{"id":812,"date":"2026-02-20T17:18:46","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=812"},"modified":"2026-02-20T17:18:46","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T22:18:46","slug":"imagining-the-brain-a-phenomenology-of-the-neuroscientific-imagination","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=812","title":{"rendered":"Imagining the Brain: A Phenomenology of the Neuroscientific Imagination"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This paper gives a phenomenological account of scientific imagination and visualization which focuses on how neuroscientists use diagrams to understand the brain as a multi-level, hierarchically-organized structure. Drawing on the diverse, burgeoning literatures on the pervasive use of diagrams and of the levels metaphor in scientific representation, I give a Husserl-inspired phenomenological account of key experiential structures, such as image consciousness, the eidetic intuition and the figure\/ground structure of object-directed experience, which jointly regulate the scientific visualization process. I also draw on Pessoa\u2019s discussion, in <em>The Entangled Brain, <\/em>of how scientists project a multi-level, hierarchical structure onto the otherwise seamlessly interconnected architecture of brain regions responsible for so-called \u201clower-level\u201d affective processing and \u201chigher-level\u201d cognition. I offer a phenomenological reconstruction of neuroscientists\u2019 imaginative reliance on the eidetic intuition to generate hierarchically-organized, multi-level images of these brain regions. I then describe how these images guide scientists\u2019 imaginative exploration of the target neural phenomena and constrain the space of possible model-building. I conclude with a reflection on how phenomenology can shed light on the ubiquity of the levels metaphor in the scientific imaginary as it comes to grip with massively entangled systems like the brain. I also explain how my study evinces a fundamental methodological reorientation: by using phenomenology to disclose the foundational role of image-consciousness in science, we reverse the usual explanatory procedure evinced by approaches that seeks to \u201cnaturalize\u201d phenomenology by bringing its results into conformity with neuroscience. Instead, in a manner consistent with arguments provided by Thompson, Frank and Gleiser in <em>The Blind<\/em> <em>Spot,<\/em> we \u201cphenomenologize\u201d neuroscience by laying bare its experiential presuppositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-black-color has-text-color has-background has-link-color wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/?page_id=780#paper_abstracts\" style=\"background-color:#e9dfd4c7\"><strong>back to Research<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This paper gives a phenomenological account of scientific imagination and visualization which focuses on how neuroscientists use diagrams to understand the brain as a multi-level, hierarchically-organized structure. Drawing on the diverse, burgeoning literatures on the pervasive use of diagrams and of the levels metaphor in scientific representation, I give a Husserl-inspired phenomenological account of key&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-812","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":813,"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/812\/revisions\/813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elena.holmgren.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}