

Finally, while the authors obviously agreeon the views and material presented here,the interpretations and emphasis placed ondifferent aspects of Francisco’s work byeach one of us clearly varies. Given therichness and diversity of his thought, wecannot claim to have exhausted all possiblepoints of view in this synthesis; indeed, toattempt to do so would only limit theposs ib i l i t ies of our own personalexplorations of his deeply insightful work.

The thematic landscape

Through more than thirty years of researchFrancisco searched for an account ofcognition. Some periods of particularinterest can be distinguished: the years from1968 to 1986 were marked by his work both

on the neurophysiology of vision and oncybernetics, first with Torsten Wiesel atHarvard and later with Humberto Maturanaat the University of Chile, (reflections onbrain organization can already be seenhere); from 1986 to 1995 he was particularlyinterested in self-organization in immunenetworks; finally, from 1995 until his deathin May 2001, he worked on brain dynamics,anticipation of epileptic seizures andneurophenomenology with his French braindynamics group in the Cogni t iveNeurosc ience and Bra in ImagingLaboratory in Paris.

Yet this arbitrary division into historicalperiods should not mask the continuity ofhis thinking: as early as 1971 he devoted anarticle to the issue of self-consciousness(Varela, 1971) while in 1997 he was stillwriting about autopoiesis and autonomy(Thompson and Varela, 1999).

For Francisco, theory was a crucialcomplement to experimentation in scientificwork. Almost two thirds of his articles,book chapters and reviews are theoretical:about a quarter are experimental papers,principally produced during the first andlast periods of his career; the rest aremethodological papers, mainly writtenduring the last period of his life, in whichVarela addressed large-scale synchroniesand non-linear analysis of brainwaves,including works on seizure anticipation.

In the following paper, while many of theFrancisco’s views might appear to be veryspeculative, they are so in a heuristic way:we hope they will be received as thefundamental contribution we believe themto be.

Setting the stage: experience asexplanandum

It is a major challenge for contemporarynaturalistic science to explain the existenceand functioning of consciousness on asubjective, experiential level as well as interms of its putative causal efficiency(Pet i to t et a l, 1999) . The recentdevelopment of brain imaging techniques(such as fMRI, PET, MEEG/EEG) andprogress made in signal analysis for

RUDRAUF ET AL. Biol Res 36, 2003, 27-65

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characterising fast dynamical interactions(cf. Tootell et al, 1998; Lachaux et al,1999; Friston, 2002), which allow the studyof the human brain during cognitive tasks,have provided an essential experimentalframework for research into consciousness.

Nevertheless, in spite of an array oftheoret ica l proposi t ions (Edelman,1989, 2001; Gray 1995; Block, 1996 ;Tononi and Edelman,1998a, 1998b; Crickand Koch, 1998; Damasio, 1994, 1995,1999, 2000, 2001; Parvizi and Damasio,2001; Engel and Singer, 2001; Logothetis1998a; Dehaene and Naccache 2001; Varelaet al 1991; Varela, 1999a; Roy et al, 1999;Thompson and Varela 2001; Zeman, 2001),as well as encouraging experimental resultson the neural correlates of consciousness(Lane et al, 1998; Logothetis 1998b;Rodriguez et al, 1999; Srinivasan et al,1999; Damasio et al, 2000; Beauregard etal, 2001; Lutz et al,2002 ), the scientificcommunity is still grappling with what isknown as the “explanatory gap” (Levine,1983): the relat ionships between anindividual ’s physical system and hissubjective properties remain obscure.

Computat ional is t , funct ional is t orneuroreductionist approaches generallylead to a paradoxical eliminativism, i.e. theelimination of consciousness as the domainof our subjective experience during thevery process of explanation. No evidenceabout the relation between the objectiveand subjective realms can be provided ifthe initial explanandum itself (that whichhas to be explained), has been banished asa valid object of study! In the explanation,phenomenal properties of consciousness assuch must appear (Varela, 1976; Varela,1996; Roy et al, 1999).

Contrary to eliminativism, it is wellknown that Francisco’s posit ion wassituated squarely in the context of what hesaw as the irreducible nature of consciousexperience.

As early as 1976 (Varela, 1976), he calledfor a science of the “sense of self,” of

“direct knowledge”1. He sought a scienceof mind embodiment (Varela et al, 1991)that incorporates “experience,” “beingthere” (Varela, 1999c), “sentience” and “thefeeling of being alive” (Thompson andVarela, 2001). He addressed the need for amethodology to explore this realm, “anexperiential neuroscience” (Varela, 1999b)at the concrete roots of the emergence ofconsciousness . Varela posed the problemas follows: “on the one hand we need toaddress our condition as bodily processes;on the other hand we are also an existencewhich is already there, a Dasein, constitutedas an identity, and which cannot leap outand take a disembodied look at how it gotto be there” (Varela, 1991). For Francisco,cognition always takes place in the contextof “feeling consciousness and intuition”(Varela, 1976).

“Exper ience” or “phenomenalexperience” (Varela, 1996) is that part ofour cognit ion that we access from asubjective point of view; it is the realm ofconsciousness. “Mind,” on the other hand,embraces the more general domain ofcognition, which includes conscious andunconscious phenomena while always beingrooted in a self. Indeed, our intuitiveapprehension of mind shows it to befundamentally related to subjectivity andconsciousness: A mind is always someone’smind, my mind; thus, the issue of the mindcannot be seen to be independent from thatof the self. In Francisco’s words: “Here, by‘mind’ I mean anything that has to do withmentality, with cognition and ultimatelywith experience” (Varela, 1999b).

The Nagel Effect

In Nagel’s famous article, What is it like tobe a bat?, to which Francisco often referred(1974) the author framed the issue by statingthat “fundamentally an organism hasconscious mental states if and only if thereis something that it is like to be that

1 In 1976 Francisco (Varela, 1976) already deplores “that description of other minds (generally addressed in term ofcomputation, neurological net and logical discourses) leaves a residue, my mind, including the “being,” the “sense of self,”a “direct knowledge,” “experience” : “as long as there is such a remnant [...] the Mind-Body relation is still a problem.”


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organism — something it is like for theorganism.” For Nagel th is “e f fect ”corresponds to the “subjective character ofexperience,” which is related to a “point ofview,” constituting the “essence of theinternal world.” Pithily, he observes that“if mental processes are indeed physicalprocesses, then there is something it is like,intrinsically, to undergo certain physicalprocesses. ” We wi l l re fer to th ishypothet ical mental effect of havingphysical processes as the Nagel Effect.

Within such a framework we must wonder,as Nagel suggests, what “objectivity” cantell us about subjective experience, how anobjective process can have a subjectivenature and, reciprocally, how subjectiveexperience can have an objective nature.

Accord ing to the phys ics model ,“objectivity” accounts for observableproperties in the World, by describing themas spatial-temporal interactions betweenspatial- temporal elements def ined asstructures or dimensions in a state spacewith laws of evolution. Objectivity is therealm of the phenomenology of objects,processes, t ra jector ies, force, f ie ld ,attraction, repulsion, acceleration, mass,energy, etc. The crucial question is howsuch modes of description can provide uswith deep insights about the “origin” of oursubjective experience.2

According to Francisco, the search forthe origin of this Nagel Effect of subjectiveexperience must be grounded in the notionof a “radical embodiment,” that is, in theconcrete situated phenomenology of ourcoping as a biophysical system (Varela etal, 1991; Thompson and Varela, 2001).

Embodiment is a key, if complex, concept.This article will illuminate precisely what

Francisco meant by embodiment orembodied mind. References to the notionof embodiment always include the notionof mind; in humans, it cannot be separatedfrom either the notion of mind or that ofself. In Francisco’s view, embodiment isour departure point as living beings, a giventhat we must characterize, but also theexplanans, i.e. the domain of explanationfor a future science of being. Embodimentis fundamentally related to what he calledthe natural history of circularity (Varela,1988a). Throughout this article the notionof c i rcu lar i ty and i ts prec isephenomenology will be omnipresent.

As will become apparent in the followingpages, his theory of embodimentcontinuously moves between the pursuit ofan operational, concrete description ofbiophysical processes and the choice of veryabstract and general tools to bui ldexplanations or fill out insights (Varela,1979). Yet these abstract or general conceptswere always shaped to fit as closely aspossible the model or nature of the system’smechanisms. Francisco studied the naturalfact of embodiment simultaneously fromthe perspect ives of a biologist , acybernetician and a neuroscientist, oftenusing tools and systemic descriptions basedon non-linear mathematical physics3. Hisapproach motivated the reference to abiophysics of being4 in the title of this article.

At the same time, Francisco’s conceptionsare all grounded in a phenomenologicalapproach to subjectivity as well as to theorganism itself. In Francisco’s theoreticaldevelopments,5 the embodiment of mind—whether approached from the first- or third-person point of view—always has thecharacter of a descriptive phenomenology.

2 In this sense objectivity is simply a phenomenology, a description of behaviors of systems in general. As such, it obviouslydepends on an observer. But, for the moment let us avoid the realism/idealism debate, by saying that this does not really matter!Even if “objective” descriptions are mental constructions, let us just work within their internal logic without wondering if theycorrespond to a reality per se. As in other realms of science, the criteria for “understanding” should only be the heuristic valueand conceptual generative power of such an approach without needing to refer to the issue of its metaphysical ontology.

3 The biological spontaneity and complex behaviors of living beings, their intrinsic dynamic character, drove Francisco tocall for “a brownian science,” a “rigorous theory of vagueness” adapted to biological systems (Varela, 1981).

4 Far from having any exclusively molecularist connotations, here the notion of biophysics can be understood as the scientifichorizon of an integrative biophysics yet to come.

5 In The specious present (Varela, 1999a), Francisco promoted naturalizing phenomenology as well as “phenomenologizing”neuroscience.


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This paper is an attempt to highlight thelogic that guided the greater part ofFrancisco’s work, starting from his generalprinciples of “living systems” as a necessaryprelude to the understanding of humansubjectivity. Our approach to Francisco’stheory follows a ‘constructivist’ path:beginning with the theory of autopoiesisand autonomy, we move on to examine howFrancisco frames embodiment theoretically,and end wi th neurophenomenology.Although our objective is not to look at theconcepts historically, the order of thispresentation coincides generally with thehistorical order of Francisco’s conceptualdevelopments.

THE FRAMEWORK: THE CONDITION OF BEING AN

AUTONOMOUS SYSTEM

Our point of departure as embodied beingsis situated in a general framework thatconcerns al l l iv ing systems: that ofautonomy.6 In this section, we will presentFrancisco’s thought on our fundamentalorganization as living beings, and thecorresponding theoret ica l ob ject heconstructed: the autonomous system.

Life as a “ bringing forth” of identity

“What are the b io log ica l roots ofind iv idual i ty?”(Vare la, 1987) Thefundamenta l feature that HumbertoMaturana and Francisco identified in theirsearch for what is common to all livingbeings (that which makes us recognize themas belonging to the same class despite theirdiversity), was the evidence of a unitarynature, a coherent wholeness, an autonomythat is “brought forth” by the system itself(Maturana and Varela, 1973; Varela et al,1974; Maturana and Varela, 1980). Thereis a “capacity of living systems to maintaintheir identity in spite of the fluctuations

which affect them” (Varela, 1979; Maturanaand Varela, 1973; Varela et al, 1974). Thisidentity is actively resistant to all the naturalforces and tendencies, such as the increaseof entropy, that tend to annihilate it. Whatis indeed fascinating about living beings isthat they assert their identity from within,thus opening up the possibility of observingthem as distinct units in their domain ofoperation. The living being is a process,that of “being autonomous” (Varela,1977a). Therefore, it is not Reproductionor Evolution or any list of properties thatprimordially characterizes life, but ratherindividual organization that allows forautonomy (Varela, 1984a). For instance wecan conceive of the existence of such anorganizat ion wi thout ab i l i ty o fReproduction and Evolut ion, but thereciprocal is not true.

As an autonomous individuality, a livingsystem does indeed present i tself toobservers with “wholeness,” as a “system-whole,” a “total, closed, complete, full,stable, self-contained system” (Varela,1976). As a whole, it behaves as a dynamicalsystem exhibiting continuous structuralchanges but with organizational invariance.This organizationally invariant processdefines the system’s identity (Varela,1984a): “the domain of deformations thatthe system can be submitted to withoutlosing its identity (i.e. and still maintain itsorganizat ion) is the domain oftransformations where it exists as a unity”(Varela, 1979).

From a cybernetic perspective Franciscoconceived this wholeness as the result of aco-dependency of parts in an ongoingprocess: “A whole is here a set ofs imul taneous in teract ions of par ts(components, nodes, sub-systems) whichexhibit stability as a totality. The parts arethe carriers of particular interactions whichwe can chop out from the whole andconsider their participation in varioussequential processes that constitute the

6 In this section we introduce Francisco’s concepts of autonomy and autopoiesis. As we chose to focus on the embodiment ofmind and consciousness in this article, we will consider these concepts from the perspective of embodied living beings, whichare “autopoietic systems in the physical space” (Varela, 1976), and particularly in the context of animals, as this is precisely ourown condition of being. But we must note that in Francisco’s theory “autonomy” is “ a general phenomenon applicable in otherspaces of interaction” such as ecosystems, artificial intelligence and artificial life, social sciences, linguistics, economics andso on. In the same way autopoiesis can apply in abstract space.


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whole. The whole re-emerges when we seethe resulting total stability (i.e. the fixedpoint of the limit process)” (Varela, 1976).Thus, it is more than a question of specificchemical components (carbon hydrates,proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, etc.), but isfundamentally one of “the relations whichthe components must satisfy in order toconstitute a living system” (Varela, 1979).

Within this framework it must be noticedthat Francisco’s approach was radicallymechanis t ic : “our approach wi l l bemechanistic. We won’t appeal to any forcesor principles not belonging to the universeof physics [...] We adopt in fact the basicprinciples of the Cybernetics and the Theoryof systems. What is just the essence of themodern mechanism. Living systems are‘machines’” (Varela, 1979). Thus, forFrancisco, living beings were “mechanistic(dynamical) systems defined by theirorganization” (Varela, 1981).

Start ing from these considerat ions,Franc isco and Humberto Maturanaproposed a general but powerful biophysicalmechanism, foundational to what Varelacalled the “bio-logic” (Varela, 1991).

Contrary to the usual way a machinefunctions, with a product that is differentfrom the machine itself, in the case of livingmachines sel f -product ion is thefundamental def in ing feature of the

autonomy of the organism (Maturana andVarela, 1973). Thus, in the particular caseof living organisms, the mechanism ofautonomy was baptized autopoiesis or self-production: “An autopoietic system isorganized (defined as a unity) as a networkof processes of production (transformationand destruct ion) of components thatproduces the components that: 1) throughtheir interactions and transformationscontinuously regenerate and realize thenetwork of processes (relations) thatproduce them; and 2) constitute it (themachine) as a concrete unity in the space inwhich they ex is t by speci fy ing thetopological domain of its realization assuch a network” (Varela, 1979).

In such a process (Fig 1) there is a mutualspecification or definition of the internal,chemical t ransformations and of thephysical boundaries (Varela, 1988b).Identity emerges and persists within thebounded system through a continuouscircular or recurrent process. Specificorganizational relations (like the ensembleof biochemical pathways of the cell and itsmembranes), bounding the metabolism andthe phys io logy of the system, arecontinuously regenerating through theinternal production of their substratumcomponents (cell organelles and structures,molecules controlling the metabolism) in

FIGURE 1 – The autopoietic machine: a circular causality.

The autopoietic organization is defined as a unit by a network of production of components (chemicalreactions) which (i) participate recursively in the same network of production of components (chemicalreactions) that produced them, and (ii) carry out the network of production as a unit in the space in whichthe components exist.


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the correct functional, dynamical andspatial distribution. In other words, thesystem continuously produces itself throughthe production of its own components inthe topological distribution that the ongoingglobal process constrains, and that thecomponents requi re to mainta in therelations that define them. Living systems“transform matter in themselves in such away that their organization is the productof their operation” (Varela, 1979).

Within such a self-referential framework,the “origin of life” is conceived as thetransition from a chemical environment toa self-produced identity (Dupuy and Varela,1991) . The most paradigmat ic caseexemplifying this mechanism is that of cellautonomy, but it applies to all l ivingsystems. This is valid also for superiororganisms whose internal self-producingmechanism lies in integrated, recurrent,internal, metabolic and physiologicalrelationships, with increasingly complexbehaviors and functional dependencies.

As generative of l iving autonomoussystems, autopoiesis appeared to Franciscoas the common, specif ic feature, theuniqueness, of life: autopoiesis is “themechanism which endows living systemswith the property of being autonomous;autopoiesis is an expl icat ion of theautonomy of the living” (Varela, 1981). Itis the biophysical origin of individuality:“It is autopoiesis which defines the cell asa unity endowed with an individuality”(Varela, 1979). Furthermore, autopoiesisis a generative concept: “We claim that thenotion of autopoiesis is necessary andsufficient to define the organization of theliving being” (Maturana and Varela, 1973).To Franc isco’s mind, th is far f romequilibrium process lives: “If a physicalsystem is autopoiet ic , i t is l iv ing.”Described as a mechanism, autopoiesismakes the link between physics and biology:“The phenomenology of living systems is

then the mechanicist phenomenology ofthe physical autopoietic machines [...] withpurely mechanicist notions, true for everymechanicist phenomenon in any space, onecan explain completely this organizationand its origin.” (Varela, 1979)7

Organizational closure: the general logicof embodiment

The fundamental salient feature of thisframework of autonomy is the circular,closed, self-referential characteristic of theorganization of the living system, whichcreates a minimal distinction between aninterior and an exterior, and guarantees thecontinuous dynamical, mechanic generationof the stable “internal coherence” of anautonomous system (Varela and Goguen,1977) . To del ineate th is c i rcu larorganization and causality at work in thenetwork of co-dependencies of suchsystems, Francisco proposed, within theframework of what he called a “system-centered” logic, the general concept oforganizational closure or operationalclosure.

“Closure” is the circular mechanismdefining the class of self-organizingsystems in general.8 Autopoietic systemsare “a particular case of a larger class ororganizat ion that can be ca l ledorganizationally closed” (Varela, 1979).

For Francisco this concept was essentialfor an understanding of the condition of aliving system: “in order to study life andcognition, we need to explore the almostentirely unexplored land of autonomous-closure machines, clearly distinct from thec lass ica l Car tes ian input-machines”(Varela, 1984a).

Closure is a response to the attempt 1) toformal ize and to character ize themechanism of “autonomy in general” as aself-organizing behavior and 2) to specify

7 Francisco summarized the features characterizing organisms within this framework. Proposition I: Organisms are fundamentallya process of constitution of an identity. Proposition II: The organism’s emergent identity gives, logically and mechanistically,the point of reference for a domain of interactions (Varela, 1997a).

8 From a topological point of view, he defined closure as follows: “A domain K has closure if all operations defined in it remainwithin the same domain. The operation of a system has therefore closure, if the results of its action remain within the systemitself.” (Bourgine and Varela, 1992)


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the circular organization or mechanism ofa given autonomous system as it gives riseto its specific identity: closure accountsnot only for the “uniqueness” of Life butalso for its “diversity” (Varela, 1981). Theobservable specificity of living beingsindicates that there is species-specificorganizational closure. Each system has itsown way of being operationally closed.Organizational closure specifies the domainof interaction of the system with itssurroundings, conditioning its possibleways of coupling with the environment. Inhigher organisms, the meshwork of co-dependencies inc ludes the d i f ferentphysiological systems (cardio-vascular,respiratory, nervous, immune, etc.), andthei r sub-systems. The componentsinvolved and the kind of interactions to beconsidered depend upon the type ofautonomous systems to be considered at(cells, organisms, animal populations,ecological systems).

Moreover, there are two aspects ofclosure: organizational, which defines thepossible interactions in a “static” circularframework, and operat ional, i .e. therecurrent dynamics that closure elicits.9 Assuch, the concept of closure aims tointroduce a “universal mechanism forstabilization.” Identity is always identityin t ime, and exists in relation to anenvironment with perturbations that mustbe compensated for. This process ofrecurrent stabilization, involving internalcircular processes with matter and energyflux, is at the core of the dynamicalpersistence of the autonomy and wholenessof the system. As a whole, the system existsand subsis ts on ly insofar as i t is

organizationally closed. When a system nolonger has organizational closure, it is nolonger in its domain of viability, andtherefore dies.

It is essential to understand that the ideaof closure does not contradict that ofopenness. Closure doesn’t mean a closedsystem. We are looking at far f romequilibrium systems, with an exchange ofmatter and energy with their surroundings(Varela , 1977a). The core of circularcausality is coupled with the system’strophic and adaptive dependence on itsenvironment. Francisco always emphasizedthat a system is “not separable from itsinteraction domains” (Varela, 1980a).

Francisco’s thesis maintains that everysystem-whole is organizationally closed:“The wholeness of a system is embodied inits organizational closure. The whole is notthe sum of its parts; it is the organizationalclosure of its parts” (Varela and Goguen,1977).

This last point must be kept in mind in thefollowing paragraphs. It can be seen as thefundamental feature and the first theoreticaldefinition of embodiment.

Intuiting the dynamic core

The adaptat ions and highly complexbehaviors of animals sometimes make themappear as if they had their own ‘project,’ asif they had an intrinsic intentionality.However, notions such as those of ‘goal’and ‘purpose’ come from a realm ofdiscourse proper to observers describingand somehow summarizing the behavior ofa system. Since they overlook the effective

9 The system’s stability is dynamic. It centers on a huge internal movement, a perpetual flow. Therefore, autonomy is the resultof the set of possible internal transformations or endomorphisms [Sn => Sn] defined by the system closure into its domain orstate space. The indefinite recursion of component interactions, sustained through systemic re-entries, has the central role inthe flux of constitution of the system. (Francisco referred to Wiener who introduced the fundamental revolutionary concept offeedback). As we are considering real physical processes, the scientific paradigm for such a concept, beyond a general theory of systems,would be biophysics. The whole dynamical process that organisational closure defines can thus be represented, in a very generalway, by a system of non-linear differential equations:

),,( tpxSx=&

including the set x of co-dependent variables, the set of interaction laws S, and a space of internal and external parameters p(we have drawn the generic properties of such a system in Figure 1). If in such a formalism the closure remains implicit, “thestability of a dynamical system can be considered as the representation of the operational closure of an autonomous system”(Varela, 1979).


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subjacent processes, for Francisco they are“purely pedagogical.”10

Francisco considered it important toenvision the system from the perspectiveof “its operation, which always unfolds inthe present, as in every determined system”(Vare la, 1979) . He emphasized the“necessity to understand that cognition orbehaviors are operational phenomenawithout final cause: they work in a particularway. Intentionality is an interpretation ofthe observer. Coherence is a fact and not a‘supposed design’” (Varela, 1986b). As wehave already noted, for Francisco, the onlyinteractions being carried out in organismson the level of continuous processes aremechanistic ones.

Thus, the vital “bringing forth” (Varela,1990) exhibited in living beings, (that weperceive, for instance, as a struggle forlife), can be seen as purely a consequenceof their mechanical operation: “the closureand the identity of a system are imbricatedin such a way that an operationally closedsystem necessarily subordinates everytransformation to the conservation of itsidentity” (Varela, 1979). This maintainingof identity is a result of its operation, notfinality. Thus, from a mechanical point ofview, what we observe as intentionalbehaviors are, Francisco claimed, simplythe operational persistence of specificprocesses (Varela, 1980a). From the pointof view of closure, “a system is adaptives imply because i ts organizat ion ismaintained invariant through changes ofstructure which do not violate constraints.”

(Varela, 1984a). In a purely descriptiveaccount, an intentional act, as it appears tothe observer, is a mechanical succession ofdynamical processes of convergence towarda certain state, a transitory persistence ofthe coupling between the system and itsenvironment.

This notion of persistence, which isrelated to stability and has its origins inoperational closure, was fundamental toFrancisco’s character izat ion of theorganism as a bringing forth of an identity.Such identity is maintained in spite of allthe perturbations that affect it. In this sense,we can say that it possesses somehow acertain force of inertia (Varela, 1997a).11.

In order to account for the “bringing forth”(Varela, 1990) carried out by living systems,we will use the concept of “dynamic core”(Edelman and Tononi, 2000), although it isnot a term Francisco used (the issue isdeveloped on the scale of brain dynamicsin Michel Le Van Quyen’s paper here)12.

The eigenbehaviors and the dynamic core

Although it is fundamentally characterizedby its organizational identity, every livingsystem shows speci f ic s t ructura ltransformations, some of which correspondto what we usually call behaviors. Theinternal, dynamical side of this observableethology13, f rom Francisco’s pure lyoperational, non- functionalist perspective,is the presence of self-organizing dynamicaltendencies shaping the ongoing, specific

10 Francisco always criticized “the naive use of information and purpose,” which indicates a “ lack of a theory for the structureof the system [...] of a theory of the kind of machines living systems are” (Varela and Maturana, 1973). They do not belongin the definition of the system itself. Against a purely functional characterization of the system leading to teleological views(certainly useful for communication, but lacking the nomic intermediate), he always gave priority to “material interactions,”prediction and causality (through a network of nomic relationships). However, Francisco considered the role of observer inthe constitution of meaning to be irreducible: “The theory illuminates the subject, and the subject is what makes theorizingpossible” (Varela and Goguen, 1977). He sometimes admitted the concept of teleonomy, i.e. causal processes underabstraction, and, in a collaborative work with Andreas Weber he supported some form of teleology in biology. Theydistinguished between external, seemingly purposeful design, which was Darwin’s main concern, and an intrinsic teleologythat, on the contrary, is concerned with the “internal purposes immanent to the living.” In relation to this latter case, theydefended the idea that one can go beyond the simple “as-if character” of natural purposes and grasp “immanent teleology asa truly biological feature.” (Weber and Varela, 2002)

11 The notion of inertia was explicitly present in his work on immune networks: “All these observations are consistent withthe notion that the prevalent state of affairs in the lymphoid system has an inertia, which resists attempts to induce sudden andprofound deviations in its course of events” (Vaz and Varela, 1978).

12 The term was introduced by Edelman in brain -centered meaning (Edelman and Tononi, 2000). Here we will use it in a moregeneral sense.


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“attitudes” of the system. Francisco calledthem “eigenbehaviors” (own-behaviors)(Varela and Goguen, 1977; Soto-Andradeand Varela, 1984). Eigenbehaviors arespeci f ic , preferent ia l , in ternaltransformations that are recurrent in thestate space of the system (Fig 2). Theypossess the following properties: a) aneigenbehavior is a global observable stateof the autonomous system under study; b)it is specified by the organizational closureof the system; c) it expresses the coherenceof the system’s operation; d) it relies oninternal cooperative interactions; e) it isnot separable from the history of structuralcoupl ing of the system wi th i tssurroundings. The richness and complexityof a system is therefore based on theintricacy of its landscape of eigenbehaviors.

Michel Le Van Quyen discusses (thisissue: Le Van Quyen, 2003) how suchgener ic or systemic proper t ies arefundamental for orienting our search forscientific tools that address the issue of thedynamic core. Francisco studied the notionof eigenbehaviours using concepts issuingfrom mathematical and physical paradigmssuch as chaos, complex systems, dynamicalsystems theory, morphodynamics, self-organizing criticality, synergetics, far fromequilibrium thermodynamics, coupled non-l inear osc i l la tors , e tc . A l l o f theseparadigms prov ided too ls foroperationalizing and understanding theemergence of dynamical regularities inliving systems, and their tendencies to shiftfrom one to another of their preferentialregimes. Concepts like attractors in phasespace (or state space), differentiable flow,morphodynamical field, phase transitions,bifurcations, fluctuations etc. constitutepowerful tools for characterizing thedynamical properties of living systems.

The central nervous system as a closednetwork

The brain occupied a central place inFrancisco’s theory. Given the nervoussystem’s complexity and its properties ofconnectivity, the brain stands out as anideal candidate in the living world toactually embody a foundation for thedynamic core and to play a critical role inthe self-organization and complexity of thesystem’s eigenbehaviors.

Francisco’s more recent views on braindynamics (Varela et al. 2001; Varela1995b)14 are rooted in conceptions hedeveloped earlier in his work (Varela,1977b), that were influenced by “new”convergent trends: the re-discovery of theissues around self-organization in physics,and the re-discovery of self-organizingprocedures in AI (neo-connectionism). In1979, he was a l ready in terested in

13 Here the term ethology is used in a very general sense; it can be as complex as is imaginable in order to account for allobservable behaviors, up to the human ability to create. It can be plastic, i.e. possess a capability of self transformation throughadaptive metadynamics with a highly non linear determination, allowing progressive changes in the organizational closureitself.

FIGURE 2 – The eigenbehaviors and the dynamiccore.

Living systems are dynamical systems. They showensembles of eigenbehaviors, i.e. a specific ethology.Always transient, such eigenbehaviors can be seenas unstable dynamical tendencies in the trajectory ofthe system, represented here in an abstract statespace. They suggest the existence of self-organizingdynamical laws mechanically producing, throughinternal cooperative interactions, the richness of thesystem’s behavior and constituting its “dynamiccore.” (see Le Van Quyen, 2003, in this issue fortechnical developments)


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“explaining the emergence of large scalecoherences in complex neural-like nets,”emphasizing that “statistical reasoningcould be used to characterize genericbehaviors of the network” (cf. Varela,1986a).

Following Maturana (1969), and usingthe same logic used for autonomous systemsin general, Francisco proposed “movingtowards viewing the brain as a systemcharacterized not by its inputs, but by theoperational closure of its dynamics ofs tates, ” as a complement to thecomputat ional is t v iew on cogni t iveprocessing (Varela, 1984b; Varela, 1977b).Francisco and Maturana insisted on theclosed and recurrent character of brainorganization: “the nervous system is anoperationally closed network of neurons ininteraction” (Varela, 1979).

Although the central nervous systemappears to the neuroanatomist as a veryhierarchical and differentiated system withstrong functional divisions (such as thesensory-motor div is ion), i ts internalrecursiveness led Maturana to state: “thenervous system, as a mode of organization,seems to begin at any arbitrary point thatwe may choose to consider” (Maturana,1969). Inspired by Erich von Holst andMittelstaedt, Francisco referred to thehighly recurrent neuroanatomical structureof bra in networks as the “Law ofReciprocity”: “if a region A—say, a corticalarea, or a specific nucleus—connects toanother reg ion B, then B connectsreciprocally back to A, albeit by a differentanatomical route.”

The kinds of operations taking place inthe bra in depend st rongly upon i tsinterconnectedness, its recurrent graph ofconnect iv i ty, showing very speci f ic,reciprocal (neuroanatomical) mappingsbetween various distributed internal brainsurfaces, with highly differentiated sub-networks. As a consequence of these

massive re-entries (reciprocal connections),the brain shows a sustained endogenousactivity (cf. Edelman and Tononi, 2000).Examples of this are the osci l latorybehaviors elicited by the intertwining ofthe reticulo-thalamo-cortical networks, thecortico-cortical networks and the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical networks, whichcan be indirectly observed through thebrainwaves in EEGs or MEGs. Neuraleigenbehaviors emerge from among theseendogenous oscillations through distant,non- l inear, recurs ive interact ions indistributed neural networks (Varela et al,2001; cf. Le Van Quyen in the same issue).15

We note here that, as for organizationallyclosed systems in general, closure in thebrain is not incompatible with openness.The central nervous system is, of course,open to interactions with the body and itssurroundings in a circular mode, as will beextensively developed in the followingsections on embodiment. The vision of thebrain as a “closed” network, as emphasizedhere, is intended to highlight its power ofendogenous spontanei ty and se l f -organizat ion. Such c losure appearsnatural ly as an important source oforganization of the system’s dynamic core.

Autonomous systems are mutual lyembedded subsystems

Through the concepts of autopoiesis andoperational closure we have introduced thegeneral characteristics of the kind ofmachines humans are: autonomous systems.As the example of the brain as a closedsystem that is nonetheless open to itsenvironment has shown, one of the featuresstressed by Francisco is that we areconstituted of many embedded sub-systemsin interaction (Fig 3).

An organism (and this is particularly truefor higher organisms) is composed of highly

14 It can be noted here that Francisco’s work on epilepsy with Michel Le Van Quyen and Jacques Martinerie actually becamefor him a laboratory for studying, at a fundamental research level, the properties of the dynamical patterns in the brain.

15 The need to elucidate the coherence of behavior and cognition, and, in particular, sensory-motor coordination, led Franciscoto hypothesize mechanisms of internal coherency, involving self-organizing regulation of temporal relationships in the brainsystem. This brought him to the hypothesis of “ensembles of transiently correlated neurons,” working in the system, that areboth “the source and the result from the activity of sensory and effector surfaces” (Varela, 1991). These views have beenextensively confirmed (cf. Varela et al, 2001 for a review).


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differentiated structures and organizations,including many long distance physiologicalinteractions between the multiple sub-systems it contains (for example organs, ona macroscopic scale, and cel ls on amicroscopic one). The autonomous systemas a real biophysical entity is spatially andfunctionally distributed. Moreover, theinteractions are costly in time and energy;thus one can consider the many sub-systemsin the organism as having a certainautonomy relative to others. Some sub-systems have a certain degree of closuredue to both their specific internal processesand time constants, and to the long-rangeconnect ions that rest r ic t poss ib leinteractions among sub-systems to a finitedelay. According to Francisco, this relativeautonomy is particularly obvious in theimmune network and the nervous system.

Naturally, the definition of a “sub-system”is always somewhat arbitrary.16 Forinstance, in an autonomous framework, thebrain, as a sub-system, can be viewed as acontrolled system that is hierarchicallydependent on the rest of the system, theindividual body. Yet the brain can also beseen as an “autonomous” center o fbehavioral organization for the body: “thenervous system, the body and theenvi ronment are h igh ly s t ructureddynamical systems, coupled to each otheron multiple levels”; they are “mutuallyembedded systems” (Thompson and Varela,2001).

It can be deduced from such a circulardistr ibuted framework wi th mult ip ledifferent embedded time constants andbiophysical pathways of interactions, thatautonomous systems are fundamentallyrecurrent systems wi th delays. Thismultiplication of the recurrent levels ofinteract ion can be a source of sel f-perturbation in the system, the propertiesof which we will look at later in this article.

Such an embedded organization, with thehigh level of constraints of mutual influencebetween d is t r ibuted sub-st ructures(involving a finite time of propagation inphysio logica l , b iochemical , or evenbiomechanica l networks) makes thesystem’s dynamics highly non -linear17.Since the identity of the system depends onthe dynamics of its mutually embeddedsystems, i t is perpetual ly at r isk ofbreakdown, of divergence; it is, so to speak,“operating at the edge of chaos.” Identity isintrinsically precarious and intrinsicallyfragile.18

FIGURE 3 – The autonomous system as a mutualembedding of subsystems.

Diagramatic evocation of a “hierarchy” of systemlevels: systems S

i-1* , S

i-1** , S

i-1*** , … of level (i – 1)

constitute system Sij at level i; similarly, systems S

i*,

Si** , S

i*** , …of level i constitute system S

i+1 at level

(i+1 ); and Si+1

together with other systems of level(i+1 ) will constitute a system at level (i+2 ); and soon, upward and downward.

The organism is thought

of as an organizational closure of interacting sub-systems.

16 At the level of the whole system it is difficult to define a hierarchy of relations: “At a given level of the hierarchy, a particularsystem can be seen as an outside to systems below it, and as an inside to system above it: thus, the status (i.e. the mark ofdistinction) of a given system changes as one passes through its level, in either the upward or the downward direction. Thechoice of considering the level above or below corresponds to a choice treating the given system as autonomous or controlled(constrained)” (Goguen and Varela, 1979).

17 These notions that Francisco developed are certainly very general, but have to be considered in the context of the precisephysiological specifications of a given system, with all the integrated sub-systems it includes (the specificity of itsorganizational closure) that define the functional relations it has in the different contexts it encounters.


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SELFLESS SELF, EMBODIED MIND

After having sketched out the basics ofFrancisco’s theory of autonomy andoperational closure, two actors take onparticular importance in his approach: thewhole individual as an autonomous systemand a fundamental level of organization,and its brain, as an organizing embeddedsub-system.

In this section we will try to specify howFrancisco conceived the “shaping” of amind within such a framework of autonomyand circular causality by means of a firststep towards the concrete phenomenologyof the embodiment. It is indeed essential tokeep in mind that we are not only talkingabout an abstract way of dealing with thefundamental properties of the living, butalso about our own organizational anddynamical condition in the concrete domainof our flesh, which is at the root of ourexperience (Varela et al, 1991).

Francisco’s entire conception of mind andultimately of experience is concerned withthe constraints exerted by the specificphenomenology of our concrete coping(Varela, 1999b) upon our internal dynamicsas autonomous systems, and reciprocally,the effects of the latter upon the former, ina circular framework. Thus, his approach isgrounded in “the disenchantment of theabstract” and the “re-enchantment of theconcrete” (Varela, 1995a). He rejectedpurely computational, logical, views of themind in favor of a “concrete, embodied,lived” description of the processes. Inkeeping with his systemic framework, hisapproach to embodiment proposes anoriginal way to define the problematic“locus” of the mind.

Basics of Embodiment

According to Francisco, if we want tounderstand what the mind is, it is not enough

to observe the specific brain structuresinvolved in the functioning mind. There isa gap in terms of insight when we try tomake the realm of mind fit into a brainstructure or even into a brain response.This does not mean that some parts or sub-processes of the system are not more crucialthan others for the emergence of subjectiveexperience and consciousness, just as thereare organs that are more vital than others.Certainly, the loss of certain parts of one’sbody or one’s brain (after an accident forinstance), does not generally lead to thedisappearance of the properties that makeus “minded” subjects (although often theyappear very altered); nonetheless somesubstructures in the brain, as well as somespecific processes, appear crucial andlimiting for the constitution of mind or thepossibil ity of consciousness.19 Thesesubstructures are only critical nodes for themind’s functioning. They cannot be themind itself.20

Such considerations led Francisco to adramatic conclusion: “the mind is not inthe head” (Varela, 1999b; Thompson andVarela, 2001).

The domain of constitution of the mindmust therefore be sought in “brain-body-world divisions” and certainly not in “brain-bound neural events”: “we conjecture thatconsciousness depends crucially on themanner in which brain dynamics areembedded in the somatic and environmentalcontext of the animal’s life, and thereforethat there may be no such thing as a minimal,internal neural correlate whose intrinsicpropert ies are suf f ic ient to produceconscious experience” (Thompson andVarela, 2001).

The first step, Francisco claimed, is toconsider that “the mind cannot be separatedfrom the entire organism. We tend to thinkthat the mind is in the brain, in the head, butthe fact is that the environment also includesthe rest of the organism; includes the factthat the brain is intimately connected to all

18 Thus, at the level of system/environment interactions, Francisco stressed the notion of “contretemps” between the autonomoussystem and its surroundings.

19 This has been well demonstrated by neuropsychology (see Damasio, 1994, 1999).

20 Along the same lines, the philosophical fiction of a brain isolated in a bath with a functioning and conscious mind was an absurdidea according to Francisco. It would just produce incoherent activity (Varela, 1999b).


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of the muscles, the skeletal system, theguts, and the immune system, the hormonalbalances and so on and so on. It makes thewhole thing into an extremely tight unity.In other words, the organism as a meshworkof entirely co-determining elements makesi t so that our minds are, l i tera l ly ,inseparable, not only from the externalenvironment, but also from what ClaudeBernard already called the milieu intérieur,the fact that we have not only a brain but anent i re body” (Vare la, 1999b) . As aconsequence of closure, this irreducibleembodiment of our biophysical structureappeared to Francisco as a radical prison :“We can’t get out from the domain definedby our own body and our nervous system.Only one world exists for us: the one we areexper iencing by these physio logicalprocesses that make us what we are. We aretaken in a cognitive system, from which wecan’t neither escape, nor chose where itbegins or how it works” (Varela, 1988a).

We frequently talk about sensory-motoror action-perception loops. Francisco isknown for his enactive approach, in whichthe system’s “coping” is described as 1)mediated by perpetual sensory-motor loopsand 2) mediated by the ongoing endogenouspattern of its brain activity, defining thespecific “coupling” of the system with itssurroundings (Varela et al, 1991) (Fig 4).

In his last article with Evan Thompson(Thompson and Varela 2001), he proposedthe concept of “cycles of operation”referr ing to the mult i - level speci f icphenomenology of the individual concreteoperations taking place during integratedsequences of behavior, in which cognitiveacts and mind take place. Through a highlyspecific phenomenology, the cycles ofoperations include, notably, organismicregulation, ongoing sensorimotor coupling,cogni t ive acts and in ter - ind iv idualinteractions (Thompson and Varela, 2001).The drama of the “cycles of operation”occurs, therefore, within a very particularfield of constraints, that of the entireorganism and its surroundings.

The minimal level of the operationalcycles is thus the brain-body system.Francisco described early on the genericcircular causality between brain and bodyas follows. 1) The organism, including thenervous system, is the physical andbiochemical environment of the autopoiesisof the neurons and other cells. It is thereforea source of physical and biochemicalper turbat ions which t ransform theproperties of the neurons and lead tocouplings 2 and 3. 2) Certain physical andbiochemical s ta tes of the organismtransform the state of activity of the neuralnetwork by act ing on the membrane

FIGURE 4 – The operational closure of the embodied system.

As a circular process, an individual is engaged in the continuous cycles of operation defined by itseigenbehaviors. Three levels of circular causality are distinguished in the figure: (i) the level of the centralnervous system as a closed dynamical system; (ii) the level of the sensory-motor mutual definition of the stateof the brain and of the body; (iii) and the level of the ongoing coupling between the autonomous system andits surroundings, including potential inter-individual interactions.


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receptors of certain neurons, leading to thecoupling 3. 3) Certain states of the nervoussystem change the state of the organismand lead anew to couplings 1 and 2. (Varela,1979).

As implied by the enactive approach, thisembodied (brain/body) conception of themind’s functioning through cycles ofoperation, that include at a certain levelsubjective sequences, does not, of courseexclude the grappling with the environment.The embodied mind is not a “solipsist ghost”(Varela, 1991). It works in the “body-in-space,” which contributes to its shaping.The ongoing, endogenous regimes ofactivity in the brain embedded in therhythms of organism regulat ion andphysiology, must be conceived as takingplace within a constant sensory-motorcoping between the system and i tssurroundings: “animality invents a mode ofbeing which is inseparable from movement,going towards, seeking in movement”(Varela and Depraz 2000).

In accordance with the views of thephilosopher Merleau-Ponty, the sensoryprocesses of the brain are conceived indirect relation to the organization of themotor eigenbehaviors of the whole system,i.e. its ethology. Motor behaviors definehow sensory interfaces will be modulatedin a specific situation: “the state of activityof sensors is brought about most typicallyby the organism’s motions” (Varela, 1991).Thus, given this intimate link between brainactivity and action, we must consider the“situatedness” of the autonomous system—its part icular engagement in specif icsituations—as fundamental to the “neuro-logic.”

From the standpoint of Francisco’senactive perspective (Varela et al, 1991),the system lends signi f icance to i tssurroundings, creates a meaningful worldthrough its organizational closure, a worldthat the environment doesn’t possess byitself: “like jazz improvisation, environmentprovides the “excuse” for the neural

“music” from the perspective of thecognitive system involved” (Varela, 1991).But if, in Francisco’s view, the environmentdoesn’t contain pre-defined informationthat is independent of the “domain ofcoupling“ that the autonomous systemdefines, it literally in-forms the system’scoping21.

As a complex, distr ibuted, circularbiophysical system that is self-affirming,“the body is the place of intersection of thedifferent identities emerging from closure,which makes it so that inside and outsideare intricated. We are and we live in suchan intertwined place. Our body doesn’thave a single external identity alone butconst i tutes a meshwork div ided andinter twined wi thout any other so l idfoundat ion than i ts own procedura l[processuelle] determination” (Varela andCohen, 1989).

So, what is embodied?

The not ion of “cycles of operat ion”(Thompson and Varela, 2001) conceptuallycircumscribes the deployment of theembodied mind as a process that takes placein a context of constant coping. It providesthe understanding of mind with a kind of“unity of action,” that evokes its dynamicalstatus and temporal extension. Here wewill look more closely at how Franciscoapproached the issue of the locus of thisembodied mind. The central problem istherefore how to define the correct level ofexistence of what we intuitively call themind.

The term itself, em-bodiment, refers tosomething immanent to the system, shapingits way of being in the world, its way ofbeing coupled. In Francisco’s v iew,cognition was nothing other than thisdynamical “coupl ing” (Varela, 1981;Varela, 1983). From a phenomenologicalpoint of view, in our daily apprehension,our mind appears as a very integrated

21 Francisco considered, from a strictly operational point of view, that interactions between brain and environment throughsensor-motor interfaces could be seen more as perturbations of an autonomous endogenous dynamics than as the processingof external information: “the fundamental logic of the nervous system is that of coupling movements with a stream of sensorymodulations in a circular fashion” (Varela, 1991).


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phenomenon, which extends beyondconscious experience; it behaves as a globalphenomenon actively asserting its identity,our identity, with a certain autonomy. Wecould say that, as such, the mind behaves asa self-concerned cognition, or, in theframework of autonomous systems, a modeof persistence, i .e. a dynamic core,associated with a way of interacting, oftenwith itself.

Francisco liked to use intuitions from ourdaily experience, and considered it as avalid domain of investigation. He illustratedthe irreducible “global” nature of the mindas embodied through the way we as humansinteract among ourselves. For you, I’m anentity that interacts with you in a non-compact temporal process (if you look atthe prec ise phenomenology of ourinteractions): my answers to your questions,as you can see when you are waiting forthem, take time; my mind’s operations taketime. My concrete mind also acts as anactual though indirect level of coupling,which you can perceive through oursustained exchange and communication,that involves a global synergy of corporaloperations engaging me as an individual.This global level of me as an individualappearing in our mind-related interactionsis “a mode of existence of which you cannotsay it doesn’t exist. (‘Francisco doesn’texist’)”, and without which nothing realwould remain of what leads you to see meas minded or imbued with a subjectivity.There is a domain of mutual coupling andmutual determination in which the person-whole is brought forth. This ontologicallevel of the behaving whole in my bodycannot be denied. As soon as you try toreduce it to independent sub-systems, youlose it. This resistance to reduction is thedirect expression of its systemic nature.Francisco claimed: “I’m an integrated, moreor less harmonic unity that I call ‘myself’or ‘my’ mind, and you interact with me atthat level: ‘Hi, Francisco.’ That interactionis happening at the level of individuality,which is the global, the emergent. Yet weknow that the global is at the same timecause and consequence of the local actionsthat are going on in my body all the time”(Varela, 1999b). Thus, from both the

biophysical and the concrete experientialpoints of view, there is no central “I,” otherthan the one sporadically actualized in al inguis t ic , se l f - re ferent ia l mode incommunication. The “I” can only belocalized as an emergence but it acts as thecenter of gravity of the subject himself, ofhis real-life experience”(Varela, 1993).

So, “if the mind is not in the head, wherethe hell is it?” The answer takes the form ofan enigmatic paradox: “[that’s] preciselythe point here: it is in this non-place of theco-determination of inner and outer, so onecannot say that is outside or inside” (Varela,1999b). My mind is a “selfless self” (or“virtual self”): “a coherent whole which isnowhere to be found and yet can provide anoccasion for coupling” (Varela, 1991).Because of its radical embodiment, the mindis not a substantial mind: “The mind neitherexists nor does it not exist [...] it is and itisn’t there” (Varela, 1999b). Finally: “itdoes not physically or functionally resideanywhere” (Varela, 1997c).

If we want to insist on looking at the mindobjectively, as a “cycle of operation,” thatwe can describe, we might be satisfied withconsidering it as a spatially and temporallydistributed process that behaves in a waythat corresponds to a “mind.” The mind asa phenomenology in action, viewed fromeither a first- or a third-person perspective,can be described as a behavior, literallysituated in a specific cycle of operation.Francisco thus conceived of i t as a“behavioral cognition” working “at thelevel of a spatially behavioral bodily entity”(Varela, 1991). The notion of “behavioralcognition” equates having a mind withhaving a particular behavior. Franciscoasserted that each of us, as a “minded”living being, is a dynamical process opento interaction with others and itself. The“locus” of the mind is an “emergencethrough a distributed process” within theorganizational closure. But, as a process oforganization, “a non-substantial self cannevertheless act as if present, like a virtualinterface” (Varela, 1991).

Here we must be carefu l not tomisinterpret Francisco: as we said earlier,he had no doubt as to the mechanical originof this global entity. “Virtual entity”


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(Varela, 1997c) or not, dual ism andfunctionalism are excluded. As stated inthe f i rst sect ion with respect to thefundamental expression of embodiment, allwholeness in the physical space is theorganizational closure of its parts, and, assuch, is rad ica l ly embedded in i tsinteracting constituents and processes andis continuously generated by them. Mind isan aspect of the “pattern in flux” in whichour concrete, biophysical being l ives(Varela, 1999b). It depends on multiplelevels of constitution, and is a way in whichthe system is coupled within itself and withthe environment.

As such, i t conserves the genera lproperties of the autonomous systemsdescribed above. That is, the mechanicalconservation of an identity, brought forthby an internal dynamic core, in a specificembodiment, giving rise to a history ofcoupling through the particular coping ofthe system with its environment, definingregularities and making a particular beingin the world. As a biophysical process of“bringing forth” identity, it is not surprisingthat phenomenologically our mind has aself-affirming quality. Physically, thisoperation of “bringing forth” can be relatedin part to the non-linear dynamics of thebrain, since the brain is the strongest sourceof self-organization in us and the mostplastic one: “the operational closure of thenervous system then brings forth a specificmode of coherence, which is embedded inthe organism. This observable coherence isa cognitive self : a unit of perception/motionin space, sensory-motor invar iancesmediated through the interneuron network[...] the cognitive self is the manner inwhich the organism through its own self-produced activity becomes a distinct entityin space, but a lways coupled to i tscorresponding environment from which itremains nevertheless distinct” (Varela,1991).22 Thus, from the point of view of theexternal observer, the experimentalist forexample, who must voluntarily distancehimself from the natural coupling with hisobject, this cognitive self evokes the

embodied waves of an active dynamic corereverberating through the entire livingbody. Its determination, or persistenceremind us of what we usually think of aswill.

As embodied acting selves, we are aglobal dynamical process, in a dynamicalequilibrium, emerging and acting frominteractions of constituents and interactionsof in teract ions: “organisms, thosefascinating meshworks of selfless selves,no more, nor less than open-ended, multi-level circular existences, always driven bythe lack of significance they engender byasserting their presence” (Varela, 1991).

However, Francisco viewed the body as adynamical “locus where a corporal ego canemerge” (Varela and Cohen, 1989). Thisissue of the ego giving rise to a sense of selfmust be situated in Francisco’s theory in avery particular field of causality, that shapesembodiment.

The morphodynamical f ie ld and i tsdialectics with the dynamic core

With the notion of the cycle of operationwe have begun to specify the nature of thesystem’s coping and the notion of theselfless self as a dynamical, embodiedexpression of the dynamic core at work inthe individual. But how does the selflessself take on a form so that it “looks like”our experience from the inside? The livedego of the embodied mind must be thoughtof as the continuous shaping of the dynamiccore. But again, beyond the basics of thespeci f ic medium of our embodimentsketched above, it is essential to understandthe levels of causal i ty at which theembodied coping, that constitutes our mind,occurs. One of the fundamental sources ofshaping, according to Francisco, was thebody shape itself: “ the most specificproperty of multicellular organisms is toshow a form. This last one gives a body totheir operational closure and become thekey to understand many dimensions of theiroperations” (Varela, 1988b).

22 Here we should note how close Francisco’s conceptions about the importance of the body and the interactions between thebrain and the body in the “making of consciousness” are to Damasio’s (1994,1999,2001).


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If there is a “reciprocal determination”(Varela and Frenk, 1987) between globalstructures and parts of systems, as thehypothesis of closure implies, the specificstructural and morphological organizationof the body must have a “structuring” causalrole. According to Francisco, shapes or formsin themselves, of the whole body as well asof its parts, should have a causal role in thedynamics of the system. They are an“ongoing medium” and a “specif ied/specifying space:” “The intuition behindour framework is that space is a constitutiveelement in the dynamics of living organismsjust as much as the solidity of their molecularconstituents” (Varela and Frenk, 1987).

Now, we are dealing with what we couldcall a “dense” living body, perpetuallyacting, moving, transforming from oneeigenbehavior to another in its cycles ofoperation, in such a way that more thanexternal shape, i t is the g lobalmorphodynamical behavior of its integratedstructures which appears central to the wayi t behaves as a whole autonomousorganization. The field of embodiment is amorphodynamical field.23 In Francisco’sframework this concept complements themore general notion of organizationalc losure. Appl ied to the issue ofembodiment, it emphasizes the constraintsthat instantaneous morphological states ofthe body can exert on the whole system. Ofcourse in the case of a biological organismthis is an abstraction which must beconceived of as acting through specificfunctional or biomechanical pathways in aspecific organizational closure.

Francisco called for “a research program inwhich to understand biological shape,” andits “morphodynamical constraints” (Varela,1988b). Such morphodynamical constraintscan be found in the biomechanical degrees offreedom of a specific body, defining a limited

set of possible behaviors, as well as in itsspecif ic visco-elast ic responses toperturbations. The dynamics of internalliquids are also very important. Franciscoconsidered that the extracellular matrix(ECM)—the extracellular medium whichforms a “continuum” and links all the bodyparts to make a whole—was a very importantbiomechanical medium for morphodynamicalcausality: “As in the notion of a field and itscorresponding particles, there is in livingshape a dynamic complementarity: the entireglobal shape of the body affects the localconditions for the ECM/cell relationship, butat the time the local dynamics conditionshow the entire body is actually built” (Varelaand Frenk, 1987)24. The body organs andtissue mechanics as well as the properties ofdeformation of the muscular-skeletal andtegument systems should also play afundamental role in the shaping of theendogenous dynamics of the whole system.All these levels of mechanical causality canaffect the whole system and its dynamic corethrough the interconnections of i tsorganizational closure, i.e. through nervous,hormonal and mechanical pathways. At themost integrated level, posturology can beunderstood as an initial or boundary conditionfor the enactive dynamics of the system, towhich the internal morphodynamics of thebrain’s eigenbehaviors, in a shaped sensory-motor coupling, responds.

Within such a framework, the “cycles ofoperation” referred to above become“morphocycles” (Varela and Frenk, 1987).With each sensory-motor cycle in thebehavior of the system, a morphocycle iscompleted, with its causality potential onthe evolution of the system’s dynamics.

This potential for effective dynamicaldeformations through the shaped closureof the system is an important point in theconsideration of the constitutive role of the

23 Morphodynamics was developed by the French mathematician René Thom and applied in France to cognitive sciences byJean Petitot (cf. Petitot, 1992), in order to address the physics of natural forms. The notion of field comes from physics,designating the structure of laws of interaction within a space. Although highly developed by Thom and Petitot in many fields,including biological morphogenesis, and for the later study of self-organization in neural networks, the application ofmorphodynamics to the issue of mind embodiment is barely under construction and is still seeking precise operationalizations.

24 It can be noted that such mechanical influence of morphological constraints on the cell dynamics (cell growth, differentiation,secretion, movement, signal transduction, and gene expression) has been demonstrated and related to mechanotransductionthrough the tensed network of the cytoskeleton in the cell, which can be considered to be a tensegrity system, a contraction of“tension” and “gravity” (cf. Ingber, 1997 for a review).


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body in the subjective properties of asystem. Shaping i ts embodiment , i tconstrains the possible view from within,as a biomechanical horizon instituting adialogue, (that may, potentially, containconflicts), within the brain and between thebrain and body dynamics25.

Reciprocal causality in embodiment

Francisco was looking for some essentialaspect of mind processes in the globaloperation of the system, viewed not only asan emergent property but also as anorganizing (and therefore causal) factor. Inthis section we will go into more detail onthis issue, which is related to the global/local levels of causality in the embodimentof mind. In keeping with the paradigm ofautonomy, the basic idea is to cut throughthe opposit ion between vi tal ism andreductionism by considering the mechanisticbraiding together of the local and the globalin the determinism of the individual.

Francisco is known for his emergentistpoint of view on cognition, but he wasalways distrustful of certain uses of thenotion of “emergence.” This notion, he said,is often “gifted with some mystical ability”(Vare la, 1971) . In i t ia l ly , Franc iscoassociated the notion of emergence withthe connectionist paradigm, which heconsidered as limited (for epistemologicalreasons that we won’t discuss here),emphasiz ing that emergence s imply

corresponds to the appearance of globalbehaviors, patterns resulting from localinteractions in networks, through relaxationprocesses. Emergence was a fundamentallyupward phenomenon in Franc isco’sthinking, working from the local to thecollective (Varela, 1990) 26. Only in hislater works (Thompson and Varela, 2001),for purposes of simplification, he did notlimit the notion to upward phenomena.

In order to embody the idea of a causalrole of global-level processes in physicalsystems, Francisco proposed early on thenotion of “reciprocal causality betweenthe local rules of interactions, (i.e. thecomponent rules, which are akin to chemicalinteractions), and the global properties ofthe entity, (its topological demarcationaffecting diffusion and creating localconditions for reaction); these relationshave the same organizational effect ofboundary conditions as does autopoiesis”(Varela, 1991). Reciprocal causality meansthat there is “two-way traffic” betweenupward causation (initially “emergence”)and downward causation or “downwardeffect” (Varela, 1990; Varela, 1999b;Thompson and Varela, 2001).27

Here, the notion of cause does not havethe local value of “efficient causation,” butthat of “structuring causes,” “contextsensitive constraints” (Thompson andVarela, 2001) that shape the responseproperties of the system as in a field. Thisidea was already well developed in Not onenot two (1976).28

25 As a result of the organism structure, the morphodynamics of the system should also be subject to the constraints of delaytransmission in the system. Shape cycles could be consequently subject to constraints of propagation through the functionalpathways of the system. Transformations of the whole system could work somehow as inertial propagative waves flowing intoits recursive structure, affecting the dynamic core in a delayed mode. The consequences of such an idea will be developed inthe last section of this review in order to gain insight on what we have called at the beginning of this article, the Nagel Effect,the hypothetical subjective effect of having objective processes, i.e. of purely spatial-temporal processes.

26 In emergence, interconnected simple units can form complex systems and give rise to “a powerful and integrated whole,without the need for a central supervision” (Varela, 1991). Emergent processes are at work in many scientific domains: lasers,chemical oscillation, cells, genetic networks, development, genetics of populations, immune and neural networks, ecology andgeophysics.

27 At the scale of the cell, the downward effects can be found in its topological demarcation, which affects diffusion and createslocal conditions for reactions (Varela, 1997a), or in “ changes in control parameters and boundary conditions” (Thompson andVarela, 2001), i.e. in “the constraints on the local interaction due to the global coherence” (Varela, 1999b).

28 In this article he proposed the conception of the global and local relationships, although in an asymmetrical relation, as a“duality” in which the two levels mutually specify each other: the system / the process leading to it. Francisco proposed eventhe notion of “trinity,” in a pure logical sense (he was working on arithmetic), without any spiritualist meaning, to characterizethis relation: not a new synthesis, but “just expressions of a relation” of co-dependence, in which a “bottom-up evolution” anda “top-down devolution” take place between the two levels.


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We thus have a bootstrapping of twoterms: (i) a dynamical term that refers to anassembly of components in networkinteractions that are capable of emergentproper t ies: metabol ic nets , neura lassemblies, clonal antibody networks,linguistic recursivity, mind, consciousness; (ii) a global term which refers to emergentproper t ies, inc lud ing consc iousness(Thompson and Varela, 2001), which(downwardly) condit ion the networkcomponents: cellular membranes, sensory-motor body in space, se l f /non-se l fdiscrimination, personal ‘I’, and “the twoterms are truly in a relation of co-definition”(Varela, 1991). 29

Holism/reductionism: a false controversy

To understand the groundwork ofFrancisco’s thinking about embodiment andcausality it is necessary to lay out someimportant aspects of his “epistemology.”His epistemological thought is anchored inhis particular point of view on systems and,in particular, in the issue of global/localrelations. It is particularly important tokeep this in mind, in order to guard againstspiritualist or vitalist interpretations of histhinking. He is known to be have a non-reductionist position about consciousnessor wholeness, but his non-reductionism hasa very specific significance in his theory. Itconcerns global/local and organization/structure relationships in a framework thatis perfectly compatible with mechanisticaccounts.

As we have seen, Francisco claimed thatcircular processes of closure offer the bestapproach for understanding the living. Hedistinguished this point of view from theusual input-output approach of CognitiveScience. He always stressed that “clearlythese two views (input and closure) are notcontradictory, but the important point is torecognize that they lead to radicallydifferent consequences, and to radicallydifferent experimental approaches as well”(Varela, 1984a).

He considered both reductionism andholism to be erroneous points of view. Thecorrect position is one that considers themutual dependency of the two domains ofexplanation which, in fact, are for himdefinitively complementary.30

NEUROPHENOMENOLOGY

The first two sections have followedFrancisco’s constructive pathway from theemergence of biological identity to itscomplex evolution into human embodiedcognition. The general properties of thebiophysical organization in which wesubsist as a circular dynamical process havebeen discussed with reference to conceptssuch as autonomy, operational closure andcircular causality. Objective considerationsabout the properties of autonomous systemsallowed us to understand the generic basesof the emergence of a self, and helped to setup the domain of explanat ion byemphasizing that the problem is radicallydynamical . The organism’s ident i ty ,

29 The distinction between the two levels is somewhat artificial, but it is a theoretical distinction for gaining insights into, forinstance, the properties of a living being and its mind embodiment. In the real working of the system, all is continuous circularprocesses.

30 With respect to the complementarity of the approaches, Francisco emphasized that: “to consider hierarchical non-circularinteractions is quite possible, but they cannot account for the re-entering ones, which can, instead, be seen to arise from themby an infinite approximation. Thus the study of forms, open or closed, is a ground, on which there is a superation of thedichotomy holism/reductionism” (Varela and Goguen, 1977). In another article he explained: “It is not that one has to have aholistic view as opposed to reductionist view, or vice versa, but rather that the two views of systems are complementary [...]there is a strong current in contemporary culture advocating “holistic” views as some sort of cure-all [...] Reductionism impliesattention to a lower level while holistic implies attention to higher level. These are intertwined in any satisfactory description:and each entails some loss relative to our cognitive preferences, as well as some gain [...] there is no whole system without aninterconnection of its parts and there is no whole system without an environment” (Varela, 1977a). The two ways of consideringthe properties of a system, reductionist and holistic, can be compared respectively to a hierarchical tree or pointed graphdescription versus a network (or graph) description. Both approaches are mathematically equivalent and quite complementary,as can be demonstrated by the existence of morphisms from one to another (Varela and Goguen, 1977). The difference lies inthe recognition of specific levels of organization (cf. also Goguen and Varela, 1979).


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construed as a dynamical “bringing forth”in an embodied and situated field, hasi l luminated the mind problem byposit ioning it as a complex dialecticbetween a dynamic core and the morpho-dynamical field of the body, emphasizingin Franc isco’s theory the rad ica lintertwining of subjectivity and biophysics.Yet, it is important to highlight that, so far,the point of view of the organism has beenstudied and characterized from the outside,by an observer who basically relies on his/her own experience of being alive andconscious in order to infer the internalpoint of view of the agent.

Francisco thought that the precisemodalities of this intertwining between oursubjective experience and its biophysicalroots should be addressed with a rigorousmethodology taking fully into account theconcrescence of the experiential andphenomenal domains.

The issue

Francisco insisted on the importance ofconsidering the constitution of “experiencefrom the point of view of the subjecthimself, a lived world” (Varela, 1999d).For Francisco, first-person events are “thelived experience associated with cognitiveand mental events” (Varela and Shear,1999b).31 This is the starting point ofNeurophenomenology and the level atwhich all our questioning necessarilybegins.

In neurophenomenology, one now dealswith a pragmatic approach where theobserver, the experimentalist, explicitlytakes into account a subject’s point of view,conceived as situated and embodied in itsown individuated space and time (Bitbol,

2002; for an empirical illustration see Lutzet al, 2002).

As we mentioned before, Francisco had anon-reduct ionist posi t ion concerning“subjective experience” in that he rejectedthe eliminativist position. 32 He also rejectedany a priori overrating of subjectiveexperience. Mysterianism (Nagel 1974),which claims that the limitations of ourcognition make insoluble the hard problem,leads nowhere.

On the contrary, his approach wasgrounded in the postulate that in many of itsaspects, human experience is not so subtle,evanescent and non-communicable that wecannot circumscribe it. In fact, Franciscopostulated the existence of a relatively fixedand f in i te structural archi tecture ofexperience: “we are similarly assuming thathuman experience (mine as well as yours),follows fundamental structural principleswhich, like space, enforce the nature ofwhat is given to us as contents of experience”(Varela, 1996).33

Although non-reductionist in the sensementioned above, Francisco’s proposalgoes beyond the simple search for the“ neurobio log ica l (bra in or bodi ly )correlates of consciousness” becausesimply studying correlates would “leave inthe shadow the precise circulation betweenthem” (Varela, 1997b). It would amount tojust “putting on one side a list of items orprocesses, and on the other seemingequivalencies as phenomenological dataand separating the two sides by a “mystery”line, a no-man’s land left unexamined”(Varela, 1997b). Francisco promotednaturalizing phenomenology as well as“phenomenologiz ing” neurosc ience(Vare la, 1999a) . i .e . not to reduceconsciousness but “re-enchant” the concreteof biology itself.

31 “the processes being studied (vision, pain, memory, imagination, etc.) appears as relevant and manifest for a ‘self’ or ‘subject’that can provide an account; they have a ‘subjective’ side.” (Varela and Shear, 1999a).

32 We must look for a “non-reductive explanation” in the sense that, in the end, it mustn’t lead to an “elimination” of experience,what we want to account for : “What should a natural science become to be fully adequate to phenomenological descriptionsthat could be naturalized but not epistemically reduced” (Varela, 1997b).

33 We can read also in the same article: “Do I expect the list of structural invariants relevant to human experience to grow adinfinitum ? Certainly not. I surmise that the horizon of fundamental topics can be expected to converge towards a corpus of well-integrated knowledge.”


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The explanans, the domain of explanation,the “ locus of c i rcu la t ion” forneurophenomenology” (Varela, 1997b), isnaturally embodiment : “data rooted in first-hand experience are intrinsically open to anon-reductive naturalization. This is thecentra l thes is that an imates theneurophenomenological research project,which is only possible if the central issuesof embodiment are put at the center ofconcern both for cognitive science (such asthe enact ive approach) and inphenomenology (such as in the later workof Husserl and its continuation in Merleau-Ponty). In fact, it is in the lived body broadlyconceived that one f inds “ the c loserelationship” between experience and itsgrounding (as both Leib and Körper). It isin that region of events that we are givenaccess to both the constitutive naturalelements familiar to cognitive science andthe required phenomenological data.”(Varela, 1997b).34

A methodological remedy for the hardproblem

Neurophenomenology is grounded on apragmat ic wi l l to progressively andsystematically “reduce the distance betweensubjective and objective [...] a way ofnarrowing the gap between the mental andthe physical” (Varela, 1997b).35

I n th i s pe rspec t i ve exper imen ta lparadigms and r igorous f i rst personmethodologies must be developed in orderto “examine experience.” This involves“b reak ing w i th the taboo o f us ing

phenomenal data as va l id” (Vare la,1999b) and according phenomenal data(Roy et al, 1999) a place as important astha t o f ob jec t i ve , neurodynamica l ,neurophysiological, or biophysical data.36

Howeve r , a s imp le und i sc ip l i nedi n t r o s p e c t i v e a p p r o a c h i s n o t t h esolution; the ‘just-take-a-look’ or ‘seeingi n s i d e ’ a t t i tude must be overcome.Neurophenomenology implies “gatheringa research community armed with newpragmatic tools for the development of ascience of consciousness.” This involves a“call for transforming the style and valuesof the research community itself,” in otherwords, that researchers themselves, as theyare specialists in neurosciences for instance,become specialists in the phenomenologyof conscious experience: “My proposalimplies that every good student of cognitivescience who is also interested in issues atthe level of mental experience, mustinescapably attain a level of mastery inphenomenological examination in order towork seriously with first-person accounts”(Varela and Shear, 1999b).

The idea is that developing the “skill ofphenomenological description” is l ikedeveloping a “know-how,” like “learning toplay an instrument or to speak a newlanguage”; it is a concrete “training” (Varelaand Shear, 1999b). Francisco wanted toinitiate within the Cognitive Science “asustained tradition of phenomenologicalexamination” cultivating “a systematiccapacity for reflexiveness” in “our habitualmind stream”37.

A fundamental aspect of this “training” isthat “[it] must be done in the context of a

34 The problem of “naturalizing phenomenology” (Petitot et al 1999) can be set out as one of the intertwining between the Leiband the Körper, German terms, both meaning “body,” used by Husserl to distinguish respectively the subjective and theobjective sides of our embodied condition (Varela, 1996).

35 On its methodological side, neuro-phenomenology is an “ experiential neuroscience ” (Varela, 1999b), it “ is the name I usehere to designate a quest to marry modern cognitive science and a disciplined approach to human experience” (Varela, 1996).

36 The expression “phenomenal data” is introduced as a “common first-person/third-person ground” for experience, (third-person referring here to the objective characterization of experience). In his classical acceptance, a phenomenon expresses that“something is for something else; it is a being for by opposition to a being in itself independently of its apprehension by anotherentity” (see Varela and Shear, 1999).

37 Such mechanisms could be fully investigated through a closer examination of experience itself. As he noted: “ there are,numerous instances where we perceive phenomena pre-reflexively without being consciously aware of them, but where a‘gesture’ a method of examination will clarify or even bring these pre-reflexive phenomena to the fore. (...) what is beingobjected here is the naive assumption that the demarcation line between the strictly subpersonal and the conscious is fixed. .”


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disciplined approach to the intersubjectivevalidation of conscious experience” (Varelaand Shear, 1999b). Subjective experienceis not completely a “private experience,” itcan be “shared.” Between the first-personaccount and the third-person point of view,we can work wi th an in termediatemediation, a “second-person position,” “anempathic resonator” (Varela and Shear,1999a).

Two main long-standing traditions weredeeply influential for Francisco. He foundin “contemplative traditions” the model parexcellence of a rigorous pragmatics for theinvest igat ion of consciousness: “Weexplicitly draw from Asian traditions,Buddhism in par t icu lar , as l iv ingmanifestation of an active, disciplinedphenomenology. It [is] not the intention[…] to dwell on Asian traditions per se butto use them as a distant mirror of what we[need] to cultivate in our science and thewestern tradition” (Varela, 1996).

On the other hand, he drew extensivelyon the work of philosophers like Husserl,Heidegger, the Kyoto school and Merleau-Ponty. These phi losophers producedaccurate operat ional descr ipt ions ofsubjective experience and, in particular,Husserl (cf. Husserl, 1970) proposed agenera l technique for invest igat ingconsciousness, making it “recognizable”(Varela, 1996): the Phenomenologicalreduct ion (PhR). In fact , Franc iscoconsidered that the husserlian corpus couldconstitute a research program in itself, a“husserlian neurophenomenology” (Varela,1997b) 38.

In the speci f ic f ramework ofneurophenomenology, Francisco sketchedthe process of reduction as:

1) Attitude. a “self-induced suspension ofreference to the contents”39, followed by a“redirect ion of thought” towards the“process of constitution” of the contents

themselves. The attitude is then to “[cut]short our quick and fast elaborations andbel iefs, in part icular […] putt ing inabeyance what we consider we think we‘should ’ f ind, or some ‘expected’description. Thus PhR is not a ‘seeinginside’, but a tolerance concerning thesuspension of conclusions that allows anew aspect or insight into the phenomenonto unfold” (Varela, 1996). Furthermore, wemust try to make the self-observingreflexive acts as automatic and discrete aspossible, as in certain contemplative states,its horizon being a “’pure’ (contentless)consc iousness” (Vare la and Shear ,1999b).40 The gesture of reduction caneither be self-induced or guided by amediator through open questions (Deprazet al 2003). In the latter case such questionsinvite the subject to redirect his/herattention towards the implicit know-howhe/she implemented to carry out the task,or towards the texture of his/her experienceduring its deployment.

2) Intuition. Phenomenological reductioninvolves a gain in intimacy towards thephenomenal domain of investigation. Theval idat ion of the per t inence of theexperience is therefore grounded on itsintuitive “evidence” (as in mathematics):“This gain in intimacy with the phenomenonis crucial, for it is the basis of the criteria oftruth in phenomenological analysis, thenature of its evidence” (Varela, 1996). ForFrancisco: “Intuition is not some fluffystuff.”

3) Invariants. A process of descriptionmust fo l low in order to def inephenomenological invariants. Such anextraction of invariants supposes a work oncontrolled “variations” of the subjectiveexperience, what Husserl called “eideticvar iat ions” in order to speci fy “ theappropriate dimensions of mental states”(Varela, 1996). These descriptive structural

38 Phenomenology “allows the foregrounding of a unique universal property of mental phenomena, namely the manner in whichthey are, in fact, conscious” (Varela, 1997b).

39 This letting go of the “natural attitude” was referred to by Husserl as an epoche, a suspension of judgements.

40 It is evident that such a reflexive act involves in itself supplementary internal processes, but the effect of this addition to thehabitual working of consciousness could be experimentally controlled, and self-observation is a quite natural attitude, whichconstitutes in itself a very interesting field of research.


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invariants must be open to intersubjectivevalidation. Evidence is shared evidence;intersubjectivity is central.

4) Training. In order for the method toserve as a concrete pragmatics: “If onedoes not cultivate the skill to stabilize anddeepen one’s capaci ty for a t tent ivebracketing and intuition, as well as the skillfor illuminating descriptions, no systematicstudy can mature.” 41. Thus training is afundamenta l aspect that recurs ive lypermeates the proposed methodology ateach step. Specific phenomenological statesmust be investigated through multiple “re-done” experiences by the researcherhimself. The search for stability naturallyopens up the possibility of working witht ra ined exper t subjects capable ofreproducing internal conscious states inexperimental situations.

Phenomenological invariants: the formallevel

Simple verbal reports are very interestingbut, in the end, they are limited. The natureo f phenomeno log ica l descr ip t ionsresult ing from reduction is essential:“Put t ing in to p roper re levance thestructural invariants of experience opensthe door for the right domain of formality”(Varela, 1997b). The formal level (Varela,1999b) appears thus as a fundamentalaspect of neurophenomenology.

The adequate spaces of representationfor the description of phenomenological

experience must be defined in relation toits very nature. Subjective experienceappears as a complex multidimensional fluxwi th emergent sa l ient moments ofperceptions, thoughts, imagination, mnesicrepresentat ions, vigi lance variat ions,attentional shifts, emotional changes, etc.Cognitive operations are embodied indynamical processes with a temporal texturethat is essential in their phenomenology.Consequent ly , phenomenologica ldescriptions call for “a dynamical picture”(Varela, 1997b): invariants are dynamical.

From this perspective, Francisco made a“strong” parallel between phenomenologyand mathematics (Varela, 1997b). Throughhis personal phenomenological exploration,he described subjective experience as a realdynamical system. For him the dynamicalsystem paradigm, was the right “bridge”(Varela, 1999a) between the two realms. Itis clear that in order to provide operationalphenomenological invariants, Francisco waslooking for a mathematizat ion ofphenomenology.42 “The critical role offormal tools is, in short, based on the Janus-faced nature of mathematical ideals: theyprovide eidetic invariants which can, in turn,be immediately linked to a naturalisticembodiment or implementation.” (Varela,1997b).43

Mutual constraints

Francisco described the pragmatic approachof reducing “the distance between subjective

41 He said: “This last aspect of the PhR [Phenomenological reduction] is perhaps the greatest obstacle for the constitution ofa research program since it implies a disciplined commitment from a community of researchers” (Varela, 1996).

42 The exigency of dynamical representations for the phenomenal data had not been really completed in the experimental worksalready directed by Francisco (presented below). The first way to provide with a true dynamical picture of the relationshipsbetween subjective experience and brain-body processes would be to compare temporal series of brain-body dynamics withtemporal series of subjective experience. This has caused us to work today as a team on the development of specific interfacesthat allow subjects to provide forms of accounts other than verbal ones, for instance, curves describing the temporal courseof their emotional feelings, and to address the problem of the objective temporal reference of the subjective experience(Varela, 1997b).

43 A five-step process thus emerges: 1) phenomenological data; 2) descriptive invariants; 3) mathematical models 4)mathematical descriptions 5) naturalistic implementations (Varela, 1997b). The level of formal description becomes a newcommon level or language of description between first person and third person data, intended to “make the image of a globalworkspace into an explicit mechanism” (Varela, 1997c). Besides, in Francisco’s view, it works as a third dimension in thepragmatic space of investigation: “we seek to produce epistemological and ontological shifts whereby the two domains ofnatural objects and phenomenological descriptions can provide a three-dimensional view of mind and experience altogether”(Varela, 1997b).


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and objective” as a search for progressivemutual determination, constraints orcirculation: “We need to advance a cognitivescience where there is a true circulationbetween lived experience and the biologicalmechanisms in a seamless and mutuallyilluminating manner” (Varela, 1996).

Biophys ica l or neurodynamicalinvestigations should help to illuminate thedomain of subject ive exper ience byconstraining it: “it is an axiom that we canonly experience what corresponds to ourorganization” (Varela, 1976). They shouldalso help to validate phenomenologicalaccounts by demonstrat ing the i rimplementation.

Reciprocally, the domain of subjectiveexperience is the tool for defining what wewant to account for, (the structure ofconsciousness) and for guiding our definitionof compatible physical processes. Forinstance, the dynamical phenomenology ofconsciousness made Francisco look for aparticular type of dynamical neurobiologicalprocess. Phenomenology thus becomes acentral criterion for the validation ofhypotheses about its physical determination:“ the novelty of my proposal is thatdisciplined first-person accounts should bean integral element of the validation of aneurobiological proposal, and not merelycoincidental or heuristic information”(Varela, 1996).

Francisco was looking for a profound levelof intertwining, at which the relationsbetween both domains would become clear:“this mutual reciprocity without residue isthe very nature of the region unique to thekörperleib” (Varela, 1997b) (cf. footnote 33).

This belief in the heuristic value of suchan exper imenta l in ter twin ing wasformulated as a working hypothesis:

Working Hypothes is ofNeurophenomenology: Phenomenologicalaccounts of the structure of experience andtheir counterparts in cognitive science relateto each other through reciprocal constraints(Varela, 1996).

The d ia lect ic approach of mutualconstraints must be seen as a pragmaticsintended to provide “generative passages”:“the isomorphic idea [between subjectiveand objective levels] is taken one step

forward to provide the passage where themutual constraints not only share logicaland epistemic accountability, but they arefur ther required to be operat ional lygenerative, that is, where there is a mutualcirculation and illumination between thesedomains proper to the entire phenomenaldomain” (Varela, 1997b).

In Neurophenomenology the subjectclearly has a double status: he/she is andacts as a subject in a particular task, but thesubject also needs to know about his/herown experience in order to report structuralfeatures about his/her experience. Franciscowas aware that such a situation raised afundamental issue: Neurophenomenologyrequires some degree of self-awareness,even implicit, to provide phenomenologicaldescriptions and structural insights. Butthis very process of becoming self-awarerequi red by the task could be sa idparadoxical ly to introduce unwantedcomplexity in the data and at the same timeto be the very process that science tries toaccount for. To integrate this aspect ofhuman experience necessarily involved inthe implementation of mutual constraints,Franc isco proposed explor ingexperimentally this gesture of “becomingaware” itself (cf. Depraz et al, 2000). Thecomplete presentation of this issue isbeyond the scope of this review (for a recentdevelopment see Lutz, 2002).

Francisco was 52 years old when heformulated the neurophenomenologicalproposal. Despite the fact that he wouldhave only two short years to live, he wasable to make significant advances in theessential theoretical and experimentalfoundations of this great project.

Neurophenomenology of nowness

The first objective Francisco proposed forneurophenomenology was the account ofthe dynamics of time-consciousness and“const i tu t ion” (Vare la, 1999a) :“constitution” is the term used by Husserlin his Phenomenology to designate theprocess of construction and emergence of amoment of consciousness. Fol lowingHusser l , Franc isco emphasized the


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distinction between the “content of a mentalact” and the “process through which suchcontent appears.”

Francisco described moments ofconsciousness as dense moments of synthesisin the flow of consciousness, in which specificcontents appear in an uncompressibleduration.44 Francisco (Varela, 1999a) tookexamples from bistable figures to empiricallyillustrate this “uncompressible” duration of aconscious cognitive act (Necker cube,binocular rivalry, etc.). In these experimentsspontaneous transit ions between twodominant perceptions appearphenomenologically as “slow” dynamicalprocesses.

Francisco distinguished three scales oflived time (Varela, 1999a): the 1 scale, ofabout one second, which corresponds tothe time of a conscious moment and towhich “nowness” belongs; the 1/10 scalecorresponding to min imal separableperceptual events; and the 10 scalecorresponding to narrative time.

It is important to note that accounting forthe existence of conscious experience itselfis not the object ive at this stage ofinvestigation. The relation between brainprocesses and conscious experience ispostulated and partial accounts of specificaspects of the actual experience are sought.The brain level is only considered tocontribute to the properties of consciousexperience (we must remember: “the mindis not in the head”). As in the perspective ofEdelman and Tononi (cf. Edelman, 2001),the properties of consciousness integration,uniqueness and dynamical fluctuation werestressed as phenomenological invariants

whose determinism could be partiallyaccounted for through a neuroscientificinvestigation on brain processes.45

At the phenomenological level theconstitution of conscious moments impliesa high temporal integration of multiplecontents emerging in a transitory way(multimodal integration, for example). Thisphenomenal integration, accessible fromthe first-person point of view, suggestedthat participating brain processes shouldbe integrative and coherent, althoughtransient, on the large scale. For Francisco,such transient organizing synergy of massaction between distant brain regions wouldbring unity to the conscious moment, but atthe same time endow it with a fundamentallack of stability, that would therefore leadto transitions.

As Francisco noticed, the dynamics ofsuch perceptual emergent momentsresembled the phenomenon of convergencein dynamical systems followed by relaxedphase transitions. This behavior is typicalof multistable dynamical systems, in whicheigenbehaviors are constrained by alandscape of multiple non-stable attractors(for a technical description of the notionsee Le Van Quyen (2003, this issue). Thebrain necessarily belongs to such dynamicalsystems because of i ts b iophys ica lorganization (its organizational closure).Francisco thus looked for integrativemechanisms exhibited by this class ofsystems. In this perspective, the paradigmof transiently phase-locked coupled non-linear oscillators, with distributed non-linear interactions in space and time,provided a good level for modeling.46

44 These more or less salient moments of consciousness are described by Husserl as having a specific phenomenal structure.They include a retentional extension, in which the “just-past” seems to plunge slowly away from the field of consciousness,and a protentional openness toward the next moment. Our account here is a dramatic simplification of Husserl ‘s theory.

45 A framework of phenomenological simple invariants was proposed by Francisco: 1)Mental events occur in a unitary space(“unified cognitive mental space”); 2) Mental states are transitory (“mental states are finite, and have an incompressible andinextensible duration”); 3) Mental states are always body-bound (“embedded in a particular field of sensation”) ; 4) Mentalstates can be triggered by endogenous events (moreover mental states can be causal, as in the voluntary reversal of bi-stablefigures) (Varela, 1995b).

46 Francisco had been inspired by the classical theory of Hebb (1949) about cell assemblies: “A cell assembly (CA) is adistributed subset of neurons with strong reciprocal connections,” such that a local activation of a subset of the assembly givesrise to a sustained ignition of the whole assembly. Francisco distinguished three causal and temporal levels of emergence ofCAs: 1) Onto-genetic (the structural neuroanatomical connections); 2) Developmental-learning (related to the metadynamicsof synaptic weights under Hebb-like rules); 3) Perception-Action (where fast ignition of CAs gives rise to sustained coherenceafter a short relaxation time involving cycles of spike transmission between distant regions). He latter favored the notion ofneural ensemble or neural hypergraph.


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Given the importance of integration inbrain activity and in behavior, he proposedthat transient phase-locking between brainensembles could be a fundamenta lmechanism of large scale integration in thebra in (F ig 5). He understood suchmechanisms to be a “neural glue” that wouldenhance a specific distributed neuronal

ensemble participating in the emergence ofa moment of consciousness. The idea isthat “it is the precise coincidence of thefiring of the cells that brings about unity inmental-cognitive experience” (Varela,1995b).47

Franc isco proposed three work inghypotheses: 1) For every cognitive act, there

47 The problem of the perceptual binding brought to the fore the importance of dynamical synchronization in the brain to bindindependent functional processes in specialized sensory pathways (Singer and Gray, 1995). Damasio also had proposed themechanism of large-scale synchronization as an integrative process for memory (Damasio 1989). Early on, Francisco and othersemphasized the importance of synchronization in the brain perceptuo-motor unity (Varela et al, 1981; Gevins et al. 1983).Abeles proposed that synchronization could play the role of coherent signal enhancement favoring transmission in neuralnetworks (Abeles et al, 1994). Synchronizations are a natural consequence in interconnected systems with multiple long-rangere-entries or reciprocal connections. The convergent process which leads to such emergence of phase-locked coherentensembles is grounded in the fast ongoing oscillations at work in the brain, in which an important role is given to the gammaband (30-80 Hz), and in the inhibitory-excitatory dynamics of brain networks, not only at the thalamo-cortical level but alsoat the cortico-cortical one (cf. Varela et al, 2001 and Varela, 1995b for a review).

FIGURE 5 – The moments of consciousness.

A diagram depicting the three main hypotheses. A cognitive activity takes place within a relativelyincompressible duration, a “cognitive present.” The basis for this emergent behavior is the recruitment ofwidely distributed neuronal ensembles through increased coherence in the gamma band (30-80 Hz). Thus,the corresponding neural correlates of a cognitive act can be depicted as a synchronous neural hypergraphof brain regions undergoing bifurcations of phase transitions from one cognitive present content to another.


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is a singular, specific cell assembly (CA)that underlies its emergence and operation;2) A specific CA is selected through thefast, transient phase- locking of activatedneurons belonging to sub- thresholdcompet ing CAs; 3) The integrat ion-relaxation processes at the 1-scale are strictcorrelates of present-time consciousness.48

Experimental evidence

To study the relations between subjectiveexperience and brain synchronization,mathematical tools for quantifying transientphase-locking between EEG/ MEG signalswere developed (Lachaux et al, 1999). Theprinciple was to use complex waveletconvolution of brain signals to extracts ing le- t r ia l ins tantaneous phaseinformation, independent of amplitude, andto quantify the stability of phase differencesin short integration periods.

EEG recordings were obtained fromsubjects presented with Mooney faces for200 ms (Rodriguez et al, 1999), that is, abinary picture representing human faces,easily recognized as faces when presentedin upright orientation but usually seen asmeaningless black and white shapes whenpresented upside-down (Fig 6). Subjectshad to answer by pressing a buttonindicating whether or not they had perceiveda face during the presentation of the picture.The data was then classified into twogroups, the group Perception, and the groupNon Percept ion. In the “Percept ion”condition, a transient episode of large-scalephase locking between electrodes on thescalp appeared 250 ms after the presentationof the stimulus. This large-scale synchronyoccurred mainly in the gamma band (30-80Hz), and was followed by a strong episodeof phase scattering, i.e. desynchronizationin relation to the baseline. Only after thisscattering, during the motor response, did anew synchronous ensemble emerge. On theother hand, in the Non Perception conditionno signif icant synchronous ensemble

appeared after the presentation of thepicture. These experiments confirmed therelation between conscious perceptivemoments and large-scale neural synchronyin the gamma band.

In a second experiment (Lutz et al, 2002),the neurophenomenological approach wasrad ica l l y deve loped. Sub jec ts weret ra ined dur ing severa l exper imenta lsessions to act ively categorize theirongoing subjective experience during the7 seconds rest per iod that precededpresentation of a three dimensional shape.Tr ia l by t r ia l , they descr ibed the i rexper ience through verbal accounts,which were recorded on tape. Then, in adialogue between the experimenter andsubjects, phenomenological clusters weredefined, with the aim of classifying theinvar iant aspects of the subject iveexper ience dur ing the exper imenta lsessions. Recording of EEG scalp signalswas done in the same exper imentalframework, and subjects were asked tocategorize their experience trial after trialbased on the previously defined set ofphenomenological clusters. Brain data wereregrouped according to phenomenologicalclusters and a dynamical analysis wasperformed on each cluster.

The outcome of this experiment iscomplex and very r ich. In a f i rs timplementation of this approach, Franciscoand Antoine Lutz studied, for instance, howthe precise description by trained subjectsof their cognitive contexts (attentive state,thought-processes, strategy to carry out thetask) could be used to study the intrinsicvariability in the brain responses foundduring the repetitive presentation of thesame visual stimulation. By combiningfirst-person data and the analysis of neuralprocesses, the opacity in the brain responseswas reduced and or iginal dynamicalcategories were detected. This case studyoffers a nice example of how the carefulexamination of experience using specificfirst-person methodology could become aheuristic strategy to provide mutual insights

48 Considering the requirement of a minimal number of cycles of large-scale interactions for the emergence of a largesynchronous assembly correlated to the moments of consciousness, he naturally assumed that the frequency band of phase-locking should be in high frequency domains like the gamma band.


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FIGURE 6 – The shadow of perception.

Average scalp distribution of gamma activity and phase synchrony. EEG was recorded from electrodes onthe scalp surface. Subjects were shown upright and upside-down Mooney figures (high contrast faces),which are easily perceived as faces when presented upright, but usually perceived as meaningless black-and-white forms when upside-down. The subjects’ task was a rapid two-choice button response of whether or notthey perceived a face at first glance. Color-coding indicates gamma power (averaged in a 34–40 Hzfrequency range) from a given electrode and during a 180 ms time window, from stimulation onset (0 ms)to motor response (720 ms). In the condition where the figures were recognized, transient episodes of large-scale synchrony appeared after the presentation of the stimuli, followed by a period of phase scattering anda second period of synchrony during the motor response. Such patterns of synchrony were not present whenthe pictures were not recognized. Synchrony between electrode pairs is indicated by black and green lines,corresponding to a significant increase or decrease in synchrony, respectively. These are shown only if thesynchrony value is beyond the distribution of shuffled data sets ( P< 0.01; see methods, Ref. 18). (fromRodriguez et al, 1999).


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concerning the relations between first- andthird person accounts. To illustrate thediscussion, we will present here one suchresult in which two phenomenologicalclusters are contrasted for a given subject(Fig 7). In the first cluster (A) the subjecttypically reported being prepared for thepresentation of the stimulus, aware, with afeeling of continuity when the stimulationoccurred, and an impression of fusionbetween himself and the percept. In thesecond cluster (B), the subject reportedbeing unprepared, distracted, and havingexperienced a strong discontinuity in theflux of his internal mental states by thepresentation of the stimulus. He describeda clear impression of di f ferent iat ionbetween himself and the percept.

The main result is the correlation betweenthe features of the subject’s subjective

experience and the dynamical neuralsignatures (DNS) of the clusters (Lutz etal, 2002). In the prepared cluster (A) afrontal synchronous ensemble emergesearly and is maintained throughout the trial,corre la t ing wi th the impress ion ofcontinuity of the subject. Furthermore, theaverage reaction time (RT) for this clusteris short. In the unprepared cluster (B), nostable synchronous ensemble can bedistinguished during the pre-stimulusperiod. When the stimulation occurs, acomplex pattern of weak synchronizationand of s t rong phase scat ter ing(desynchronization) between frontal andposterior electrodes is revealed. Slowly, asubsequent frontal synchronous ensembleappears while the phase-scattering remainspresent for some time. In this cluster, theRT is longer. The complex pattern of

FIGURE 7 – The shadow of perception and feeling within a subjective sequence

EEG was recorded from electrodes at the scalp surface. Subjects were shown first a background image withrandom-dot points. They were asked to fuse two small squares at the bottom of the screen and to remain inthis position for several seconds. At the end of this preparation period, a stereogram (3D illusion) waspresented. Subjects were instructed to press a button as soon as the shape had completely emerged and togive a brief verbal report of their experience (see section 2.3). Dynamical neural signatures (DNS) of theprecise phenomenology of the subjective experience of the subject are presented: (A) brain dynamicsassociated with a feeling of mental continuity and readiness (154 trials), (B) brain dynamics associated witha feeling of discontinuity and unreadiness with surprise when the stimulation occurred (38 trials). Theobserved brain patterns (resulting from the selection of the data on the sole criterion of the ongoingsubjective experience of the subjects) show dynamical features well correlated with the phenomenology ofthe subject’s conscious experience: the continuity of the mental correlates with the continuity of thesynchronous patterns. Color-coding indicates scalp distribution of gamma power around 35Hz normalizedcompared to a distant baseline ([-8200ms 7200ms], 0 ms corresponds to the presentation of the stereogram).Black and white lines correspond to significant increase and decrease in synchrony, respectively, comparedto the baseline. (Modified from Lutz et al, 2002)


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synchronization and phase scattering couldcorrespond to a strong reorganization ofthe brain dynamics in an unpreparedsituation, delaying the constitution of aunified cognitive moment and of an adaptedresponse. This discontinuity in the braindynamics is correlated with a subjectiveimpression of discontinuity.

As required by the neurophenomenologicalapproach, this study intertwined the twodimensions of phenomenological experienceand brain dynamics in a mutual illumination.

However, if the idea of neural phase-locked hypergraphs can provide insight onvery specific phenomenal properties ofconsciousness, such as i ts coherentintegrative role, its spontaneity and thetransitions among successive moments, initself it provides no insight about theconst i tu t ion of sent ience and innersubjective experience, the issue of why wefeel like embodied systems.

Toward a b iophys ics of be ing: thebreakdowns

The question thus arises: “Given that thereis a myriad of contending sub-processes inevery cogni t ive act , how are we tounderstand the moment of negotiation andemergence when one of them takes the leadand constitutes a defined behavior? In moreevocative terms: How are we to understandthe very moment of being-there whensomething concrete and specific shows up?”(Varela, 1995a)

Francisco radical ly reconsiders thesituatedness of our cycle of operations,tak ing the i r “micro” behaviora lphenomenology itself as a fundamentalprocedural element that shapes our ongoingsubjectivity. Our situatedness as humanautonomous systems is first to be found inour daily lives: “ordinary life is necessarilyone of situated agents.” He took seriouslythe fact that our ongoing activity is madeup of “contingencies, improvisation, and[is] more flexible than planning” (Varela,1991). He emphasized that as mechanisms,we live in the present, in the automatism ofmost of our actions and procedural acts.The continuity of identity and behavior is a

mat ter o f non-consc ious dynamicalprocesses guaranteed by the “machine.” Asenactive systems we integrate automaticbehaviors, including chains of reflexes aswell as what Francisco called “know-how,”procedural actions. We live recurrently intheir “transparency”: most of the time wedon’t think about what we are doing, andoften we have no real subjective experienceof our actions. As Francisco said: “wealways operate in some kind of immediacyof a given situation: our lived world is soready-at-hand that we don’t have anydeliberateness about what it is and how weinhabit it. When we sit at the table to eatwith a relative our body postures and pausesin the conversation are all present withoutdeliberation. Our having-lunch-self ist ransparent ” (Vare la, 1995a) . Th isdispositional repertory of behaviors is suchthat “we have a readiness-to-action whichis proper to every specific lived situation,”“ microidentities,” “microworlds,” “withinwhich we move during a normal day.” Thiscorresponds in human life to what we findin animals as ethology, i.e. eigenbehaviors,of which most are acquired. He referred(Varela, 1999a) to the Heideggerianparadigm of the field of relations and toolsin which we are living transparently: turninglights on and off, walking on the street, etc.For Heidegger, cognition and awakeningappear when some situation of dysfunctionoccurs: my key doesn’t work in this lock, Idon’t find my wallet in my pocket.

He saw the fundamental figure of ourdaily existence as being the dialecticbetween t ransparency of act ion andbreakdowns. Francisco stressed that“cognition is action about what is missing,filling the fault from the perspective of acognitive self” (Varela, 1995a). Thus, thefundamental micro-figure of experientialconstitution, which is always situated in aspeci f ic context , is the “sh i f t intransparency” related to breakdown. If welook carefully at our subjective experience,“our ‘ordinary experience’ is made ofbreakdowns” in this transparency.

From the first -person point of view, sucha situation occurs thus: “Breakdown: youstop, your mind setting is unclear, youremotional tonality shifts. Before you know


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it a new world emerges: you see clearly thatyou left your wallet in the store where youjust bought cigarettes. Your mood shiftsnow to one of concern for losing documentsand money, your readiness-to-action is nowto quickly go back to the store [...] allattention is directed to avoiding furtherdelays.”

According to Francisco, this caricature-situation can be applied generally to all ourgestures and actions: “new modes ofbehaving and the transitions or punctuationbetween them correspond to mini (or macro)breakdowns we experience constantly [...]at each such breakdown the manner in whichthe cognitive agent will next be constitutedis neither externally decided nor simplyp lanned ahead. I t is a mat ter o fcommonsensical emergence, of autonomousconfigurations of an appropriate stance[…] such commonsense, then needs to beexamined at a microscale: at the momentswhere it actualizes during breakdown,the birthplace of the concrete [...] duringthe breakdown there is a “rich dynamicsinvolving the concurrent sub-identitiesand agen ts . ” In th is perspect ive,phenomenology of behavior tends to fit thephenomenology of our subject iveexperience: “embodied (sensory-motor)structures are the substance of experience.”(Varela, 1999a)

The dynamics of neural assembliespresented above could be interpreted fromwith in such a f ramework. Al thoughdynamical ly re lated to the previousmoment, they emerge as a breakdown inrelation to the previous state of the system.In this perspective, the presence of momentsof great phase-scattering between two wellseparated cognitive acts is very interestingsince they are associated with a feeling ofdiscontinuity (Lutz et al, 2002). As notedin Lutz et al (2002) the differentiation insubjective experience is related to micro-sequences of appearances of discontinuity.

In this light, the fundamental units ofconstitution of a concrete moment ofexperience appear to be the activity ofcoping with impediments, i.e. the copingwith very specific micro-situations in oursituated cycles of operation, that is, in thepresent state of our operation as systems.

Such “shaped” breakdowns in cognitivecoupling must be envisaged as perturbationsof our dynamic core.

To understand how such impeding effectscan be l ived internally, as sentience,Francisco brought to the fore the field ofemotions and affect. Unfortunately, he didnot have time to develop fully this last fieldof his theory. However, by following itsinternal logic and bringing together theideas he developed, we can intuit a possibleexplanation of the final biophysical originof sentience.

The Nagel Effect: resistance to self-perturbation and sentience

The part of the Francisco’s work weintroduce here is most likely the least wellknown, but perhaps the most essential forunderstanding the biophysical basis ofbeing. Centered on the issue of affects, itpermits a synthesis of Francisco’s views onembodiment extensively developed in thefirst part of this article. It might constitutethe core of an understanding of what wehave cal led the Nagel Effect, of thesubjective experience of having certainphysical processes, and so provide us withthe conceptual framework for bridging theso-called ‘explanatory gap’.

In the last period of his work Francisco(Varela, 1999a; Varela and Depraz, 2000;Thompson and Vare la, 2001) wasparticularly preoccupied with the questionof affects and the production of sentience.For him, affect and emotions, “a privilegedway for accessing the primordial body”(Varela and Cohen, 1989), played anessential role in mind: “affect or emotion isat the very foundation of what we do everyday as coping with the world; reason orreasoning is almost like the icing on thecake. Reason is what occurs at the very laststage of the moment-to-moment emergenceof mind. Mind is fundamentally somethingthat arises out of the affective tonality,which is embedded in the body [...] [Mind]starts out from this soup [...] all cognitivephenomena are also emotional-affective”(Varela, 1999b)49 Going even further, heconsidered affect as “generat ive for


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consciousness itself” (Varela and Depraz,2000), as a cause of transition from onemoment of consciousness to another as wellas a cause for the emergence of subjectivityitself.

Since the early days of the developmentof the concept of autopoiesis, Franciscoalways rejected the metaphorical use of hisconcepts, wanting them to be used inprecisely defined operational domains. Hehas been thus reluctant to see the conceptof autopoiesis applied to autopoiesis tocultural anthropology or social sciences.Yet in existing metaphors, he often foundthe oppor tun i ty to reveal operantmechanisms by considering their literalmeaning. It is in this sense that he mobilizesthe concept of affect, which can beconsidered as a frontier between the realmsof objectivity and subjectivity.

He claimed that “affect is a pre-reflectivedynamic in the self-constitution of the self,a self affect in a literal sense. Affect isprimordial in the sense that I am affected ormoved before any ‘I’ that knows.” (Varela,1999b).

Francisco based his insights about theconst i tu t ion of sent ience on h isphenomenological analysis of affects.Starting with the transition between twomoments of consciousness (Varela, 1999a),which is always associated, according tohis phenomenological experience, with thefeeling of a gradually emerging change, hegrounded the dimension “of affect-emotionin the self-movement of the flow, of thetemporal stream of consciousness.” He

emphasized the bootstrap role of emotionsthrough their intrinsic fluctuating characterand saw them as control parameters in theinitiation of bifurcations between twomoments of consciousness: “affect is at thevery core of the temporality, and is even,perhaps, i ts antecedent” (Varela andDepraz, 2000).50

In his view, “the emergence of the livedpresent is rooted in and arises from a germor source of mot ion-d isposi t ion, aprimordial fluctuation. This germ manifestsi tsel f in a constel lat ion: an or iginaltendency, a shift of attention, the emergenceof salience, the earliest e-motion includinga motion that embodies it. Thus thisprimordial fluctuation cannot be separatedf rom i ts complex or mul t i far iousconstitution. But it is nevertheless markedby its uniqueness in the unfolding of theliving present” (Varela and Depraz, 2000).Inspired by Husserl and James, Franciscoand Depraz considered these subjectivefluctuations as forces involving whole bodytransformations: “ the affect ive forcemani fests as a rap id, dynamicaltransformation from tendency to salience,involving one’s entire leib [lived body] asa complex [...] the gamut of autonomicaction such as respiratory, heart rate,endocrine secretion, etc., as well as theancestral motor pattern involved in postureand movement [...] a feeling grounded inthe body’s responsive repertoire” (Varelaand Depraz, 2000). The feeling of emotionappears as “the global Gestalt composed ofa variety of feeling dimensions.” The

49 He stressed the importance “of the background sensations of the embodiment preceding and grounding all happeningcognitive events” (Varela and Depraz, 2000). Francisco distinguished three scale of affect: 1) emotions: “the awareness of atonal shift that is constitutive to the living present;” 2) affect: “dispositional trend proper to a longer time (hours or days) acoherent sequence of embodied actions;” 3) mood, “the scale of narrative description over a long duration (many days orweeks).”

50 This importance of emotions in the making of consciousness represented at the same time a difficulty in a methodologicalperspective for neurophenomenology: “that’s why experience in a phenomenological footnote is so hard to articulate, since alarge chunk of its base is pre-reflective, affective, non-conceptual, pre-noetic. It’s hard to put it into words, precisely becauseit precedes words.”51 Such a dynamical storm is not incompatible with the fact that emotions are highly regulated processes. The self-perturbationsof emotions are induced in the context of integrated neurophysiological responses. As Francisco stressed, living systems shownaturally intrinsic instabilities, which are not incompatible with the preservation of their organizational autonomy. On thecontrary these instabilities “are the norm” in biological systems (Varela, 1999a) and play an essential functional role as theyallow the system to easily shift from one to another of its eigenbehaviors, i.e. to move the current state of the system and thedynamics to a new configuration, in a catastrophic phase transition (an emotion as a stereotyped neurophysiological responseis an eigenbehavior). Instabilities are the foundation of the spontaneity of living beings.


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phenomenology of affects (“self-affect” and“primordial fluctuation”) provides us withdeep insight into how circular causality,through fluctuations and self perturbationsin the recurrence of our body space (and itsmorphodynamical constraints), could giverise to a minimal subjective experience.Because of the very circularity of ourorganizational closure perturbations can be“self-inflicted” (Varela, 1983). We couldsay that we are self-perturbing systems. 51

Our phenomenology of affects could thusbe literally understood as a self-perturbingsystem.

Yet in order to accept this view, oneneeds to know exactly what is affected.Tradition names this essential part of ourexperience ‘the Subject,’ but in Francisco’sview the Subject does not representanything unif ied. Francisco was veryinfluenced by the Madhyamaka way to lookat the self which explicitly says that it is aswrong to say that the subject is real as tosay that it is not.

Francisco and Natalie Depraz proposedthat the inner lived ego emerges through“the micro-temporality of affect of anoriginary ego-self, situated in a basicdisposition” (Varela and Depraz, 2000).To make this last statement concrete,“Affect” must be here interpreted in relationto the general role attributed by Franciscoto breakdowns in moments ofconsciousness, whose micro-temporality isstressed. The “originary ego-self, situatedin a basic disposition”, must be thought ofin relation to the automatic proceduralknow-how that operates most of ourbehavior, i .e. our innate or acquiredbiological dispositions to react, from theelementary to the most subtle shaping ourpersonality; something, in any case, comingfrom the machine.

To be completely understood, this idea ofan “originary ego-self” that undergoesaffect must be considered in Francisco’sframework of embodied autonomoussystems. According to this framework, theself ‘resides’ in the selfless mechanicalpatterns of eigenbehaviors of the dynamiccore, emerging from a biophysical andmechanical f ie ld of individual auto-af f i rmat ion endeavor ing to keep a

dynamical identity, i.e. a form of systemicinvariance. The concrete cycles of operationof the system embody the irrepressiblepersistence of a biophysical process of self-organization that makes the individual. Ifwe interpret Francisco’s views literally,this mechanical bringing forth of the“selfless self” through the flow of itsdynamic core occurs as a global processthat constitutes a sphere of internal tensionand resistance to perturbations (this internaltension can already be seen in the basicvigilance of animals). As an integrativemechanism this very core of resistanceworks as a more or less automatic system ofcompensation with an inner, highly specific,morphodynamical set of responses. Thecompensatory tension resists the circulardeformation (usually biologists use the term“adaptation”). It confronts the ongoinground of in ternal f luc tuat ions andinstabilities which act as flux and reflux ofself-perturbative forces affect ing thedynamic core by propagating through thesystem closure. Such is the case withemot ions, consist ing of catastrophicchanges in a large portion of the physiologyof the organism. Here Francisco’s enactiveapproach can take on its full meaning withregard to the Nagel Effect, i.e. the operationof subjectivity-making.

If we consider them in the framework ofthe morphodynamics of human body andethology, we claim that this type of patternallows us to intuit that there is somethingthat it is like to be such a system, resistingself-perturbations, and so to f i l l theexplanatory gap. We submit that sentienceitself, as the prototype of our ability to feeland a concrete moment of consciousness,is the embodied grappling between theshaped, distributed process that we are andour own morphodynamical deformations.

Although a general mechanism, thisparticular feature of the repetitive dynamicsof the system must be considered as gettingits specif ic phenomenology from thecontext of its situated daily coping in“microworlds,” as introduced above, andin the particular morphodynamical field ofits embodiment, with all the biophysicalproperties of its flesh and behavioralengagement.


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CONCLUSION

In this article we have reviewed the work ofFrancisco Varela on the “hard problem” ofsubjectivity and consciousness. We havefollowed a constructive approach, startingwith Francisco’s initial developments onautonomous systems, progressing throughhis various theoretical specifications ofc i rcular i ty and embodiment that areexhibited by living systems and ending withthe neurophenomenological proposal.

We began to explore how the physicalautopoietic system provides a minimaldescription of a living system. The logic ofsuch an embodied autonomy is that of“being the operational closure of its parts”and maintaining an invariant organization,distinguishing itself. But the bringing forthof such an identity as the process of beingalive implies a dynamical tendency thatunfolds in time. Thus the situated organismfinds itself in a circular dialectic betweenits ongoing dynamics of bringing forth andthe necessity to cope, to compensate forperturbations that impact on it either fromthe environment or from within. Thiscomplex interaction, this conflict, betweenglobal behavior and local structures in thecoping situated agent generate internalforces that impede or even accelerateprocesses, and the i r par t icu larphenomenologies, with the quality ofsubjective experience. As humans we havethe possibility not only of accessing butalso of communicating such multifariousexperiences of being. The need to examinerigorously such phenomenology calls thenfor a pragmatic approach, where the will toreduce the distance between the subjectiveand the objective, between lived experienceand biophysical processes, is a fundamentaltheoret ica l and exper imenta l goal .Neurophenomenology responds by placingexperience and biophysical processes atthe same level, and by seeking to establishan enlightening circulation in the form ofmutual constraints between them.

Francisco’s thought is vast and insightful.A great deal of work needs to be done tofurther interpret his ideas. Many conceptsand propositions he made have yet to bestudied in depth and made operational in

concrete experimental situations. His wayof stating problems in an open but explicitmanner (Vare la, 1996) remains aninspiration for those of us continuing thiswork.

Among the aspects that need to beexplored, in our opinion, there are fourthemes of fundamental interest for thescience of consciousness: the issue ofdeveloping the dynamical picture ofphenomenological invariants and their priorformal izat ion, (par t icu lar ly forconsciousness spontaneity, sentience andthe constitution of the dynamic core); thequestion of intersubjectivity; that of expertsubjects; and the problem of self-awareness.

In our laboratory we are current lydeveloping paradigms and computerinterfaces to attain reliable single-trialrepresentations of the temporal course ofthe l ived subject ive exper ience ofexperimental subjects, in perceptive andemotional tasks. The goal is to find amethodology that provides us with atemporal basis, making it possible toprecisely link subjective time and objectivetime, in order to examine the inter-relationsbetween the two. Complementarily, in theperspective of neurophenomenology, theteam is also developing tools for dynamicalsystems analysis (see Le Van Quyen in thisissue) in order to study the relationshipsbetween the dynamics of subjectivity andthe dynamics of the brain and body. Wealso work concretely on the issue ofin tersubject ive va l idat ions ofphenomenological descriptions. Finally, itis interesting to take advantage of therigorous direct examination of consciousexperience that is cultivated by Buddhistcontemplative practices. Francisco hadinitiated such collaboration with highlytrained practitioners before he passed away.His project was to study the generation ofprecise and stable mental states that is welldocumented in Buddhist psychology. Thisline of research is now being activelydeveloped by the team.

As a friendly remembrance of Francisco,we would like to conclude this paper with afigure that he used to sketch the story ofcognitive sciences and to speculate on theirfurther development (Fig 8).


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IN MEMORIAM

This article is dedicated to Francisco Varelain memory of his innovative work, generousteaching and inspiring life.

For h is ob i tuary see ht tp : / /psyche.csse.monash.edu.au/v7/psyche-7-12-thompson.html.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Very special acknowledgments are due toAmy Cohen-Varela who worked hard withus on this text, encouraging the authors andproviding essential comments, propositionsand deep insights, and illuminating theissues with her remarkable erudition andbril l iant understanding of Francisco’sthinking. Thanks to Adam Phillips andJamie Hanson for their careful reading ofthis paper. Thanks to Christopher Kovachfor his precious reading of the paper andsuggestions.

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FIGURE 8– The building site: toward a science of interbeing.

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