Disentangling the dynamic core: a research program for a neurodynamics at the large-scale

My purpose in this paper is to sketch a research direction based on Francisco Varela's pioneering work in neurodynamics (see also Rudrauf et al. 2003, in this issue). Very early on he argued that the internal coherence of every mental-cognitive state lies in the global self-organization of the brain activities at the large-scale, constituting a fundamental pole of integration called here a [quot ]dynamic core[quot ]. Recent neuroimaging evidence appears to broadly support this hypothesis and suggests that a global brain dynamics emerges at the large scale level from the cooperative interactions among widely distributed neuronal populations. Despite a growing body of evidence supporting this view, our understanding of these large-scale brain processes remains hampered by the lack of a theoretical language for expressing these complex behaviors in dynamical terms. In this paper, I propose a rough cartography of a comprehensive approach that offers a conceptual and mathematical framework to analyze spatio-temporal large-scale brain phenomena. I emphasize how these nonlinear methods can be applied, what property might be inferred from neuronal signals, and where one might productively proceed for the future. This paper is dedicated, with respect and affection, to the memory of Francisco Varela.

From autopoiesis to neurophenomenology: Francisco Varela's exploration of the biophysics of being

This paper reviews in detail Francisco Varela's work on subjectivity and consciousness in the biological sciences. His original approach to this [quot ]hard problem[quot ] presents a subjectivity that is radically intertwined with its biological and physical roots. It must be understood within the framework of his theory of a concrete, embodied dynamics, grounded in his general theory of autonomous systems. Through concepts and paradigms such as biological autonomy, embodiment and neurophenomenology, the article explores the multiple levels of circular causality assumed by Varela to play a fundamental role in the emergence of human experience. The concept of biological autonomy provides the necessary and sufficient conditions for characterizing biological life and identity as an emergent and circular self-producing process. Embodiment provides a systemic and dynamical framework for understanding how a cognitive self--a mind--can arise in an organism in the midst of its operational cycles of internal regulation and ongoing sensorimotor coupling. Global subjective properties can emerge at different levels from the interactions of components and can reciprocally constrain local processes through an ongoing, recursive morphodynamics. Neurophenomenology is a supplementary step in the study of consciousness. Through a rigorous method, it advocates the careful examination of experience with first-person methodologies. It attempts to create heuristic mutual constraints between biophysical data and data produced by accounts of subjective experience. The aim is to explicitly ground the active and disciplined insight the subject has about his/her experience in a biophysical emergent process. Finally, we discuss Varela's essential contribution to our understanding of the generation of consciousness in the framework of what we call his "biophysics of being".