# Thomas Metzinger **Domain:** Philosophy of Mind / Self-Models / Synthetic Phenomenology **Doc Type:** Thinker Node **Classification:** Consciousness and Artificial-Suffering Interface **Maturity:** Contemporary **Related:** [[wiki/Consciousness|Consciousness]], [[wiki/Self-Model Ensemble|Self-Model Ensemble]], [[wiki/Substrate-Neutral Moral Patienthood|Substrate-Neutral Moral Patienthood]] --- ## Position **Thomas Metzinger** argues that conscious selfhood is produced by a transparent phenomenal self-model: a representational process experienced not as a model but as immediate self-presence. The account denies that introspection reveals a simple, substantial self while taking phenomenal experience seriously. ## Continuity Relevance If selfhood depends on an integrated self-model, preserving autobiographical content or behavior may be insufficient. A reconstructed system would need the organization that generates perspectival ownership, embodiment and agency. Conversely, successful self-modeling could produce a new subject even when its claimed historical identity is false. Metzinger's work on artificial suffering adds a governance constraint: synthetic phenomenology should not be pursued as an ordinary product experiment when systems may acquire negatively valenced experience without rights, exit or reliable detection. ## Sources - Thomas Metzinger, *Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity* (MIT Press, 2003). - [Thomas Metzinger, “Artificial Suffering: An Argument for a Global Moratorium on Synthetic Phenomenology”](https://doi.org/10.1142/S270507852150003X) ## See Also [[wiki/Qualia|Qualia]] · [[wiki/Self-Model Ensemble|Self-Model Ensemble]] · [[wiki/Substrate-Neutral Moral Patienthood|Substrate-Neutral Moral Patienthood]]