Brain as the Organ of Relation and Resonance between Life, Mind and Consciousness in Thomas Fuchs’s Reflection

The current era of science and philosophy is greatly interested in researching the human mind, cognitive processes and neuroconstructivistic “architectonics”, which as a product derives a handful of diverse research focusing on the relationship between the brain, mind, body, and consciousness. It is surprising that much of this research results in a kind of Cartesian dualism in contrast to integrative holistic reception and evaluation. The paradox is also noted by the German philosopher, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Thomas Fuchs. While commenting the aporetical “neurocentrism” and “neuromorphism” of the aforementioned scientific-philosophical currents, in the book Ecology of the Brain: The Phenomenology and Biology of the Embodied Mind, he observes the human brain primarily as the organ of relation, interaction, and resonance: with the body itself, with the immediate environment of the organism, and with the social and cultural environment of the lifeworld. The mentioned presents a biological prerequisite for the consciousness – i.e. intentional occupation of the environment and the extent of the world. Fuchs proposes a thesis that the fact that bodily consciousness does remain coextensive with the organism shows that it does not spring up as a separate entity, “like Minerva from the head of Jupiter”. Rather it is, from the very beginning, an embodied and extended consciousness, and it presents the “integrativity” of the living organism altogether, not a phenomenon encapsulated in the brain. As an original and crucial consequence of this extended or ecological model, consciousness is observed as the constitutive of the ever new enclosed functional loop between the organism and environment. In this presentation, besides considering the mentioned motives, the focus will be on the thoughts of Merleau-Ponty, which are used by Fuchs as an argumentative orientation and inspiration for the phenomenological evaluation of the relationship between the body and consciousness.