Fingelkurts and Fingelkurts’s Operational Architectonics

Neuroscientists Andrew and Alexander Fingelkurts present their Operational Architectonics (OA) framework of brain-mind functioning as a unified theoretical model that bridges neurophysiological processes and subjective mental experience. At its foundation lies the concept of the operation—a spatiotemporally bounded, functionally meaningful event that serves as a common denominator for both brain activity and phenomenological experience (Fingelkurts et al., 2010, 2013).

OA proposes that operations are nested hierarchically, giving rise to increasingly complex spatiotemporal “structures” that characterize both neural processes and mental phenomena. This nesting establishes a functional isomorphism between the brain’s dynamic field structure and the mind’s phenomenal architecture. Both are viewed as complementary manifestations of the same unified, metastable continuum, emerging from the interplay between two fundamental tendencies: cooperative integration and autonomous fragmentation (Fingelkurts et al., 2019).

Foundational and Mesoscopic Levels

At the lowest level of the OA brain–mind nested hierarchy lies a network of widely distributed and intermixed cortical neurons embedded in a dense neuropil composed of axon terminals, dendrites, synapses, and glial cell processes. Together with its complex physiological environment, this network constitutes an internal structural analogue of three-dimensional space and time—a sort of distributed coordinate matrix within the brain—which has no phenomenal functions whatsoever (Fingelkurts & Fingelkurts, 2023). At this foundational level, neurons execute only the most basic physical operations.

As Fingelkurts et al. (2010, p. 212) point out, “we never experience subjectively the contentless coordinate system as such directly; we could know about it only through the relations among phenomenal objects”—which emerge at higher levels of the OA hierarchy.

The next level of the OA brain–mind nested hierarchy is instantiated by the mesoscopic electrical activity, characterized by widespread endogenous local electromagnetic fields generated by transient, functional neuronal assemblies (Fingelkurts et al., 2010, 2013). These fields are best captured using electroencephalogram (EEG) (Fingelkurts & Fingelkurts, 2013), where they appear as quasi-stationary segments—temporally bounded standing waves within a 3D space, framed by rapid transitive periods (RTPs) (Fingelkurts et al., 2010).

This spatially and temporally dynamic matrix of local electromagnetic fields, similarly to the nonconscious neurophysiological level ‘below’ it, is in a state of constant flux, comprising operations that carry latent potentialities—dispositions capable of realizing any characteristic variety of self-presenting qualitative features (Fingelkurts et al., 2013). These phenomenal features (qualities)—such as sounds, colors, tactile sensations, emotions, tastes, and smells—are the identity, the 'stuff' that experiences per se are made of, and they can be described in terms of the simplest phenomenal contents.

This mesoscopic level constitutes a multidimensional, maximally distributed phenomenal space that, although unconscious, provides the foundational substrate for potential phenomenal states. According to Fingelkurts & Fingelkurts (2023, p. 8), this level is “stubbornly evasive” to conscious access, and if brought to awareness through deep meditation or psychedelics, it reveals a mode of phenomenology unlike any familiar conscious content.

Phenomenal Consciousness and Operational Modules

Ascending further, the OA hierarchy reaches the level of the phenomenally conscious world, characterized by a finely nested structure in which phenomenal patterns from multiple modalities (e.g., vision, hearing) are integrated across space and time. This integration enables disparate features to coalesce into a single phenomenal object that exists within a unified spatiotemporal context (Fingelkurts et al., 2013).

The OA theory proposes that such spatiotemporal coupling of simple operations into a complex one is achieved through temporal synchronization of the local fields (EEG quasi-stationary segments) generated by spatially distributed neuronal assemblies. Through this synchronization, metastable spatiotemporal configurations, known as operational modules (OMs), emerge—each presenting specific phenomenal content like thought, perception, emotion, or intentional act (Fingelkurts et al., 2010, 2013), including the selfhood agency (Fingelkurts et al., 2020, 2023).

Like simpler operations ‘below’ them, OMs also change abruptly through RTPs. During such transitions, the functional couplings among the bioelectrical fields comprising the current OM dissolve and new couplings form—thus initiating a new OM associated with a distinct phenomenal object (Fingelkurts et al., 2010, 2013).

Phenomenal objects here are defined as complex patterns of phenomenal qualities that are spatially extended and bounded together to form a unified ‘item’ (Gestalt) with a specific meaningful categorization (semantics) immediately present for the subject. Any such phenomenal object can be nested within larger phenomenal structures or decomposed into simpler, independently meaningful components.

This intricate dynamic of phenomenal objects is substantiated by the complex interplay of nested, local 3D electromagnetic fields and their more complex, non-local aggregates in the form of OMs (Fingelkurts et al., 2010, 2013). The complexity of phenomenality is linked to the complexity of the electromagnetic fields generated by a set of transient functional neuronal assemblies distributed throughout the brain. The exact set varies contingent on the involved qualitative phenomenal features they present at any given moment (for further discussion, see Fingelkurts et al., 2010, 2013).

Stream of Consciousness

The entire process gives rise to what William James famously described as the stream of consciousness—a continuous yet segmented flow in which each phenomenal content briefly ‘frizzes’ before abruptly transitioning into the next (James, 1890). Freeman (2007) likened this to a cinematographic sequence, composed of multiple discrete ‘frames’ that coalesce into perceptual rivulets.

Metzinger (2003) builds on an older philosophical tradition by using terms like mental representation, phenomenal representation, and mental presentation to describe this window of subjective presence—what Fingelkurts & Fingelkurts (2014) later referred to as a mental kaleidoscope of ‘specious present.’

According to OA, the succession of discrete and relatively stable complex aggregates of electromagnetic fields (in the form of OMs), separated by rapid transitive processes (RTPs), mirrors the succession of complex phenomenal images, memories, or thoughts, thus presenting a cinematographic stream of conscious experiences (Fingelkurts et al., 2010, 2013).

Emergence and Ontological Foundations

In this way, the OA framework offers a compelling and neurophenomenologically grounded account of how the phenomenological richness of mentality (including consciousness) emerges from the nested hierarchy of the brain’s architectonics of electromagnetic fields. In doing so, OA redefines the brain not as a merely anatomical object but as a dynamic operational continuum, within which consciousness is not an epiphenomenon but an organized mode of being.

Practically, the EEG-based OA analysis could help with the evaluation of the presence of phenomenal contents at the boundaries of consciousness, including covert consciousness, as in patients with disorders of consciousness (Fingelkurts & Fingelkurts, 2023), or during meditation (Fingelkurts et al., 2020) and other altered states of consciousness.

The Fingelkurtses state that the ontological foundation of their OA framework is ‘ontological monism’—the view that reality is fundamentally of one kind. However, unlike ‘dual-aspect monism,’ which holds that the mental and the physical are two aspects or descriptions of the same phenomenon, OA proposes a form of ‘emergentist monism.’

According to this view, the relationship between mental and neurophysiological phenomena is hierarchical and metastable (Fingelkurts et al., 2009). Within this framework, conscious experience (the mental) arises only when specific patterns of brain activity—organized at a particular operational level—are present. That is, the emergence of consciousness requires the realization of particular conditions at the lower (neurophysiological) level.

This aligns with a formal account of emergence offered by Beckermann (1992), which states that a property P is emergent in a system S if:

(i) all systems with the same microstructure exhibit P, but

(ii) P cannot be deduced, even in principle, from a complete understanding of the system's constituent components (C₁…Cₙ).

Fingelkurts et al. (2010) further clarify that the Operational Space-Time (OST) level of brain organization mediates between the Internal Physical Space-Time (IPST) of the brain (the underlying anatomical and neurophysiological substrate) and the Phenomenal Space-Time (PST)—the domain of subjective experience. The OST level, which is both emerged from IPST and isomorphic to PST, constitutes the level at which conscious processes occur. Rather than ‘producing’ consciousness in a mysterious or non-physical sense, this level constitutes it through its structured electromagnetic patterns.

In this model, the Fingelkurtses state, emergentism describes the relationship between the brain’s physical structure (IPST) and its electromagnetic field dynamics (OST), whereas the relationship between the OST and PST levels is more accurately described in terms of supervenience (Kim, 1993). Supervenience implies a stricter dependency: higher-order properties (such as conscious experiences) cannot change without corresponding changes in the lower-order properties upon which they supervene (Yoshimi, 2004).

Thus, mental space-time patterns are supervenient on the operational-level space-time patterns of the brain. Emergentism allows for a looser coupling—where higher-level properties may vary without strict one-to-one mappings to lower-level states.

In the OA framework, the mental is ontologically dependent on the neurophysiological, yet it is not reducible to it in a classical physicalist sense. Rather, it is reducible to the operational level—a level that consists of hierarchically organized dynamic local electromagnetic fields. These fields serve as the direct constituents of conscious experience, providing a bridge between the physical and the phenomenal.