Wanja Wiese ~ Active Inference Insights 016 ~ Consciousness, Information Geometry, Ethical AI

You may, at some point during this episode, find yourself self-modelling about your self-model’s ability to model itself in a self-modelled way. If so, sorry. Today’s episode is, indeed, all about selfhood, as well as other phenomenal states, such as the minimal phenomenal experience and AI awareness, as Darius is joined by philosopher and cognitive scientist, Wanja Wiese.

Wanja Wiese

Darius Parvizi-Wayne

Active Inference Insititute

[davedouglass]

10:44 "Is all consciousness _self_-consciousness?
"Con-scious." Knowing WITH.
Knowing consciously is expensive! If monadic-I can get the job done on my own, there's no reason to expend the metabolic, cognitive, and social effort and risk needed form a coalition.
If I do form a coalition to attack the problem consciously - with-knowingly - then ('by definition') we've solved the problem conversationally.
So: _no_ conscious occasions are _merely_ _self_-conscious. Access-conscious moments are all moments of conversation.
_Some_ conscious conversational acts are also 'self'-conscious acts - just in case the participants in the conversation _also_ reflect on their conscious conversation itself. This 'self' is the 'something extra.'
It's not clear whether there are or are not protracted episodes of _non-conversational selfhood_ (except perhaps in some pathologies, such as serious neglect during infancy).

[Childlesscatlaby]

If we were to assume attention is engrained in morals (i.e. McGilchrist), could that explain willful ignorance? If so, scaling levels of reflective recursion (abstraction) may be inhibited more by self-preservation than intelligence.

Could this be modeled as affordances?

[johnchase]

Do you model fear of damage to you that a dog does not. I look at the Sun for extended periods without any damage . Witnesses are afraid to say it because fear of judgement. Can be hard to live in truth and lose friends.I am certain that you were wrearong weldiing goggles and looking at the Sun and then I turn and look, you will see a change instantly.. Could you believe what you saw and tell the rest of the world
Believe in your conscience and respect it.

[bukuism]

Do anyone who likes this channel..what other channels, podcasts, etc. do you follow that are similar?

[davedouglass]

10:51, Darius discusses _intermittent_ moments of higher-level awareness - awareness of one's own aware activities.
During the activities leading up to and concurrent with such moments, is there (perhaps inevitably) a _horizontal_ differentiation in the organism's activity: Are such developments best viewed as _conversational_ - as interactions among (at least) two distinct-and-interacting mental systems?
(An appropriate slogan would be "conscious moments are irreducibly conversational.")