Now is the Time: Generative Neurophenomenology Beyond Generative Passages and Generative Models

Generative phenomenology investigates consciousness by incorporating its intersubjective, social, cultural, and historical dimensions. For the past 30 years, the neurophenomenology pragmatic approach has embraced an embodied perspective of the mind by integrating experiential first-person and neurobehavioural third-person data. Neurophenomenology reveals mutual constraints between the two, as first- and third-person data co-constitute the conscious experience of a person. This article emphasises the intersubjective and social facets of lived experience as well as the readiness of the community to use a "generative neurophenomenology" approach. For this endeavour, we propose to combine existing practices and methods to update the neurophenomenological program of research started in the 90ies: First, by transitioning from individual to multiple people phenomenology methods that include intersubjectivity experience; second, by expanding traditional neuroscience to include measures of multimodal interpersonal synchrony; and third, by leveraging multiple computational tools to integrate different viewpoints, thereby enriching our understanding of conscious experience, on top of better capturing invariants of human experience; We also underscore the potential of diverse mathematical formalisms to capture aspects of human experience, all while underscoring that using computational approaches to model neurophenomenology does not entail endorsing computationalism as a grounding hypothesis of human experience. Finally, we highlight the implications of using this paradigm in psychiatry.