Thomas Metzinger (2013). Frontiers in Psychology 4:746. DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00746, PMC3813926.
Key takeaways
From the reading, NOTE-1434.
- Transparency, defined. A transparent representation is “not experienced as” a representation; an opaque one is, “for example in pseudo-hallucinations or lucid dreams”; there is “a graded spectrum between transparency and opacity” (p. 2, note 2).
- Identification follows transparency. “Because our conscious body model is transparent, that is, because it cannot introspectively be recognized as a model, we fully identify with its representational content” (p. 3).
- A narrower MPS. Since a robust sense of self is reported where body representation is reduced to a point, self-identification may reduce to self-location, giving MPS as “transparent self-location in a spatiotemporal frame of reference” (Windt’s formulation, p. 7).
- The prediction, and the test. “Transparent spatiotemporal self-location is necessary and sufficient for bringing about a minimal, consciously experienced sense of selfhood” (p. 14). The test is a case of phenomenally opaque self-location; the paper asks whether any is known, and reports none.
- Evidence is second-hand. Out-of-body prevalence figures (Alvarado 2000, Wolfradt) and one dream report; the paper itself says the categories in those surveys are ambiguous.
Standing in the record
Filed on 2026-10-30 for THEORY-064, the self-model account, whose
promote_when names exactly the phenomenological test this paper turns
into a research question. It narrows the test to self-location and makes
lucid, bodiless dreaming the place to look, but it reports no case either
way. It carries no instruction for machine-learning practice.