The Neurobiological Basis of Rights

At a glance:

Self-ownership is a neurobiological phenomenon resulting from the nature of man as a conscious biological organism;
The neurophysiology of core-consciousness is the basis of self-ownership and is the necessary and sufficient condition for the Right of Self-Ownership;
The ultimate neurobiological subject of rights is the “proto-self” as represented by the first-order somatomapping in the orientation association areas of the brain;
Rights are intimately related to beings as subjects, which is a result of core-consciousness and, therefore, neurobiological in nature;
The most fundamental origin of self-ownership is in the subtle pre-linguistic experiential feeling state of ‘I am‘ which arises with core-consciousness and is not rationally deniable;
The concept of self-ownership is linguistic, originating from informal deontology created by linguistic representations of Intentional states, but this originates in subtle non-linguistic Intentional states of the feeling of self-ownership;
Fundamentally related to the proper action regarding the maintenance of homeostasis of one’s organism;
Only conscious biological organisms can possess Natural Rights—unless non-biological conscious beings can be created—because they are subjects with experiential feeling states;
Related to the agency-based justification for Human Rights[1]as a result of the link between consciousness and action;
A basis for the claim that Human Rights originate from man’s humanity;
Strongly supports methodological individualism since only individuals can be conscious;
“That all men are created equal” from the Declaration of Independence understood this way does not mean equal in ability, rationality, intelligence, etc., but instead that all persons are equal in this fundamental neurobiological sense;
This neurobiological basis of self-ownership is genuinely inalienable: No government grants or can take away this Right of Self-Ownership; it can only defend or violate it.

A neurobiological explanation and justification of the right of self-ownership have not, to the author’s knowledge, heretofore been attempted.[2] It appears that this is, in large part, due to the youth of the field of neuroscience and the general slowness of philosophy to adopt recent scientific advances, thereby often languishing in the use of out-dated theories in philosophical analyses. The neurosciences are, however, ripe for application to a theory of Natural Rights by way of understanding the conscious self that acts, which is amenable to praxeological analysis.

The Self as a State of the Organism

The conscious sense of self is the most fundamental basis of ownership, and the self-ownership of one’s organism is the result of the most neurobiologically fundamental aspect of consciousness referred to as core-consciousness (Damasio, 1999: 168-172, 176-182). Core-consciousness is the result of the neurological representation[3] of the changes in the state of the organism, known as second-order somatomapping,[4] which occur as a result of sensing the changes due to the actions of the organism and its interaction with the environment (Damasio, 1999: 177).

The mapping of these changes is combined with first-order mapping of the state of the organism and the first-order mapping of the sensorimotor information, and the experience of the combination of the three results in core-consciousness and what can be referred to as the core-self (Damasio, 1999: 168-172). It is notable that the first and second-order somatomapping are of the state of the organism and not of external perceptions. This is significant because science has heretofore focused primarily on external perception at the expense of internal perception, and as a result, it appears that the necessary concept of the self has not received proper attention.[5]

“[…] but the potential and rightful owner of each individual life had no knowledge that life existed because nature had not invented an owner yet. There was being but not knowing.”
Antonio Damasio[6]

A person is a complex conscious organism whose ultimate subject of ownership is the proto-self (Damasio, 1999: 25-26), which is the first-order representation of the state of the organism in the orientation association area of the brain and is experienced as a feeling state in conscious awareness. However, as a result of the second-order somatomapping, a subtle sense of self is able to be known in experiential feeling states.

The evolution of second-order somatomapping allowed for the categories of knowledge, ownership, and action to emerge in organisms as a result of the mapping of the changes which occur to their organism in various processes (Damasio, 1999: 177-182). This presentation[7] of information in awareness permits the organism to know that the perceptions and thoughts are its own which then creates the ability to act in the proper sense (Damasio, 1999: 182-183) and without this self-ownership, neither action nor knowledge is possible.

In this way, self-ownership is the neurophysiological basis for knowledge, action, and consciousness itself. This neurobiological owner is now capable of acting purposefully utilizing his knowledge as a tool for action[8] which is the subject matter of praxeology. From this foundation of core-consciousness and resulting core-self, other faculties such as substantial memory capacity and reasoning ability allow for the creation of the autobiographical-self and what can be properly considered a person (Damasio, 1999: 172-176), although language is not necessary for this process (Damasio, 1999: 198).[9] This neurobiological self-ownership of core-consciousness is the foundation upon which personal identity develops over time (Damasio, 1999: 173-174), and this identity is arguably one of the most fundamental developments that transform man into persons.

The Linguistic Foundation

While self-ownership itself is neurobiological, the concept of self-ownership is linguistic in nature and originates from the linguistic representations of subtle non-linguistic Intentional states of the sense of self in conscious organisms. This is grounded in the Background of non-conscious biological capacities, such as in the orientation association area, which is necessary to generate these Intentional mental states.

In other words, the concept of self-ownership is a result of the neurophysiological Intentional states of the mind, which is biological in origin since language is a representation of man’s most fundamental Intentional states (Searle, 2004: 113).

The mind of man automatically translates Intentional states into language (Damasio, 1999: 185),[10] and when expressed through speech acts as status function declarations and collectively recognized, the ontological basis of rights is thereby created. In other words, the concept of self-ownership cannot be considered “mere words.”[11]

Integrated Information Theory

Integrated Information Theory is a recent mathematical theory of consciousness which begins with the phenomenology[12] of conscious experience in order to establish phenomenological axioms, and from this, postulates are derived and the mathematical theory is developed (Oizumi et al., 2014). While not directly the basis of rights, it is essential to understand for critical aspects related to consciousness which will be subsequently elaborated. The following phenomenological axioms are taken to be self-evident:

Existence – Consciousness exists;
Composition – Consciousness is structured;
Information – Consciousness is informative,[13] and each experience is unique;
Integration – Each conscious experience is irreducible to non-interdependent components;
Exclusion – Each conscious experience excludes all others; (Oizumi et al., 2014: 2-3)

The following postulates are then introduced to compliment the axioms:

Existence – Mechanisms in a state exist, and a system is a set of mechanisms;
Composition – Elementary mechanisms can be combined into higher-order mechanisms;
Information – A mechanism can contribute to consciousness only if it specifies “difference that make a difference” (known as Bateson information);
Integration – A mechanism can contribute to consciousness only if it specifies a cause-effect repertoire (information) that is irreducible to independent components;
Exclusion – A mechanism can contribute to consciousness at most one cause-effect repertoire, the one having the maximum value of integration/irreducibility (Oizumi et al., 2014: 3).

From this, a system of cause-effect repertoire mechanisms integrates information into what is referred to as a Maximally Irreducible Conceptual Structure (MICS), which is a geometrical constellation map of “quale”[14] and results in an irreducible geometrical “qualia shape” representing the phenomenological conscious experience.[15] This is to say that there are mechanisms in the brain that contribute information which is subsequently integrated into an irreducible informational structure associated with awareness and contains information above and beyond its constituent parts. In this way, the meaning of Intentionality can be understood in the sense of being about objects or states of affairs of the world and organism.

This understanding sheds light on a controversy found in the philosophy of mind of whether all mental states are Intentional by suggesting that consciousness is always and necessarily about something.[16] John Searle, for example, claims that general states of anxiety are not Intentional since they are not about anything (Searle, 1983: 1-2). However, this is not entirely true simply for the reason that any conscious experience is composed of information from both the organism and the world, so even the general state of anxiety is about the state of the organism, or information regarding the state of the organism.[17]

Searle’s claim is based on Intentionality as a phenomenon of consciousness in which representations or presentations have propositional contents and, therefore, conditions of satisfaction with directions of fit (Searle, 1983: 7). While this is undoubtedly true, it misses the weak sense of Intentionality in which there is an informational presentation in awareness of the world and organism which may lack propositional contents and, therefore, lack conditions of satisfaction. Understood this way, consciousness is always and necessarily about something at least in a weak informational sense.

It is critical to understand that this conception of information, often referred to as Bateson information (Tononi, 2012: 319), is non-physical for the reason that it consists of distinctions which are consequential to the organism.[18] It is this non-physical information which composes phenomenological conscious experience. As a result, the self can be understood as the Maximally Irreducible Conceptual Structure (MICS) associated with primary awareness in the fundamental experiential sense. This MICS is the neurobiological self which owns—is in control of—its organism.

In this way, the self, composed of non-physical integrated information associated with awareness, is in exclusive control of its physical organism. There is no “ghost in the machine” or any appeal to crude mysticism.[19] This is essential to a full understanding of a theory of consciousness since, strictly speaking, Integrated Information Theory does not answer the Hard Problem of consciousness.[20]

It is important to point out that Integrated Information Theory is not an established theory in neuroscience. While at the time of writing Integrated Information Theory does have corroborating evidence (Oizumi et al., 2014: 2[21]) and is gaining support from the prominent neuroscientist Christof Koch[22] (Tononi & Koch, 2014), it cannot be considered an established theory at this time.

However, there is a philosophical appeal to the theory, and it appears that something like Integrated Information Theory is likely to explain consciousness within a proper metaphysical understanding of quantum theory. It must be kept in mind that this section cannot be considered to demonstrate self-ownership utilizing an established theory and as such it could be omitted without harm, for more established neuroscience has already been used in order to ground neurobiological self-ownership. Nevertheless, Integrated Information Theory appears to be on the right track and, at the very least, can be utilized for philosophical insight into the plausible nature of the self and human action. That is to say, at a minimum, it can demonstrate that such explicit explanations regarding consciousness are possible in order to eliminate spurious objections claiming the incomprehensibility of a conscious self which acts.

Specifying Ontological Subjectivity

The information or ideas upon which man acts are not physical objects and, therefore, have an ontologically subjective mode of existence and are thus not amenable to invariant quantitative description. They can theoretically be mapped in a qualia space as specified by Integrated Information Theory (Oizumi et al., 2014: 10-11), but this, without a doubt, is lacking the necessary experiential property and, therefore, ontologically incomplete.

This mapping of the qualia shape is, therefore, not an identity relation with conscious experience: These concepts upon which man acts—intrinsic information structures—necessarily refer to an experiential subject and are thereby Intentional. This provides substance to the ontologically subjective mode of existence, or in other words, what precisely is meant when something is classified as having a subjective ontology: Something is ontologically subjective when it is part of an Intentional irreducible intrinsic informational structure.

For instance, pain is ontologically subjective because nerve firing in and of itself is not pain,[23] yet once the information from the nerves is integrated into a MICS of conscious experience, Intentional or intrinsic information is created, and one can then feel pain, and pain can then be said to exist (since the awareness of pain is constitutive of its existence). However, it is critical to understand that there is no pain until this intrinsic information is formed in a primary experiential state, or in other words, pain does not exist until there is an experience of a particular information state; the existence of pain is inextricably linked to experience.

An idea is ontologically subjective in the same manner, and the collective Intentionality necessary for social ontology has the same mode of existence as a mental state of collective Intentionality. These are composed of Intentional irreducible informational structures about a state of affairs in the world—in this case as declarative illocutionary acts representing a state of affairs as existing—and necessarily exist in the minds of individual persons. This explicitly establishes a plausible basis for the ontologically subjective mode of existence, how it arises, and its distinction from the ontologically objective mode. This is able to resolve the controversy as to what the ontologically subjective is if not the ontologically objective physical.

An Apparent Mind-Body Dualism

It is critical to understand that a person is a single organism. There is no mind-body dualism since the entire organism is processing and integrating information into a single conscious experience.[24] It is unfortunate that science has treated the mind as if it were somehow something separate from the body which has contributed to this apparent dilemma. This appears to be a result of the historical, philosophical conceptions which extend back as far as Descartes, where mind and body were treated as entirely separate[25] (Searle, 2004: 9-11).

Henry Stapp’s Quantum Interactive Dualism (Stapp, 2007: 35-36)[26] offers a straightforward explanation of mind-brain interaction using the orthodox von Neumann quantum formalism. While this may appear to indicate that there is a form of dualism, one must understand the nature of the interaction between subjective and objective modes of existence which occur in only one world. There is no separate consciousness, but rather there are different ontological modes which interact in one world through fundamental experiential states that actualize quantum transactions, forming the information which constitutes the cosmos.

The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Self-Ownership

The presence of core-consciousness in an organism constitutes the necessary and sufficient conditions to establish self-ownership, and the action of the organism is an extension of this because action requires core-consciousness. Without core-consciousness, there is no action in the proper sense.[27] The self as the Intentional MICS acts on the physical body which results in action in the world, or in other words, the action of the self is to control the physical organism, and through this action, control objects in the environment as means to improve well-being.

Action itself cannot be the fundamental basis of self-ownership since there cannot be action ‘all the way down’ ontologically. It must bottom out in something other than action, which must ultimately be the experiential feeling state of self-ownership created by core-consciousness, whose ultimate subject is the proto-self as represented by the first-order somatomapping (Damasio, 1999: 25-26). Without core-consciousness, there can be no action because there is no self-ownership, and with no self-ownership, there cannot be the Right of Self-Ownership or any rights related to proper action. More significantly, without the fundamental experiential property of consciousness, there is not even the possibility of possession or ownership. The “ground-level” of self-ownership is in the first-order representation of the state of the organism associated with the primary experiential property of consciousness which is made an owner through second-order somatomapping.

However, what if a person is unconscious? If core-conscious is absent, would not self-ownership disappear along with it? It would appear that as long as an organism capable of core-consciousness is alive that it retains a latent self-ownership and, therefore, latent self-ownership rights because core-consciousness may return. In other words, metaphorically, the property of their organism has not been abandoned. In certain severe medical conditions, whether core-consciousness may return may be unknown and benefit of the doubt must, therefore, be extended to the person in that state.[28] This right must, without a doubt, be protected by others capable of action.

Ownership and the Exclusive Control of Action

A necessary precondition for action is that the self who owns is the self who acts and that its physical organism is required as a means for action. Self-ownership is to say that the self has the right of exclusive control over the proper action of its organism, which is the valuational action of pursuing ends using scarce means while not violating the rights of others.

As a result, it must be recognized that a conscious self is the only proper subject of ownership and action. While the proto-self is the ultimate subject of possession (Damasio, 1999: 25-26), it is the creation of the core-self by second-order somatomapping which creates the owning self, known as the core-self (Damasio, 1999: 182-183).

This is the self as a self-owner, and because it also allows for knowledge and action in the proper sense (Damasio, 1999: 26: 183[29]), control is established over that action which makes it purposeful. This control that the self has of the action of its organism is the very basis of self-ownership and is only possible as a result of the underlying neurobiological functions of core-consciousness.

Proper Action to Remove Felt Uneasiness

Natural and Human Rights are critical in a fundamental way to the person as organism because the person has a right to proper action to remove felt uneasiness which is a matter of the maintenance of the homeostasis of their organism. To say that an organism is legally compelled to act by way of threat of aggression—e.g., fine or imprisonment—for the maintenance of homeostasis of other organisms constitutes a violation of self-ownership in that the organism is not in control of the proper action of its organism. When phrased this way the point is clear: One organism is coerced by the threat of aggression to maintain the homeostasis of another organism and that coerced organism cannot freely act to maintain its homeostasis due to this compelled action for another.

Felt uneasiness is essentially intrinsic information regarding the homeostasis of the organism which is maintained by acting to exchange one state of affairs for another. The information regarding the state of the organism is communicated through conscious or subconscious states of felt uneasiness (Damasio, 1999: 77)[30] which this motivates the action of the organism.

Since conflict results in the disruption of homeostasis of the individuals involved, a conflict resolution system is necessary for the restoration of homeostasis in order to accord with the Natural Law of Human Action toward well-being. Overall, peaceful means are most conducive to homeostasis of all parties involved.

It may be objected that since conflict over rights is zero-sum that the loser is not better off. While this is undoubtedly true, it must also be recognized that this is the case because generally speaking, the loser was the aggressor in violating the rights of others and that overall this is the most conducive scenario for the maintenance of homeostasis for all individuals, particularly if it helps to reduce future conflict.

Peaceful means of conflict resolution in situations not requiring physical self-defense is most conducive to the removal of felt uneasiness of all in the long-run, and the intent of peaceful means of resolution is demonstrated in the act of rational argumentation over the conflict. Peaceful means also support the cooperative efforts under the division of labor which improves the standard of living of all in the long run as dictated by the Law of Association.

In sum, there exists neurobiological evidence for the self and self-ownership further backed by a recent ground-breaking mathematical theory of consciousness, which was utilized to firmly support a neurobiological conception of the self and self-ownership that provides the foundation of all rights. Felt conscious experience was addressed as a real biological phenomenon, and an explanation of its general mechanisms was proposed. In doing so, strong support for the validity of methodological individualism and self-ownership was provided, and the inalienability of self-ownership can be further understood in an explicit manner. This neurobiological explanation serves to substantiate the formal structure provided by the deontological and praxeological explanations of the nature and origin of rights.

[1] For example, Gewirth (1982).

[2] Biological explanations have been attempted using neurobiological evidence (Fruehwald, 2010), but these have not been to establish self-ownership neurobiologically. Instead, it is usually used to explain or justify related behaviors. Morris (1980) comes close by using anatomy, although not an explicit neurobiological explanation and relies more on the philosophy of mind.

[3] The term representation is used for ease of communication. To be more accurate, this mapping involves presentation rather than representation, since the information is directly presented in awareness, even if only as a background feeling state. Any further use of the term representation with respect to sensorimotor and somatomapping is meant in this sense.

[4] Somatomapping refers to the neurological mapping of the state of the soma of the organism, where sôma (σῶμα) is Greek for “body.”

[5] Damasio, Antonio, “Self Comes to Mind” presentation at FIAP Congress in Riva del Garda, Italy (October 2, 2014).

[6] (Damasio, 1999: 30) This is referring to the existence of the first-order somatomapping and the proto-self without the second-order somatomapping necessary to create knowledge.

[7] Not representation.

[8] “[…] knowledge is a tool of action. Its function is to advise man on how to proceed in his endeavors to remove uneasiness.”(Mises, 1962: 35)

[9] See (Damasio, 1999: 219-222) for additional details of the neuroanatomical basis for the autobiographical-self.

[10] “In the case of humans the second-order nonverbal narrative of consciousness can be converted into language immediately. One might call it the third-order. In addition to the story that signifies the act of knowing and attributes it to the newly minted core self, the human brain also generates an automatic verbal version of the story. I have no way of stopping that verbal translation, neither do you. Whatever plays in the nonverbal tracks of our minds is rapidly translated into words and sentences.”

[11] This requires elaboration in the philosophy of language, which must be addressed in future posts.

[12] Which could also be considered a reflective understanding.

[13] In terms of the philosophy of mind, consciousness is Intentional.

[14] While the traditional use of the term quale or qualia in the philosophy of mind is questionable due to redundancy (Searle, 1997: 8-9; 2015: 76), in the context of Integrated Information Theory the use is appropriate in attempting to describe the ontologically objective neurological correlate of the ontologically subjective experiential state in ultimately irreducible terms.

[15] While there are philosophers that think not all conscious states are qualitative, this would strongly indicate that all conscious states are necessarily qualitative.

[16] However, it appears possible to transcend consciousness and experience pure states of awareness or even full transcendental experience in which there is no informational presentation in consciousness. These are states, however, that transcend consciousness, and consciousness is still considered to be always and necessarily about something at least in a weak sense of Intentionality.

[17] It may also be a result of subconscious influence from unconscious cognition, for example, a repressed mental state (Searle, 2004: 167).

[18] For example, seeing a black dot on a white page consists of the distinctions between the white and the black. While the white page and the black dot are physical, the difference between the two is not a physical property.

[19] This requires elaboration in order to deal with the Hard Problem of consciousness (Chalmers, 1995), which must be addressed in future posts.

[20] The Hard Problem of consciousness was introduced by David Chalmers (1995) and refers to the problem of how physical states of a system could give rise to the fundamental experiential property of consciousness. It contrasts with what are referred to as the (relatively) “easy problems” such as how the visual system functions.

[21] “[…] IIT leads to experimental predictions, for instance that the loss and recovery of consciousness should be associated with the breakdown and recovery of information integration. This prediction has been confirmed using transcranial magnetic stimulation in combination with high-density electroencephalography in several different conditions characterized by loss of consciousness, such as deep sleep, general anesthesia obtained with several different agents, and in brain damaged patients (vegetative, minimally conscious, emerging from minimal consciousness, locked-in [Casali et al., 2013]).”

[22] It is to be noted that this is a cautious appeal to authority in that such appeals are not simply entirely invalid and can corroborate evidence in the right context, but with the full recognition that experts are continuously wrong on myriad topics, and in this particular case it is noted that Koch is mistaken on his representational theory of perception (This is explained in detail in Searle, 2015).

[23] Pain perception is far more complex than this, which is intentionally over-simplified for ease of explanation. The actual complexity of pain perception does not fundamentally change this point.

[24] The existence of subjective and objective ontological modes of existence does not imply an ontological dualism or gap.

[25] This philosophical stance is known as substance dualism, where mind and body are two distinct substances.

[26] The subject of quantum theory and its interpretation is a vast subject in and of itself that must be addressed in future posts. While it may appear to be irrelevant to the subject of rights, implicit worldviews informed by physics are behind many of the objections to praxeological economics and fundamental rights like self-ownership.

[27] Any attribution of action to non-conscious organisms is only metaphorical and would be taking “the intentional stance” to use Dennett’s term (1971).

[28] Without a doubt, if the person has established in a will that they would not like to be kept alive in such a situation, then their established wish must be adhered to.

[29] “Therein our sense of agency—these images are mine and I can act on the object that caused them.”

[30] “[…] pleasure is commonly initiated by a detection of imbalance […]”

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Chalmers; David J. (1995) “Facing up to the problem of consciousness.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 2: 200-19.

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