Commentary: First-Order Embodiment, Second-Order Embodiment, Third-Order Embodiment

The framework of first-, second-, and third-order embodiment (1-3E; Metzinger, 2014) was developed for exploring how phenomenal properties are physically and computationally grounded. Metzinger’s goal for 1-3E is to show how the experience of being a self (i.e., phenomenal selfhood) is generated within an embodied system and thus to embed his self-model theory (Metzinger, 2004) in the context of grounded cognition. The basic claim of his approach is that phenomenal selfhood (3E) is grounded in computational, representational processes (2E) that in turn are grounded in physical (i.e., neural and bodily) structures (1E). In what follows, I will discuss the aspects of grounding and representationality in the framework, and suggest clarifications. In a hierarchical framework such as 1-3E, a necessary question is how different levels relate and connect to each other. Metzinger emphasizes that there are grounding relations holding between first-, second-, and third-order embodiment. He proposes Pezzulo’s et al. (2013) conception of a grounding theory of cognition as a fitting theoretical framework, where grounding refers to a physical foundation. An example of this can be found in the original article, where Metzinger suggests that eye movements ground the phenomenal experience of lucid dreams (p. 276). In general, grounding refers to the relation between levels of embodiment that give an insight into how high-level properties, such as the experience of selfhood, emerge from low-level properties. Metzinger gives a description of the relation between 2E and 3E, where the representational content of 2E is “elevated to the level of global availability and integrated with a single spatial situation model plus a virtual window of presence” (p. 274). It is, however, less obvious how these two levels of embodiment relate to the lowest level 1E.1 1E systems are described as “purely physical, reactive” (p. 273) systems that exploit their physical resources to navigate their environment. This is merely a description of a 1E system, and does not refer to how 1E can amount to a grounding level within one system that also possesses 2E and 3E (Quadt, 2017). This problem also relates to the notion of representationality in the framework.Metzinger claims that in order to arrive at a characterization of the phenomenal properties of selfhood, they need to be described in terms of their representational properties. These representational properties then have to be “bottomed out” (p. 277) by formulating a computational model.