Why does experience feel continuously present, yet the sense of “self” comes and goes?
ACU proposes:
• consciousness = affective control monitoring
• selfhood = recruited under uncertainty
A two-level theory of mind and agency.
Paper:
philpapers.org/rec/MCFACU
What if your sense of self only switches on when you can’t decide?
And what if that’s exactly why AI can’t be conscious yet?
New preprint on consciousness, selfhood, and what artificial minds are actually missing.
Preprint in reply.
This formula says selfhood (self model recruitment intensity) increases with 3 things: uncertainty about what to do (H), big differences in how good or bad the options are (Variance) & time running out (T). As options clash and a deadline looms, the system boosts self commitment.
Does real artificial consciousness require three things:
1) Built-in survival goals, like staying stable
2) Internal feelings of good or bad when those goals succeed or fail
3) Outcomes that genuinely matter to the system itself, not just scores or rewards we assign to it?
The friction between education & digital devices - encapsulated in Dave Eggers’ 2021 novel ‘The Every’.
I thought the TV show ‘Pluribus’ was alright.
Anyone else seen it?
Is consciousness simply the brain’s global control system for what matters to us?
Or just a byproduct of it?
Or something else?
Same 😁
Temporal continuity without persistent selfhood?
Each time a self is recruited, it forms under stable constraints: same body, affective architecture, values, memories & social world.
Similar constraints produce similar reconstructions.
Continuity may be repetition, not permanence.
Thoughts?
Great title:
‘Do Dice Play God?’
Good morning
If you tried to build a copy of a human that acted exactly as a human would, screamed if they stubbed their toe, laughed at a funny joke, but inside they had no conscious experience (all ‘in the dark’), would that be feasible?
I don’t think the ‘philosophical zombies’ would work
From @hohwy.bsky.social’s new Open Access book on Self-Evidencing:
“Self-evidencing in agents of volatility can plausibly capture subjectivity in conscious experience.”
Here is the direct link to the Open Access book. The "book pdf" downloads the whole book, or there are links for individual chapters too.
doi.org/10.7551/mitp...
Congratulations!
Fascinating to see self-evidencing developed so systematically. Do you think self-evidencing alone explains why some uncertainty becomes experientially agentic, while much predictive processing remains phenomenologically silent?
If so, what marks that transition?
I enjoy generating stuff with AI, but Sam Altman’s right when he said, “We have not yet found a way that people really love watching other people's videos. This is true for a lot of other Al. It's not that compelling for most people to read other people's generation.”
Does a rock star have a “self”?
The intense, hyper-aware “I” that shows up on stage in front of 70,000 people?
Is that a permanent entity?
Or is it what the brain does when stakes & uncertainty explode.
Most of the time, is there even a central pilot?
Two-Level Architecture of Consciousness
What is the difference between subjectivity & the subject?
Rather than being 'thinking things' that feel, are we ‘feeling regulators' that occasionally think?
A Two-Level Theory of Consciousness:
Level 1: Affective Control Awareness
Level 2: Self-Modelling under Uncertainty
If there was a Two-Level theory of consciousness, Level 1 would be affective control awareness: the felt monitoring of whether homeostatic and allostatic regulation is succeeding under uncertainty. Level 2 would be a transient and graded self-model. ‘Zombies’ don’t have either.
Why can’t there be philosophical zombies?
Where is consciousness?
Tam Hunt suggests it is in the electromagnetic field. “The Hippies Were Right,” he jokes in a paper. “It's All about Vibrations, Man!”
He likens the spiking neurons to tree trunks in a forest & the EM field to the wind that blows through the leaves.
IIT says consciousness is structure.
GWT says consciousness is broadcast.
HOT says consciousness is meta-representation.
PP says consciousness is inference.
But what if consciousness is about affective control under uncertainty?
Billed as “A Mindblowing Conversation About Humanity,” this is an extremely thought-provoking & engaging conversation about @michaelpollan.bsky.social’s new book on consciousness: ‘A World Appears’.
Includes references to Mark Solms, @drmichaellevin.bsky.social & Antonio Damasio.
@nytimes.com
Billed as “A Mindblowing Conversation About Humanity,” this is an extremely thought-provoking & engaging conversation about @michaelpollan.bsky.social’s new book on consciousness: ‘A World Appears’.
Includes references to Mark Solms, @drmichaellevin.bsky.social & Antonio Damasio.
@nytimes.com
Would you agree that subjectivity = the felt, first-person valenced monitoring of regulatory success under uncertainty?
Does it require a subject?
Is the subject a temporary locus of commitment generated during unresolved, affectively weighted policy competition?
@wiringthebrain.bsky.social
