Metamisery and Bodily Inexistence

My explanation of Depersonalisation Disorder (DPD) argued that the characteristic experience is shared by people who suffer from the Cotard Delusion (CD). The difference between the two conditions is that the person with DPD does not develop a delusional response to her experience of de-affectualisation. She simply reports is as it is: “I feel as if my experiences do not belong to me”. The person with Cotard, however develops an explanation of that feeling and identifies with it “I no longer exist”. In commenting on this proposal Ying-Tung Lin opens up a range of new possibilities for cognitive theorizing. The first is that the predictive coding approach provides a new framework for cognitive theorizing which improves on “second factor” approaches to delusion. The second is that attention to the predictive nature of the processes which generate experience might suggest an important difference between the two conditions: namely the role of the Anterior Insular Cortex (AIC). One way to approach the phenomenon would be to ask why the person with DPD seems to be able to understand that her experience is not veridical while the person with CD