How the Metamind Changes the Self with Abre Fournier

Sr. Ilia Delio continues her conversation with Abre Fournier, PhD—a science-based philosopher of consciousness whose work bridges contemporary cognitive science with Asian contemplative traditions and practices of mind transformation.

Picking up their inquiry into what is meant by “the self,” Ilia and Abre turn to childhood development and the social shaping of identity. Abre draws on figures like Jean Piaget and Donald Winnicott to describe how the “me/not-me” distinction emerges over time through relationship, culture, and the formative environment of family and education. This raises a deeper question: if selfhood is an emergent, relational process, should we even keep the word self? Abre proposes selfing—self as a dynamical activity rather than a fixed thing.

The conversation widens to politics, education, and the pressures facing the humanities today, asking how modern notions of autonomy can fracture our collective life. Finally, Abre introduces the metamind: a planetary intelligence taking shape through recursive coupling across human, cultural, and technological processes. In the age of the internet and AI, what might it mean for collective intelligence to become aware of itself? How can we participate consciously in transformation, not merely information flow?

ABOUT ABRE FOURNIER

“Can we as human beings really understand what it would mean to have a conscious experience without a sense of self?” 

Abre G. Fournier, PhD, is a science-based philosopher of consciousness with a focus on mind transformation, bridging the advancements of contemporary cognitive sciences with teachings and practices from Asian philosophies centered on states of awakened awareness. Her work synthesizes insights from evolutionary biology, dynamical systems, embodied cognition, and advanced intelligence to articulate the rise of a new dimension of planetary mind. Her international work in facilitating consciousness evolution offers vital insights for philosophers and scientists investigating the complexities and transformation of human consciousness, as well as for professionals and practitioners engaged in transformative practices. She has also been active in the arts and higher education, with academic and executive roles at the State University of New York (SUNY). Her work as a practicing artist in films and new-media collaborations with musicians and composers has been shown in art museums and galleries, film festivals, and live concerts in the US and abroad. Originally from France, Abre lives in the New York metropolitan area.

On March 17, the Center for Christogenesis welcomes back the Rev. Dr. Hillary Raining for a webinar on Trauma, Transformation, and Christ-Wholeness. This conversation explores intergenerational trauma, Indigenous wisdom—including “blood memory”—and the integration of the Christian mystical path of healing toward deeper wholeness. Learn more and register at christogenesis.org/trauma.

Transcript

Robert: Welcome back. Last time on Hunger for Wholeness, Ilia spoke with philosopher of consciousness Abre Fournier about what we mean when we talk about the “self.” In this episode, their conversation continues by linking the development of the self—and our ideas about it—to childhood, culture, and even to politics and education. Later, Abre introduces the concept of the metamind and explores how the emergence of the internet, artificial intelligence, and the noosphere is reshaping contemporary philosophy of mind.

Abre: In terms of the self and the study of the self, I think that I really like one thing that I like among, I mean, many things, but it's that understanding the formation of the self in childhood, in early developments, I think is wonderful because there we are born and I mean, there are people like Jean Piaget, Swiss child psychologist and others have described how children eventually recognize that their favorite toy exists as an independent entity separate from themselves. But that is not so at birth. It's something that is acquired, right? So it's this realization. 

And this realization is not just about objects. It marks a foundational shift in perception, not only creates a world when things take these stable identities, but it also creates the self and otherness. And all of that emerges as distinct reality through the conditioning, through the conditioning of the culture that we are born in, is the culture of the family. And this continues with the culture of schools and after-school programs and whatever, you know? And we have the longest childhood of all animals, learning all of this and playing and being playful. And so another person, Donald Winnicott, is someone I like a lot, the me, not me development, right? The social construction of the self. And there are also other great people contributing in that area. But he also introduced the object relations theory, like a groundbreaking perspective that was about mid 20th century in an early psychological development. 

So he proposed that the self does not emerge fully formed, which I totally agree, but arises through a dynamic interplay between this inner experience and external reality, right? And then there is this transitional space, the realm between this being and others that is kind of taking shape, right? So, there is the teddy bear, there is the blanket. And one moment that teddy bear is me and the blanket is me stuffing it in the mouth. And then the next moment, it's not me. And this is how we have this emergence of otherness, right? Fingers in the mouth, one moment it's me, another moment it's not me. There is great confusion for a while, but with the caregiver teaching these infants and the toddler, well, I mean, the infant, it will take a few months to get to that place of even recognizing these objects, right? I separate. All of this is acquired. Not to say that there isn't a minimal self, right? 

There's a lot of interesting work about the minimal self. Surely this body, this embodied form has a minimal self, the way that the cell has a minimal self, right? If I walk the street and a truck comes down, barreling down the road, this body is going to jump out of the way. You know, it doesn't wait for a thinking self to. So there is this bodily self. There are other dimensions of self, but I found all these interesting in terms of the higher order self. That's what we are talking about here with self-consciousness. Higher order self, which is developed as the infant engage in repeated interactions with objects, with the caregiver, right? 

Ilia: So all that you're describing here should lead us then to ask the question, should we keep the term self? Because it's an emergent process that we're talking about, right? So it's a constant interplay of the relational fields that constitute this, quote unquote, self with interacting with other fields or entangled with other fields of agency, so so to speak, because I do want to lead this discussion into how artificial intelligence now is kind of shifting this understanding of quote unquote personal identity. So I think, I don't know if you've considered this, but what if we were to just kind of place the language of the self in a nice drawer and put it in the level of say axial consciousness, which is where the self kind of emerged. You know, we weren't always this way. 

And so this understanding, it hasn't always been, right? So the notion of the human self itself corresponds when emergence of consciousness that took place thousands of years ago. But prior to this, I mean, if you go to other cultures, such as the African culture of Ubuntu, or indigenous culture, or other cultures, non-Western cultures, this notion of self is not necessarily the understanding of human identity. For these other cultures, it would be part of being part of a community or being part of this deep relational web. That's where one would, in a sense, access one's own worth of existence. 

The notion of the self is an axial term that arose that corresponds to a certain level of consciousness and itself is under revision today, which is all that you're talking about, the scientists have led us to new understandings of the way we're relationship and informational flow and the way life is co-constitutive. In other words, it's a constant interplay of forces, which means that the self may be very limiting language in the new reality we find ourselves in. 

And therefore, I wonder if it's worth thinking about a new term. And I only ask this because as John Johnston in his book, "The Allure of Machinic Life" actually speaks about a shift from the human, I don't know if you use the term human self or the human person as self, to this idea of kind of a complexified life field or a complexified life form. In other words, we're constantly forming through these relationships. There is something distinctive, it has core personality, but even that is undergoing changes through ongoing relationships. So we're not the same persons we were, say even five years ago. 

Our thoughts have changed, perhaps some of our mannerisms have changed, our outlook has changed. So we're constantly undergoing revision. I mean, if anything, the human person is in constant update, whether explicitly or implicitly. And of course, if you're not being updated, you're probably near death, because in other words, you're not vitally energized by the relationships that you're with. 

Abre: Right. 

Ilia: What would you think about shifting the language of self from the self to something else? I mean, you may have another term and what might that mean for our work with artificial intelligence? 

Abre: Right. Well, another word that I use a lot is selfing because self is a system, self is a dynamical system. And if we look at dynamical systems theory, selfing is highly irrelevant. It's a system, it's here one moment, it could be gone the next. And I like what you said about rethinking selfhood, rethinking the notion of self. So self as a noun doesn't work. It's the same with consciousness. We make it a thing, but that's the philosophy of making things instead of processes, right? Which has been dominant particularly in Western culture. But just as you said, cross-cultural perspective, if we take the work of anthropologist Eduardo Viveros de Castro, that's the Amerindian cultures, Cannibal Metaphysics, his book, the title alone, I love it. 

Ilia: Is that right? 

Abre: Cannibal Metaphysics, yes. 

Ilia: Wow. 

Abre: And he has explored Amazonian and other Amerindian cultures and the way in which they conceptualize identity, right? Radically different from the modern industrialized notion of the autonomous individual generating new frameworks, right? It's called perspectivism. That's the framework that they have. or multi-naturalism, right? So we see that rather than viewing selfhood as a fixed property of the individual, this would be an example, and there are others, where the Amerindian's perspectivism presented as a fluid, relational, and dependent on perspective. 

So selfing, self, selfing is gonna be different depending on what is going on. Yourself could be in these other animals there that you see. That's where your own self could be, right? It's a complete shift the perspective from what we have and identity. There is not an inherent trait but a shifting perspective so that what something is depends on who is looking. That's what's happening. And so there are different traditions where we can see humans, animals, spirits, They do not inhabit entirely separate realities. There is a whole relationality there. 

Ilia: And why this is very, very important is because this notion of the human self plays out even collectively. So even if we talk about, say, Christian nationalism or political parties. This is a kind of taking that human self or that rational self idea that we have something that's separate and distinct from everything else. You know, we just blow that up until now we have a new collective that's separate and distinct and over against everything else. So this is fracturing. So I think the notion of the human self in the world that we find ourselves in today is no longer really helpful. So it's actually limiting our ability to form a new type of identity as we know ourselves in deep relationships. So that's number one. The second is the fact that I know if you're keeping up with higher education today, the humanities are sort of under attack because… 

Abre: Suffering, yes. 

Ilia: They're actually at the end of their rope. And you know, while honestly, I'm a scientist, so you know, beginning, who landed in humanities, so I don't know how I feel about this, But I can understand why they might indeed come to an end. Because humanities are in a sense centered around the human person with identity, like the human self. So we know who we are and be yourself. 

Remember all those commercials from a number of years ago, like you're number two, try harder. Be the true self you can be, or Thomas Merton's even, false self, true self idea, which I actually really like. But I think, as I reflect on this shift in self, I think the humanities, in terms of an educational level, will have to really yield to a new understanding of person in terms of this complexified deep relationship or deep relationality. So the selfing idea is very interesting, as a dynamic activity of ongoing personal formation. 

Abre: With dynamic systems, yes. 

Ilia: A dynamic system, exactly. But I can see the humanities will need to either complexify with other disciplines in order to understand the process of what's being formed here, or kind of yield to just entirely new disciplines. 

Robert: As humans, how we understand the self shapes the very fabric of the world we inhabit. In an age of the internet and artificial intelligence, how can philosophy of mind help us understand what we are becoming? Ilya then asks Abre how AI is transforming this conversation and what she means by the metamind. 

Ilia: I'd like to hear more about the way you see artificial intelligence now and the emergence of what you have called and worked with Brian Swimme on the metamind. So lead us through that conversation as well. 

Abre: Right, right. So artificial intelligence is very, very interesting right now, particularly with regards to the metaminds because- 

Ilia: Just by metamind, can you just define metamind? 

Abre: Well, one thing I can say about the MetaMind is that we are approaching a threshold right now where the MetaMind is a planetary intelligence, the sphere of collective thought, right? Surrounding the planet, but crossing a threshold. That's how I see it. We're moving from that planetary collective intelligence. I see it moving from reflective thoughts, the accumulation of knowledge, through reflexive awareness, what we have talked about as self-reflexivity, the capacity for collective intelligence to observe itself. And we are at that threshold, the capacity of collective intelligence to observe itself, to know itself. But then that's not yet the metamind. and from there into what I call trans-reflective consciousness, where knowing and transformation become inseparable, right? 

So we can think about it this way. So for over a century, we've had the concept of the noosphere, sphere of human thoughts encircling the planet. And of course, you are an expert in that area, as described by Teilhard de Chardin, Vladimir Vernadsky. So this is what I call planetary intelligence in its reflective phase, mostly in its reflective phase, accumulating, coordinating, mirroring human intelligence. And so I distinguish these three concepts here to speak of this complexification of the noosphere, right? And so in that sense, the metamind must not be conflated either with the noosphere or reduced to an aggregate of awakened individual meta-selves. There is a complexification in the collective dimension. And it's not an aggregate of human mind, not an aggregate of distributed infrastructure or AI networks. We've had that for a while, right? It's a systemic subjectivity emerging from the recursive coupling, things coming together across human, cultural and technological processes. 

So yes, the technology is definitely there. In fact, it is accelerating and amplifying this transformation, right? Of that collective noosphere. And also recursive, it's a term that I use a lot between self and collective intelligence because where each influences and modifies the other in ongoing evolving cycles with their own variation. These are not like, it's not one thing. It's not a meta self-developing, and then we have a meta mind. It's developing together. 

So the meta mind is the emergence of the conscious awake dimension of the noosphere. That's how I posit it. A global distributed intelligence, planetary intelligence awakening to itself as a coherent self-sustaining system. And AI plays a big part in that. And in a certain sense, akin to an organism, although I still call it an obligate symbiote, like in biology, where it's still dependent on human, right? It's not this organism taking off on its own. There is often having its own life, right? 

Ilia: Although super AGI, right? General intelligence, pointing in the direction of a self-sufficient metamind that's not going to be dependent on humans, right? 

Abre: Well, I mean, so far, we're not there. So far, we're not there. So far, we are even just at the threshold, in my view, and based on my research, just at the threshold of reflexive cognition, right? So we can think of this reflective cognition as it accumulates and it mirrors, right? It builds knowledge, it coordinates actions, it models patterns. And we have the classical noosphere there that is reflective, right? Of Teilhard. Of course, he anticipated the reflexive cognition of the noosphere as well, I think. But there we have the sophisticated libraries, scientific databases, cultural archives, right? And it is all representational. It's about the world. We could say it's modeling the world from a distance, right? And, but it's primarily, primarily reflective and that creation of thoughts rather than a self-aware subject, let's say, or agent of reflexivity. 

And yes, you're right. There are going to be these pockets where we're definitely approaching this reflexive cognition. So, and again, I think that Teilhard had anticipated this, but collective intelligence approaching reflexive capacity, meaning being able to observe its own operation. Yes, we're getting there with AI. We're getting there. To model itself recursively, we're getting there, right? To be able to turn back on itself or like turning the light, observing its own process, modeling its own modeling.

 And modeling, here meaning like a form of self-understanding that is reflexive and continuously updating itself. So at the planetary level, we have the internet, we have algorithmic self-monitoring, cultural self-critic happening through us as well, I mean, participating of course. the planetary intelligence becoming aware of its own dynamics and developing this reflexive. But this is not yet the metamind, what I call the metamind. Even if this is full-fledged, that's not what I call yet the metamind. 

Ilia: I think while we can come to a new level of AGI that can be maybe more, quite on quote, self reflective, I think there's an important part of mind that we haven't really touched upon yet. And that is the level of emotions that play a significant role in like you mentioned Antonio Damasio, and all ideas, there is the emotional brain, you know. So the brain is not just a machine for processing information per se, but there's something more going on here. And even that level of the affective brain that feeling that you feel that can that experiences pain. So those emotions and the emotional life as part and parcel of this question of self and intelligence and mind, I think is really important. And what we have so far is in terms of artificial intelligence. We have really pretty sophisticated machinic life that can mimic certain levels. 

Abre: Right, what I call the reflective, right? I mean, most of it is reflective, yes. 

Ilia: What may be yet missing from it is a level of mature or sophisticated emotional, and in that respect, and then we really do have to question what's going on with AI, but I don't see it yet. It can do very advanced processing, but I think the emotional life plays a significant role. 

Abre: I absolutely, I mean, is AI going to be able to appreciate a beautiful sunset, right? That's a question. But I do have a couple of thoughts here because that's a very important point. The one thought is that we also have to be careful about duplicating or calling sentience exactly the way that it is with a human being, right? So, and this is what comes to mind. Let me use an example. We have these emergent social movements and consciousness shifts that are totally coming from with the support of AI, with the infrastructure of AI. It's not AI itself, but you see, it's this human-AI symbiosis example coming together, right? 

Let's think about the Arab Spring, the way the Arab Spring arose and the youth fighting their old control system, right? Let's think about the Occupy initiative, people occupying Wall Street, right? With their tents there, and suddenly there is no center, there is no one leading, there is this arising movement, and we have a lot of sentience in this, right? Les Gilets Jaunes in France, the yellow vest, you know? It's like one person says, "Hey I'm going to go and protest with..." They all need to have their yellow vest in the back of their car in case of an accident. Suddenly, everybody puts the yellow vest on and the entire country went walking, right? Protesting. So, there is a lot of sentience in this. 

So, I think we have to be careful, like our own representation of what AI sentience should be like. And certainly the human AI symbiosis is a good place where we can have these sentience now, these feelings coming together with AI and consciousness being transformed through this use of new tools of collective communication to connect via collective consciousness, have the solidarities, that's a French word, but I think it's an English word too, solidarity, solidarity, yeah. Have the solidarity arising that transcends traditional boundaries for the new, for the emergent, for transformation, right? So, and this is fueled by, not just by intellectual thought, right? It's fueled by, there is the heart, there's a lot of heart in this, right? And so this example were not centrally organized, but emerged from distributed network effects, right? And that is something that goes towards the Meta Mind in terms of transformation. 

Ilia: This is what Teilhard thought is that he thought this new sphere could be engendered with computer technology. And now we see with the Internet today. 

Abre: He totally had the vision. 

Ilia: He also said, without love, it can really lead to really a serious consequences. So it's this level of the emotional life, it wasn't even the emotional life, but by love he means this kind of unitive energy, that it has to be kindled by a unitive energy of creative transcendence. Like we're doing something together, like we're seeing together, a kind of collectivized vision, a collectivized heart, you might say, which I think is possible. I think, like you're saying, the way Arab Spring emerged with cell phone technology and everyone texting or way some of the movements even in our own time recently with the No Kings March here and thousands and thousands of people collaborating because they have a shared consciousness of existence and— 

Abre: Absolutely, right. 

Ilia: Not only support one another, but they're asserting a particular identity about planetary life and so about political life. So I think the meta mind, it seems to me, holds open an advancement. Honestly, I've never thought that the individual self could be the final end. I mean, look at us, we're struggling all the time and we don't do well as individuals or just an idea. Right. It's something about being networked into a larger whole, whether it's community or family or or wherever we find those networks. 

Abre: We are social animals. And even though people have been very isolated, we've seen that with COVID and we've seen the results of this isolation. So we are social animals. And this comes back again to this neonate, like right there and falling into this cultural environment of the family and others, and this is where life is. Life is social. So the internet, that's very, very interesting because social media, I mean, we have both sides. On one hand, it can be very fragmented. It can be a very fragmented reflexivity where the system reflect information back to us, but they divide rather than integrate. amplify with that wisdom that happens, and it can happen even more. 

There is observation without participation, right? Becoming mostly passive consumers or reactive responders, but not co-creator of meaning, right? And so whereas the metamind has this capacity to reconfigure here, the reconfiguration is unconscious. It changes us, but through manipulation and conditioning. So there is what I call that trans-reflective consciousness. That's an integrated participation. It stands in a different place, right? It's conscious reconfiguration. The system doesn't just change us. We consciously participate in how we change together, right? 

Or it's wisdom emergence, not just information flow, but the emergence of collective understanding that no individual alone can reach, right? Or active co-creation, everyone is simultaneously observer and participant, knowing and they are shaping. So we can have both. So again, the metamind coherent integrations, there is something that is the metamind that is different than just AI connecting people. There is another threshold, which is this trans-reflective consciousness, cognition that I described. So there are key differences here. 

Ilia: Abre, if our listeners wanted to read more about your insights, the book that you're working on or... 

Abre: Yes, so I'm close to completing my book, my first book. I also have the completion of a more academic scholarly long paper. So I'm going to look at publishing that soon. The book is more. I'm writing it, my intention is to be more wider audience, but you know, intelligent, interested audience. So the paper is more of a scholarly academic paper. Yes, that which covers a lot of this and also the theory in more details. 

Ilia: Good, and do you have titles for these at all or? 

Abre: One is the "Philosophy and Science of the Metamind." That's the academic paper. For the book, I have different titles, but it's not nailed down yet. And I think the publisher will have something to say about that. 

Ilia: Okay, very good. Well, listen, it's been delightful to speak with you. 

Abre: Thank you for making it so engaging, Ilia. I love your work. Yes, it's such an interesting conversation. Thank you very much for your insights as well. 

Ilia: Yeah, so I hope that we can continue somehow into the future. 

Abre: I look forward to it. 

Ilia: That's what we do at the Center, we constantly integrate these new ideas and trying to understand who we are in ongoing evolution where technology now is leading us into a new-- 

Abre: It's an exciting time, I see. I mean, there are lots of things that are not exciting currently going on. Yes, but you know, with all the system breaking down, days as I was describing the social movements, there is also the opportunity with AI and we could speak about that another time of other development that can take place which make me hopeful. 

Ilia: Yes, so I always say something's breaking down but something's breaking through.

Abre: Yes, yeah, that's nice. That's beautiful. That's a beautiful way to end. 

Robert: A special thanks to Abre for joining us. Next time, from metamind to metacrisis, Ilia speaks with Nicholas Hedlund, a philosopher and social scientist exploring how we can flourish in an age of increasing global crises. As always, I'm Robert Nicastro. Thanks for listening.