Abstract

The problem of 'I'- the inner or pre-reflective self - to be discussed here is as to its existence or not. After describing briefly the two extremes involved in the present disagreement over the existence or not of an 'I', we conclude on the need for a new scientific-based approach, using suitable brain imaging experiments, to detect any clues indicating the presence or not of an inner self or 'I'. More specifically, attention-based experiments and correlation and causality analysis of the resulting data are suggested as needed. The existence of suitable early brain activity, but sited at a high enough level in the cortical processing hierarchy, and with suitable causal flow, is seen to be appropriate to enable a difference to be detected between the two approaches . Various neural models that claim to represent consciousness in the brain are considered and at least one, CODAM, singled out as found able to provide a neural architecture able to implement any experimental findings showing the existence of an 'I'. However, CODAM has a close affinity to the three other main models discussed, but provides addition to them of activity representing a possible inner self. It is suggested that CODAM gives guidance to finding 'I', with initial positive results, although a more general study of brain activity in suitable paradigms is needed