AUTHOR=Jonkisz Jakub 

TITLE=Subjectivity: A Case of Biological Individuation and an Adaptive Response to Informational Overflow

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=7

YEAR=2016

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01206

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01206

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p>The article presents a perspective on the scientific explanation of the subjectivity of conscious experience. It proposes plausible answers for two empirically valid questions: the ‘how’ question concerning the developmental mechanisms of subjectivity, and the ‘why’ question concerning its function. <italic>Biological individuation</italic>, which is acquired in several different stages, serves as a provisional description of how subjective perspectives may have evolved. To the extent that an <italic>individuated informational space</italic> seems the most efficient way for a given organism to select biologically valuable information, subjectivity is deemed to constitute an <italic>adaptive response to informational overflow</italic>. One of the possible consequences of this view is that subjectivity might be (at least functionally) dissociated from consciousness, insofar as the former primarily facilitates selection, the latter action.</p>