The question with which we began was how the sense of experiential ownership is related to the well-known property of IEM, and whether, if it is, the proposed counterexamples are cogent. First of all we argued that it is impossible to talk about the sense of experiential ownership misrepresenting the fact of experiential ownership, since the latter is a conceptual ascription from the outside that has nothing to do with phenomenal states that are experienced from the inside (cf. thesis 1). Second, IEM-P is an incoherent notion, because phenomenal states lack the basic properties that are possessed by judgments and inferences, namely to be defective—which suffices for a misidentification. Since they lack these properties, the claim that phenomenal states are immune to error through misidentification is misleading (cf. thesis 2). Third, we argued that the alleged counterexamples to IEM are just counterexamples of Liang’s fourth premise. But premise four is not necessary for IEM to hold. In any case, the counterexamples do not seriously challenge IEM, because the necessary conditions for a falsification are not met (cf. thesis 3). The last section addressed some aspects concerning how to talk about IEM convincingly in future philosophical research. Our suggestion is somehow deflationary, since it is not necessary, but very likely that the more interesting properties for talking about are mispredication and IMR (cf. thesis 4).
We are looking forward to the time when philosophical as well as empirical interdisciplinary research concerning the mind focuses on Liang’s commitments on self-consciousness, most interestingly the sense of experiential ownership. We think that this explanandum has not yet been enriched with empirical data. Here Liang perhaps provides a good starting point for future research. In order to provide fruitful data, we think that to ask the Wittgenstein question, as Liang proposes, is a promising idea. But nonetheless the question has to be subdivided in order to provide a fruitful questionnaire. Here are some proposals that are, of course, provisory, which could be more fine-grained, depending on the experiment:
On a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you feel the experience as being owned by you? Have you felt parts of your body as detached from yourself? If yes, how much were you able to control the belongingness of this body-experience? Have you felt some experiences belonging to another subject, not being owned by yourself?
Here are some further theoretical questions: How is the sense of experiential ownership connected to beliefs? Could it serve to justify some beliefs? How is the sense of experiential ownership generally related to self-knowledge? We are looking forward to a fruitful discussion in philosophy of mind and in cognitive sciences with regard to the elaborated topics.
Acknowledgements
First of all, we are appreciative for the illuminating target paper. In addition to that, we would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and Thomas Metzinger and Jennifer M. Windt for their editorial reviews. We are grateful to Thomas Metzinger and Jennifer M. Windt for the opportunity to contribute to this project. Furthermore, we want to thank Ralf Busse for the insightful suggestions with regard to some issues within IEM-accounts.