From the Precariousness of Life to Experience: An Autopoietic Enactive Response to the Hard Problem of Consciousness
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2025-06-20
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en
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I expand on a response to the hard problem of consciousness stemming from the autopoietic enactive theory of life and cognition. Autopoietic enactivists, particularly Evan Thompson, argue that the hard problem stems from a mischaracterization of life: a proper understanding of life narrows the gap with experience. I identify and explore a tension that is central to this attempted refutation of the hard problem: Thompson understands life to be both relational and continuous with experience, while it is precisely the conception of life as relational—in a manner not applicable to experiences—that originally motivated the hard problem, and thus the discontinuity of life and experience. I argue that this tension can be resolved by understanding enactive life to denote a relevantly distinct type of relationality. I propose that this relevant distinction can be found in life’s deep connection to its temporality and materiality through its precarious nature—aspects that are uncapturable by the abstract functionalist method that underlies the conception of life motivating the hard problem. An enactive approach to life serves to weaken the theoretical pull motivating the hard problem, thus narrowing the gap between life and experience.
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Faculteit der Filosofie, Theologie en Religiewetenschappen