Lamberto Maffei and Lucia Galli-R may be that only at a later time, the language hemisphere developed other special fnetions, taking advantage oft code auc processing which were slower and working m series. ‘The longer time constant properties which were disadvantageous of different sensory modalities and in general diffrent nervove messages, either infernal oF external integration 1s ertaialy a good basis for more careful evaluation and decision. ‘That is probably why the left hemisphere is considered to be i rational and critical, It takes advantage from being slower. The ignorance of the neurophy ; logist a canclion the nerophyilgt cknonledaes Ki ance when discussing problems of the mind atl conscious tes Hee ly pl ow se the ne wage the brain which seem relevant for a scientific discussion o! beet.” Particalar properties of single neuron ot commie fle ad propria oration pcan tr et sensory modalities or other brain functions appear of partict- lar inteent. “We have daved to speculate on this “grat ofthe bra” ans pose alee higher fimetions, Gestalt paychologits have a famous eateh phrase tli etn oper ay psa pang “ihe entrar ur ea ie sum ofits parts, namely the known bain fanetons, Pet ili sbut eae ee we want ‘0 make it clear thatthe technical contribution of the neu Topnslogit must be lintel to deve ting the measurable Bea Sento the ea dts ical and chemical events which in any case ‘are still to be spell EN ea et of tals to, “The newraphyilog, doesnot poses sn spn wc could mode theresa M4 Biology of Self-Consciousness Humberto R. Maturana The attempt to understand and to explain that which we Gstinguish’ or connote in our daily life with, the words cinnetousness, minds awareness, or psyche, have been, in my Ghinjon, Madered by the manner in which we formulate our ceitfone in our western culture. Indeed, we speak as if GRewords consciousness, awareness, mind, or psyche denoted enfitles or properties of entiies, and, therefore, as if questions Sach ae: “How do the mind and the body interact? of where fr the residence of eonsciousness?” or “i consciousness mortal er hiamortal™ were meaningful questions, But, are they? Certainly, if the mind is an entity, then the question “how die the body and the mind interact?” is, meaningful because the body is an entity, and entities may interact if they exist in'the same domain.’ However, if that which we connote in dhily life when we use the word mind were not an entity but oeration, which would be the sense of the question *how do the mind and the body interact”? He mauuer of asking, qucations that makes of every experience the distinction of an entity arose with the Grock Slllowphical thinking as thie arose as a manner of asking {hestions about the being of the public things, while the ible things arose in the Agora with the conversations that Petatituted democracy as a manner of dealing with the afars Of the community as “public” affairs. As the domain of the ble thingp arises i arises as a domain of entities about Mihich one ean ask questions proper to their nature as public Uititen tha i as entities that have characteristics proper to them with independency of what. the observer does in zelation to'them. As the manner of thinking that distinguished public Saitiesarove in some of the preclassic Greek communities, the naming of a distinction became the constitution of an Entity tat could be talked about as an independent entity, in iprocess thet obscured js orjgin. ‘The latter is what, think, Frappened with the naming of Ute experiences connoted with the words consciousness, mind, awareness, and peyche. ASHumberto R. Maturana those words by naming experiences became the naming of entities, the mind/body problem arose, and the experiences of daily life connoted in the attempts to solve that problem, became more and more obscured. My purpose Aware of the situation that I have just presented, my Purpose in this essay is not to ask questions such as the common questions that I mentioned above, but to consider the experiences that we connote in daily life with words such as consciousness, snind, awareness and psyche, and show what must happen for us to'have them, I consider that what one explains is always an experience, that-one distinguishes as an observer and chooses to treat as'a question that one wants to answer with an explanation. And this isso, in circumstances in which an experience is that which oné distinguishes as happening to oneself, or in relation to oneself, as one ope Experiences happen ous. We find ourselves in the make out experience a problem to be volved ao we demand sn explanation for our experience, As we reflect about oursclves we find ourselves in our reflection and are fa i." We do ot preexist to our relletive se-dstinetion, even though We had existed before, and as if we were to exist after our distinction. Moreover, a8 we live the experience of sell distinction aware that we are amare, we claim that we are cpigion of our exince ad Unt we are concn bins entities different from our bodies but associated with the ®peration ‘of our bodies we locate ourselves in our bodies as conscious enlitesdifeent from our bodies. These ate the experiences that one has to explain if gne wants to explata consciousness. Or,in olher words, I consider that fone waale ic explain consciousness, what one has to explain is how dose happens to us in our living as the distinetion of = self that 6 Biology of Self-Cor is different from our body but associated to it. Now, before presenting my explanatory proposition let me speak about explanation and understanding, ‘What is it to explain? what is it to understand? An explanation ia the proposition of a generative mechanism for process which, if allowed to operate, gives tise, as a result of its operation, to the experience to be explained, and which is accepted as such by an observer (Maturana 1990). So, an explanation entails implicitly or explicitly accepting that that which is explained is the result. of a generative mechanism or process which in fact specifies its nature, as well as the application by the observer of some criterion of acceptability that the observer puts in his or her listening for accepting or rejecting the generative mechanism or process proposed. In these. circumstances, it follows that different phenomena are different to the extent that they result from different generative mechanisms, and that the different generative mechanisms that specify different, phenomena specify their difference. Accordingly, the explanatory task in the endeavour of understanding consciousness, is the proposition of a generative mechanism, or of several generative mechanisms, to answer the questions preseuled above in the broad couleat of our operation as human beings Understanding takes place when the observer can place the explanatory proposition that he or she accepts as an expla nation in a broader context that permits him or her to relate many other apparently unrelated phenomena or experiences, ‘That is, understanding entails the explicit establishment by the observer of relations thal for him or her are novel relations, between phenomena (experiences) of the same phenomenal domain (experiential domain), or between phenomena of d ferent phenomenal domains, without confusing the phenom- ena or the phenomenal domains, and without attempting to reduce one phenomenon or one phenomenal domain to an- other. Understanding is an operation that takes place in the domain of awareness of the observer, and in which he or she remains aware that the relations that he establishes between different phenomena and different phenomenal domains in this case take place in a different, non-intersecting meta-domainHu nberto R. Maturana that he or she brings forth as he or she lives the experience of understanding, Now, let me present my explanatory proposi- tion, My explanatory proposition Explanations and descriptions do not replace the experiences that they explain or describe. Accordingly, one should not expect that the explanation of a given experience should make disappear that experience. My proposition is tha {Gili paHene8 Sa aEBE SSE as we use the word consciousness is one of self-distinction as we distinguish ourselves making distinctions, And | ‘maintain that (ligt experience takes place as weleierats in the distinction of the operation of distinction in which wwe participate as we operate in language, alone or in our interactions with others. In other words, I consider that consciousness takes place as 2 particular relational dynamics when an organism operates as parlicipant in a domain of recursive distinctions in language, and that it is not an entity ‘or the property of an entity. | also consider that diijerdee to be able to ascribe consciousness or self awareness to the operation of an organism, an observer must be able to claim that the organism to which he or she makes the aseription operates in the aocond and third order recursive distinctions in Tanguage Or, stil in other words, Tclaim thet onselousmness is an ascription that an observer makes to a living system if he or she thinks that its behavior can only be understood as the selF-distinction of a self-distinction, But, if-consciousness takes place as the experience of self-distinction of a self-distinetion, do other animals besides numan beings operate in consciousness? Do chimpanzee and other apes that can use a mirror to distinguish features of their own body operate in consciousness? In order to answer properly these last questions, let me present the fundaments of my answer by making some considerations about living systems, recursiveness, the nervous system, the coupling of the operation of the nervous system with the behavior of the organism, and the human existence 48 Biology of Self-Conscionsness Explanatory fundaments Living systems 1, (GSFISYSTER) as al systcrs acc, RSIRERREERREIEE- mined composite entities that exist in two non-intersecting ‘phenomenal domains namely: (@) the domain of operation ‘of their components, that is, the domain of their structural ‘dynamics; and@) the domain in which they interact and relate as totalities, that is, the domain in which they are wholes and ‘operate (exist) as such. As these two phenomenal domains do not intersect, no phenomenal reduction is possible between thems and any direc oF indirect attempt by the obser to do so in_an explanation is a mistake, i te arbiewlae case of living systems, these two phenomenal domains are tle domains of its @natomiy-andaphysiology, and its domain of BEIBVIGR, respectively (Maturana 1987) domain ofthe struetra ‘dynamics of the ving system main ofthe relations and interactions ofthe ta Living system asatoaity Fig. 7. The onganism and its behavior 2. ‘The phenomenal domain of the structural dynamic; © a system is @perationslly selfsconiained in the scnsc_ tha everything that happens in it, takes place as a structural Ghange in ib and occurs im it determined in It ab every ugHumberto R. Maturana instant by its structure at that instant GSataesiaanTne phenomenal domain in which a system exists as a totality hot operationally self-contained because the phenomena in it arise in the encounter of the aystem with the medium that operates as an independent, structure-determined svstem itself Yet, although these phenomenal domains do not intersect, and, hence, cannot be mutually reduced one to the other, changes in'one affect what happens in the other because there is a mutually generative relation between them through the actual structural realization and interactions of the systems that give rise to them. As I have shown elsewhere (Maturana 1987), although the totality of a system is operationally constituted by its organization (relations between its components that specify its class identity), its actual operation as a totality as it exists as a whole, is realized in and through the operation of its structure (the components plus the relations between them that, realize a articular system as a particular case of a particular class), so that as a system interacts as a totality it does so through the operation of its components.