World Modeling, Integrated Information, and the Physical Substrates of Consciousness; Hidden Sources of the Stream of Experience?

Safron, Adam

doi:10.31234/osf.io/aud6e

Cited by 5 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…can be translated into the “common language” of consciousness: a translation that is made by attention and that makes it possible to compare and differentiate the various dimensions of life. Most probably, this limit of Solms’ proposal derives from his overestimation of the role of brainstem as the primary mechanism of consciousness, and underestimation of the role played by other mechanisms (this has also been observed by Safron, 2021 ).…”

Section: The Main Dimensions Of the Phenomenal Aspect Of Consciousnes...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The why of the phenomenal aspect of consciousness: Its main functions and the mechanisms underpinning it

Marchetti¹

2022

Front. Psychol.

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What distinguishes conscious information processing from other kinds of information processing is its phenomenal aspect (PAC), the-what-it-is-like for an agent to experience something. The PAC supplies the agent with a sense of self, and informs the agent on how its self is affected by the agent’s own operations. The PAC originates from the activity that attention performs to detect the state of what I define “the self” (S). S is centered and develops on a hierarchy of innate and acquired values, and is primarily expressed via the central and peripheral nervous systems; it maps the agent’s body and cognitive capacities, and its interactions with the environment. The detection of the state of S by attention modulates the energy level of the organ of attention (OA), i.e., the neural substrate that underpins attention. This modulation generates the PAC. The PAC can be qualified according to five dimensions: qualitative, quantitative, hedonic, temporal and spatial. Each dimension can be traced back to a specific feature of the modulation of the energy level of the OA.

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Section: The Main Dimensions Of the Phenomenal Aspect Of Consciousnes...mentioning

confidence: 99%

The why of the phenomenal aspect of consciousness: Its main functions and the mechanisms underpinning it

Marchetti¹

2022

Front. Psychol.

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“…From this perspective, experience-dependent plasticity may be understood as implementing a kind of implicit neural architecture search, which may potentially produce GNN-like representational structures as means of ensuring sufficiently rapid inference that estimates of system-world configurations are capable of both informing and being informed by action-perception cycles for embodied-embedded agents. Yet it remains unclear whether inferences from these subnetworks would themselves represent the physical/computational substrates of consciousness, or whether they would rather be necessary (but not sufficient) conditions for realizing phenomenality ( Safron, 2021c ). While this is not a necessary entailment of IWMT (and hence not a condition for falsification), if deep association cortices were found to operate according to principles of geometric deep learning, then it would provide strong support for the ideas presented here.…”

Section: Machine Learning Architectures and Predictive Processing Mod...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As described above, this structure may constitute a kind of GNN, utilizing the locality of recurrent message passing over grid-like representational geometries for generating sufficiently informative projections on timescales proportional to the closure of action-perception cycles ( Safron, 2020b ). And when coupled with lateral parietal cortices (as upper levels of body map hierarchies), these cortical hubs may theoretically (and potentially exclusively) constitute the physical and computational bases of phenomenal consciousness ( Safron, 2021c ).…”

Section: Future Directions For Integrated Information Theory and Glob...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated world modeling theory expanded: Implications for the future of consciousness

Safron

2022

Front. Comput. Neurosci.

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Integrated world modeling theory (IWMT) is a synthetic theory of consciousness that uses the free energy principle and active inference (FEP-AI) framework to combine insights from integrated information theory (IIT) and global neuronal workspace theory (GNWT). Here, I first review philosophical principles and neural systems contributing to IWMT’s integrative perspective. I then go on to describe predictive processing models of brains and their connections to machine learning architectures, with particular emphasis on autoencoders (perceptual and active inference), turbo-codes (establishment of shared latent spaces for multi-modal integration and inferential synergy), and graph neural networks (spatial and somatic modeling and control). Future directions for IIT and GNWT are considered by exploring ways in which modules and workspaces may be evaluated as both complexes of integrated information and arenas for iterated Bayesian model selection. Based on these considerations, I suggest novel ways in which integrated information might be estimated using concepts from probabilistic graphical models, flow networks, and game theory. Mechanistic and computational principles are also considered with respect to the ongoing debate between IIT and GNWT regarding the physical substrates of different kinds of conscious and unconscious phenomena. I further explore how these ideas might relate to the “Bayesian blur problem,” or how it is that a seemingly discrete experience can be generated from probabilistic modeling, with some consideration of analogies from quantum mechanics as potentially revealing different varieties of inferential dynamics. I go on to describe potential means of addressing critiques of causal structure theories based on network unfolding, and the seeming absurdity of conscious expander graphs (without cybernetic symbol grounding). Finally, I discuss future directions for work centered on attentional selection and the evolutionary origins of consciousness as facilitated “unlimited associative learning.” While not quite solving the Hard problem, this article expands on IWMT as a unifying model of consciousness and the potential future evolution of minds.

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“…2013 ). By contrast, others suggest that core affects can be described in terms of emotions and feelings without necessarily being conscious ( Safron 2021a , b ). 6 In what follows we build upon the fairly uncontroversial idea that the neural and sensorimotor basis necessary for the emergence of perceptual experiences and agentive control are in place by the second trimester of gestation.…”

Section: The Sensorimotor Roots Of Embodied Experiences In ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An exhaustive discussion of these theories and their metaphysical assumptions would lead to a substantial digression and cannot be addressed here in detail. (See Table 1 for an overview of the most recent and seminal accounts and ( Safron 2020a , b ) for a recent discussion.)…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Back to square one: the bodily roots of conscious experiences in early life

Ciaunica

Safron

Delafield‐Butt

2021

Neuroscience of Consciousness

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Most theoretical and empirical discussions about the nature of consciousness are typically couched in a way that endorses a tacit adult-centric and vision-based perspective. This paper defends the idea that consciousness science may be put on a fruitful track for its next phase by examining the nature of subjective experiences through a bottom-up developmental lens. We draw attention to the intrinsic link between consciousness, experiences and experiencing subjects, which are first and foremost embodied and situated organisms essentially concerned with self-preservation within a precarious environment. Our paper suggests that in order to understand what consciousness ‘is’, one should first tackle the fundamental question: how do embodied experiences ‘arise’ from square one? We then highlight one key yet overlooked aspect of human consciousness studies, namely that the earliest and closest environment of an embodied experiencing subject is the body of another human experiencing subject. We present evidence speaking in favour of fairly sophisticated forms of early sensorimotor integration of bodily signals and self-generated actions already being established in utero. We conclude that these primitive and fundamentally relational and co-embodied roots of our early experiences may have a crucial impact on the way human beings consciously experience the self, body and the world across their lifespan.

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World Modeling, Integrated Information, and the Physical Substrates of Consciousness; Hidden Sources of the Stream of Experience?

Cited by 5 publications

References 54 publications

The why of the phenomenal aspect of consciousness: Its main functions and the mechanisms underpinning it

The why of the phenomenal aspect of consciousness: Its main functions and the mechanisms underpinning it

Integrated world modeling theory expanded: Implications for the future of consciousness

Back to square one: the bodily roots of conscious experiences in early life

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