Abstract
The present paper explores the phenomenology of disorientation and its relationship with self-consciousness. Section 1 discusses previous literature on the links between self-location and self-consciousness and proposes a distinction between minimal self-location (which requires only an ego-centric frame of reference) and integrated self-location (which requires the integration of egocentric and allocentric frames of reference). The double aim of the paper is to use this distinction to deepen our understanding of spatial disorientation, and to use the phenomenology of disorientation to elucidate the role that integrated self-location plays in shaping self-consciousness. Section 2 starts by looking at the experience of being “turned around”, which is a common experience of disorientation. This analysis leads to the conclusion that integrated self-location is transmodal and depends on all three egocentric axes, and that disorientation destabilizes this integrated self-location. Section 3 explores a corpus of reports of disorientation episodes and highlights four key characteristics of these experiences (anxiety, vulnerability, confusion and diminishment) and their links to self-consciousness, focusing on the transformations in both the lived body and the experience of space. The central thesis of this paper is that during disorientation a destabilization of integrated self-location results in a diminished form of self-consciousness.
Highlights
The present paper explores the phenomenology of disorientation and its relationship with self-consciousness
Going back to the agential accounts of self-location explored in section 1, just like minimal self-location contributes to self-consciousness by supporting our capacity to act within an egocentric frame of reference, by supporting our capacity to act within an engaged allocentric frame of reference, integrated self-location contributes to the fullbodied self-consciousness and to the elaborate sense of self that we experience when we are at home in the world
After reviewing existing discussions on the ties between self-location and self-consciousness, I drew a distinction early on between minimal self-location and integrated self-location. This distinction gave me the necessary framework to explore the phenomenology of disorientation, starting with experiences of being turned around, studying illusions of orientation along the other two egocentric axes and experiences of disorientation that did not necessarily involve illusions along the egocentric axes
Summary
As I write, my laptop is in front of me, my chair below me, the window to my left, and beyond that, is the city. Binet’s subject still sees a big building in front of him, he is only unable to identify that building as Hôtel de Ville, because of the misalignment between his allocentric and egocentric frames of reference In this case it is not that the integrated selflocation vanishes, so that only minimal self-location remains (as in the case of patient CF). The transmodality of integrated self-location means that it has an influence on both our perception (as we saw in Binet’s reported cases of non-recognition and unfamiliarity) and our experienced possibilities for action (e.g. reaching to the left to touch the wall) It seems that if cases of left-right inversion are hard to find (we need darkness, thought experiments or virtual reality), cases of upside-down reversal would not exist. We have started to bring to the foreground some of the feelings often associated with disorientation (such as perplexity, unfamiliarity and distress), which will be explored more indepth
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