The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self

by Thomas Metzinger

Here is an interim theory: Minimal self-consciousness is not control, but what makes control possible. It includes an image of the body in time and space (location) plus the fact that the organism creating this image does not recognize it as an image (identification). So we must have a Now, plus a spatial frame of reference, and a transparent body-model. Then we need a visual (or auditory) perspective originating within the body volume, a center of projection embedded in the volume of the body. But the really interesting step is the one from the minimal self to a slightly more robust first-person perspective. It is the step from selfhood-as-embodiment to selfhood-as-subjectivity.