Millière Raphaël
Faculty of Philosophy, University of OxfordOxford, United Kingdom.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2017 May 23;11:245. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2017.00245. eCollection 2017.
There is converging evidence that high doses of hallucinogenic drugs can produce significant alterations of self-experience, described as the dissolution of the sense of self and the loss of boundaries between self and world. This article discusses the relevance of this phenomenon, known as "drug-induced ego dissolution (DIED)", for cognitive neuroscience, psychology and philosophy of mind. Data from self-report questionnaires suggest that three neuropharmacological classes of drugs can induce ego dissolution: classical psychedelics, dissociative anesthetics and agonists of the kappa opioid receptor (KOR). While these substances act on different neurotransmitter receptors, they all produce strong subjective effects that can be compared to the symptoms of acute psychosis, including ego dissolution. It has been suggested that neuroimaging of DIED can indirectly shed light on the neural correlates of the self. While this line of inquiry is promising, its results must be interpreted with caution. First, neural correlates of ego dissolution might reveal the necessary neurophysiological conditions for the maintenance of the sense of self, but it is more doubtful that this method can reveal its minimally sufficient conditions. Second, it is necessary to define the relevant notion of self at play in the phenomenon of DIED. This article suggests that DIED consists in the disruption of subpersonal processes underlying the "minimal" or "embodied" self, i.e., the basic experience of being a self rooted in multimodal integration of self-related stimuli. This hypothesis is consistent with Bayesian models of phenomenal selfhood, according to which the subjective structure of conscious experience ultimately results from the optimization of predictions in perception and action. Finally, it is argued that DIED is also of particular interest for philosophy of mind. On the one hand, it challenges theories according to which consciousness always involves self-awareness. On the other hand, it suggests that ordinary conscious experience might involve a minimal kind of self-awareness rooted in multisensory processing, which is what appears to fade away during DIED.
越来越多的证据表明，高剂量的致幻药物会导致自我体验的显著改变，这种改变被描述为自我感的消解以及自我与世界之间界限的丧失。本文探讨了这种被称为“药物诱导的自我消解（DIED）”的现象在认知神经科学、心理学和心灵哲学中的相关性。来自自我报告问卷的数据表明，三类神经药理学药物可诱发自我消解：经典的致幻剂、解离性麻醉剂和κ阿片受体（KOR）激动剂。虽然这些物质作用于不同的神经递质受体，但它们都会产生强烈的主观效应，这些效应可与急性精神病的症状相比较，包括自我消解。有人提出，对DIED进行神经成像可以间接揭示自我的神经关联。虽然这条研究路线很有前景，但其结果必须谨慎解释。首先，自我消解的神经关联可能揭示维持自我感所需的神经生理条件，但这种方法能否揭示其最低限度的充分条件则更值得怀疑。其次，有必要界定在DIED现象中起作用的相关自我概念。本文认为，DIED在于破坏了“最小化”或“具身化”自我背后的次人格过程，即作为一个自我的基本体验，这种体验植根于与自我相关刺激的多模态整合。这一假设与现象学自我的贝叶斯模型一致，根据该模型，意识体验的主观结构最终源于感知和行动中预测的优化。最后，有人认为DIED对心灵哲学也特别有意义。一方面，它挑战了那种认为意识总是涉及自我意识的理论。另一方面，它表明普通的意识体验可能涉及一种植根于多感官处理的最小化自我意识，而这似乎正是在DIED过程中逐渐消失的东西。
