Nondual awareness: Consciousness-as-such as non-representational reflexivity

2011/01/01 by Zoran Josipovic, Caroline Alexander · 3 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Arts and Humanities · Neuroscience · Psychology · #Cinema History and Criticism #Cognition #Cognitive psychology #Cognitive science #Consciousness #Developmental psychology #Embodied and Extended Cognition #Epistemology #Geography #Level of consciousness #Neural correlates of consciousness #Neural dynamics and brain function #Neuroscience #Philosophy #Plant and Biological Electrophysiology Studies #Property (philosophy) #Psychology #Reflexivity #Social science #Sociology #Spanish Culture and Identity #Spanish Literature and Culture Studies

paper · doi:10.1016/bs.pbr.2018.10.021

openalex publication_date 2019/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

I introduce arguments toward a non-representational reflexivity theory of consciousness-as-such to address one of the key issues in the science of consciousness today: lack of understanding of the nature of consciousness itself. An expanded map of consciousness is outlined, which includes, in addition to the well-known contents of awareness and levels of arousal, the indeterminate substrate and consciousness-as-such or nondual awareness. The central idea presented is that consciousness-as-such is a non-conceptual nondual awareness, whose essential property is non-representational reflexivity. This property makes consciousness-as-such phenomenologically, cognitively and neurobiologically a unique kind, different from and irreducible to any contents, functions and states, including the indeterminate substrate. Our previous hypothesis on the precuneus network for nondual awareness is further discussed in relation to non-representational reflexivity, and in the light of other hypotheses on the neural correlates of consciousness-as-such.

Citations

• Psilocybin occasioned mystical-type experiences: immediate and persisting dose-related effects
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Cited by

• Consciousness Without Content: A Look at Evidence and Prospects
• Contemplative Agent
• Nondualism [wikipedia]

Related

• Embodied Consciousness Theory
• The assumptions that restrain us from understanding consciousness
• The mechanism of phenomenal experience
• Tractatus de Conscientia: A Tractatus-Style Sketch Toward a Modern, Physically Operational Theory of Consciousness
• Consciousness: The last 50 years (and the next)