Intentionality is often posited as one of the first characteristics of mind, referring to the mind’s innate tendency to be directed towards something other than itself. However, self-awareness is also a feature of the mind, and self-awareness seems counter to intentionality in that it reflexively stares back into the conscious state itself, almost as though it were first removed or displaced and suspending this outward orientation while looking back inwards to its own processes. Self-awareness could be defined as a higher-order form of intentionality or it could be its own separate mode of thought and thus a separate feature of the mind. Can self-awareness and intentionality exist in isolation? Is one more fundamental than the other?
Intentionality and Self-Awareness
Lynda Joy is a American PhD student living in Denmark, researching sensorimotor training with multi-modal Augmented Reality technologies by using methodologies from Cognitive Neuropsychology. During her MA, she worked very closely with the Center for Subjectivity Research and studied Phenomenology and its plausible implementations in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science ("naturalized" phenomenology). Between her MA and PhD, she worked with labs in Berlin (Germany), Adelaide (Australia), Tallinn (Estonia), Zurich (Switzerland), and Paris (France). She was a keynote speaker at IEEE VR in 2016, and presented at the Augmented Reality World Expo in 2017. In her spare time, she is currently writing a novel about a virtual simulation of bardo (the stage between life and death to reincarnation in Tibetan Buddhism). Her goal is to create experiences with new technologies that help people access more of the embodied subjectivity of another person/persons. Lynda wants her work to revere compassion to help allow the world to realize what a gift it is to both give and receive. Lynda is a strong believer in a better world that we collectively make by sharing a common vision, and that this vision comes through sharing our stories and our truths. That's what this blog is all about.
