Minimal Phenomenal Experience

Minimal Phenomenal Experience (MPE)

Source: Metzinger, T. (2020). Minimal phenomenal experience: Meditation, tonic alertness, and the phenomenology of “pure” consciousness. Philosophy and the Mind Sciences, 1(I), 7. https://doi.org/10.33735/phimisci.2020.I.46

Pure Consciousness Events (PCEs)

In The Problem of Pure Consciousness (1990), Robert Forman defines “Pure Consciousness Events” (PCEs) as a:

“wakeful though contentless (non-intentional) consciousness”

Beyond Wakefulness, the content of a full-absorption episode cannot be reported because the self-referential mechanisms of forming an autobiographical memory are suspended.

The Six Phenomenological Constraints (PCs)

From classical sources, six major phenomenological constraints of MPE can be derived:

1. Wakefulness (PC1): The phenomenal character of tonic alertness. This is by far the most frequently mentioned kind of phenomenal character in descriptions of “pure consciousness”.
2. Low Complexity (PC2): Often described as the complete absence of intentional content, in particular of high-level symbolic mental content (e.g., discursive, conceptual, or propositional thought), but also of sensorimotor or affective content.
3. Self-Luminosity (PC3): A phenomenal property typically described as “radiance”, “brilliance”, or the “clear light” of primordial awareness. (A good example of cultural variance, frequently found in Tibetan Buddhism but rarely in Western reports).
4. Introspective Availability (PC4): We can sometimes actively direct introspective attention to consciousness as such and distinguish possible states by the degree of actual ongoing access.
5. Epistemicity (PC5): The phenomenal experience of knowing, which comes in degrees and can also be described as the subjective quality of confidence.
6. Transparency/Opacity (PC6): Like all other phenomenal representations, MPE can vary along a spectrum of opacity and transparency.

Low Complexity Descriptors

Phenomenological characterizations of MPE (PCEs) are often exclusively negative:

• Non-sensory: Instantiates no perceptual qualities (“no-thingness”). There is no subjective experience of distinct multimodal objects as integrated from different sensory features.
• Non-motor: Absolute stillness, no motion in space.
• Atemporal: An absence of temporal experience, no motion in time.
• Non-cognitive: Non-symbolic and non-conceptual, no mind-wandering.
• Non-egoic: No self-location in time, no self-location in space, no quality of agency. MPE is not even characterized by MPS (the minimal phenomenal sense of selfhood).
• Unbounded: There is no second, finite region to which attention could be directed, and there are no consciously experienced boundaries. (No “other side beyond the boundary” to shift attention to).
• Aperspectival: No epistemic agent model (EAM); no passive personal-level self-as-subject. (Often called “non-duality” in Buddhist or Neo-Advaitan literature).

Arousal vs. Tonic Alertness vs. Wakefulness

The paper clearly distinguishes between the physical, functional, and phenomenological levels:

1. Arousal (Physical): A graded physical property of the human brain. A vital parameter determining the depth of cortical information processing available.
2. Tonic alertnes (Functional): A graded functional property determining the capacity for sustained attention. It results from successful control of arousal over long periods without external cues. (Also called “intrinsic alertness”).
3. Wakefulness (Phenomenal): A graded phenomenal property (PC1). It is a representation or predictive Bayesian model of tonic alertness.

Note: An organism can be tonically alert without knowing that it is alert. Consciousness is knowing that one is alert.

Global Aspects of Tonic Alertness Phenomenology

Tonic alertness is non-conceptual and not the result of high-level inference. It is a globalized form of “ultrasmoothness”. Its global aspects include:

• Openness: The organism is sensitive to incoming stimuli; it is open to the world and represents this very fact. A non-egoic, non-conceptual form of self-knowledge.
• Simplicity: Satisfies all the negative phenomenological characteristics and the Low-Complexity constraint.
• Epistemic capacity: The experience of possessing a set of epistemic capacities (e.g., orientation, controlling attention). It constitutes an indivisible “epistemic space” with no center and no boundaries.
• Expectation of knowledge: A subjective confidence, an ongoing expectation of epistemic states. (A statistical hypothesis representing the probability that veridical perception will occur).
• Spontaneity: It is ahistorical. MPE has a specific quality of spontaneity, appearing as a “natural state” – a spontaneous presence of epistemic capacity.

Witness-Consciousness (sākṣin)

The notion of “witness-consciousness” (sākṣin) is rooted in classical Advaita Vedanta philosophy (earliest appearance in the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad). Bina Gupta gives its epistemological characteristics:

1. The ultimate subject that makes all knowledge possible; it can never become an object of knowledge.
2. The pure element of awareness in all knowing; one, immutable, indivisible reality.
3. It shines by its own light; it is self-luminous.
4. It is different from the empirical individual (jīva) who cognizes and enjoys (the one caught up in waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep).