Antti RevonsuoAccording to BR, consciousness is something very simple. In its barest essence, phenomenal
consciousness constitutes an inner presence – the simple presence or occurrence of experiential
qualities, that is. No separate “self ” or “I” or “subject” is required; no representing, no inten-
tionality, no language, no concepts; only the sub-phenomenal space in which self-presenting
phenomenal qualities may come into existence and realize inner presence. At higher levels of
phenomenal organization, the qualities form complex phenomenal entities or organized bun-
dles of self-presenting properties (“virtual objects”) that we typically experience in conscious
perception and in vivid dream experiences. Some of the bundles constitute our body-image,
others the phenomenal objects we perceive. The entire phenomenal level, when well-organized,
constitutes what I call a world-simulation: a simulated world, or a virtual reality in the brain.
There is no separate subject or self who “has” or “observes” the experiences, or who inhabits
the virtual world. What we normally call the “self ” is the body-image in the center of the simu-
lated world, and what we call the “subject” is simply the overall system of self-presenting quali-
ties that forms the phenomenal level in our brain. Thus, any particular experience is “had” by
the “subject” simply because “having” reduces to “being a part of ” the phenomenal level. Your
momentary total experience simply consists of all the qualities that are simultanously present
within the sphere of phenomenality. It is your subjective world, the world-for-you. You are both
a part of the world (you as the “self ” embedded within a body-image and visual perspective),
and the whole world (you as the subject whose experiences constitute all the present contents
of the sphere).
The phenomenal level and the “subject” thus refer to the same entity: they both are sim-
ply the sum of spatiotemporally connected phenomenality in the brain; the totality of self-
presenting qualitative patterns that are spatially connected and temporally simultaneous in the
brain. Therefore, the concept of a subject, as something separate from the phenomenal experi-
ences themselves, is superfluous. In addition to the interconnected self-presenting qualities, no
notion of a subject is necessary. The notion of a “self,” by contrast, applies to most experiences,
but it is also possible to have selfless and bodiless experiences where even the perspectivalness
and the egocentricity of experience disappears. When this happens, the experience is fundamen-
tally one; an experience of ego-dissolution, oneness and unity, or of being one with the world;
the separation between a self and a world is gone. It could be called, not a being-in-the-world,
but rather, a being-the-world experience. Mystical experiences and altered states of consciousness
are sometimes associated with this sort of experiential unity.
In BR, the problem of explaining the emergence of consciousness and closing the Explanatory
Gap boils down to the problem of understanding the constitutive relationships between the
lower nonconscious or sub-phenomenal levels and the phenomenal level. Will an unbridgeable
Explanatory Gap between them remain?
Dainton (2004) agrees that the idea of a sub-phenomenal, physical space that is the constitu-
tive level for consciousness might build a bridge across the Explanatory Gap:
For Revonsuo... our experiences inherit their spatial characteristics... from a physi-
cal field of a kind which is not... phenomenal in nature. This at least narrows the
Explanatory Gap, and does so while minimizing the risk of panpsychism. It may
well be that our brains generate coherent spatially extended fields. If these fields
are... imbued with localized patterns of phenomenal properties by neural activity, we
have a direct link between phenomenal and physical space. In fact, we have an iden-
tity: phenomenal space is physical space, albeit field-filled physical space. Of course,
there is still a good deal to be explained: how, exactly, does a physical field come to
carry or be imbued with phenomenal properties as a consequence of neural activity?