Experiential fantasies, prediction, and enactive minds

A recent surge of work on prediction-driven processing models--based on Bayesian inference and representation-heavy models--suggests that the material basis of conscious experience is inferentially secluded and neurocentrically brain bound. This paper develops an alternative account based on the free energy principle. It is argued that the free energy principle provides the right basic tools for understanding the anticipatory dynamics of the brain within a larger brain-body-environment dynamic, viewing the material basis of some conscious experiences as extensive--relational and thoroughly world-involving

The Problem of Mental Action

In mental action there is no motor output to be controlled and no sensory input vector that could be manipulated by bodily movement. It is therefore unclear whether this specific target phenomenon can be accommodated under the predictive processing framework at all, or if the concept of “active inference” can be adapted to this highly relevant explanatory domain. This contribution puts the phenomenon of mental action into explicit focus by introducing a set of novel conceptual instruments and developing a first positive model, concentrating on epistemic mental actions and epistemic self-control. Action initiation is a functionally adequate form of self-deception; mental actions are a specific form of predictive control of effective connectivity, accompanied and possibly even functionally mediated by a conscious “epistemic agent model”. The overall process is aimed at increasing the epistemic value of pre-existing states in the conscious self-model, without causally looping through sensory sheets or using the non-neural body as an instrument for active inference

THE IMAGINATIVE REHEARSAL MODEL – DEWEY, EMBODIED SIMULATION, AND THE NARRATIVE HYPOTHESIS

In this contribution I outline some ideas on what the pragmatist model of habit ontology could offer us as regards the appreciation of the constitutive role that imagery plays for social action and cognition. Accordingly, a Deweyan understanding of habit would allow for an understanding of imagery in terms of embodied cognition rather than in representational terms. I first underline the motor character of imagery, and the role its embodiment in habit plays for the anticipation of action. Secondly, I reconstruct Dewey's notion of imaginative rehearsal in light of contemporary, competing models of intersubjectivity such as embodied simulation theory and the narrative practice hypothesis, and argue that the Deweyan model offers us a more encompassing framework which can be useful for reconciling these approaches. In this text I am mainly concerned with sketching a broad picture of the lines along which such a project could be developed. For this reason not all questions are given equal attention, and I shall concentrate mainly on the basic ideas, without going directly into the details of many of them

Embodied cognition and temporally extended agency

According to radical versions of embodied cognition, human cognition and agency should be explained without the ascription of representational mental states. According to a standard reply, accounts of embodied cognition can explain only instances of cognition and agency that are not “representation-hungry”. Two main types of such representation-hungry phenomena have been discussed: cognition about “the absent” and about “the abstract”. Proponents of representationalism have maintained that a satisfactory account of such phenomena requires the ascription of mental representations. Opponents have denied this. I will argue that there is another important representation-hungry phenomenon that has been overlooked in this debate: temporally extended planning agency. In particular, I will argue that it is very difficult to see how planning agency can be explained without the ascription of mental representations, even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that cognition about the absent and abstract can. We will see that this is a serious challenge for the radical as well as the more modest anti-representationalist versions of embodied cognition, and we will see that modest anti-representationalism is an unstable position

The cybernetic Bayesian brain: from interoceptive inference to sensorimotor contingencies

Is there a single principle by which neural operations can account for perception, cognition, action, and even consciousness? A strong candidate is now taking shape in the form of “predictive processing”. On this theory, brains engage in predictive inference on the causes of sensory inputs by continuous minimization of prediction errors or informational “free energy”. Predictive processing can account, supposedly, not only for perception, but also for action and for the essential contribution of the body and environment in structuring sensorimotor interactions. In this paper I draw together some recent developments within predictive processing that involve predictive modelling of internal physiological states (interoceptive inference), and integration with “enactive” and “embodied” approaches to cognitive science (predictive perception of sensorimotor contingencies). The upshot is a development of predictive processing that originates, not in Helmholtzian perception-as-inference, but rather in 20th-century cybernetic principles that emphasized homeostasis and predictive control. This way of thinking leads to (i) a new view of emotion as active interoceptive inference; (ii) a common predictive framework linking experiences of body ownership, emotion, and exteroceptive perception; (iii) distinct interpretations of active inference as involving disruptive and disambiguatory—not just confirmatory—actions to test perceptual hypotheses; (iv) a neurocognitive operationalization of the “mastery of sensorimotor contingencies” (where sensorimotor contingencies reflect the rules governing sensory changes produced by various actions); and (v) an account of the sense of subjective reality of perceptual contents (“perceptual presence”) in terms of the extent to which predictive models encode potential sensorimotor relations (this being “counterfactual richness”). This is rich and varied territory, and surveying its landmarks emphasizes the need for experimental tests of its key contributions

Radically enactive high cognition

I advance the Radically Enactive Cognition (REC) program by developing Hutto & Satne’s (2015) and Hutto & Myin’s (2017) idea that contentful cognition emerges through sociocultural activities, which require a contentless form of intentionality. Proponents of REC then face a functional challenge: what is the function of higher cognitive skills, given the empirical findings that engaging in higher-cognitive activities is not correlated with cognitive amelioration (Kornblith, 2012)? I answer that functional challenge by arguing that higher cognition is an adaptive tool of the social systems we are embedded in, therefore, it is not necessarily aimed at achieving better cognitive states. In order to do so, I suggest interpreting key insights from autopoietic enactivism through REC lenses

Should machines be tools or tool-users? Clarifying motivations and assumptions in the quest for superintelligence

Much of the basic non-technical vocabulary of artificial intelligence is surprisingly ambiguous. Some key terms with unclear meanings include intelligence, embodiment, simulation, mind, consciousness, perception, value, goal, agent, knowledge, belief, optimality, friendliness, containment, machine and thinking. Much of this vocabulary is naively borrowed from the realm of conscious human experience to apply to a theoretical notion of “mind-in-general” based on computation. However, if there is indeed a threshold between mechanical tool and autonomous agent (and a tipping point for singularity), projecting human conscious-level notions into the operations of computers creates confusion and makes it harder to identify the nature and location of that threshold. There is confusion, in particular, about how—and even whether—various capabilities deemed intelligent relate to human consciousness. This suggests that insufficient thought has been given to very fundamental concepts—a dangerous state of affairs, given the intrinsic power of the technology. It also suggests that research in the area of artificial general intelligence may unwittingly be (mis)guided by unconscious motivations and assumptions. While it might be inconsequential if philosophers get it wrong (or fail to agree on what is right), it could be devastating if AI developers, corporations, and governments follow suit. It therefore seems worthwhile to try to clarify some fundamental notions

Can Science Explain Consciousness?

For diverse reasons, the problem of phenomenal consciousness is persistently challenging. Mental terms are characteristically ambiguous, researchers have philosophical biases, secondary qualities are excluded from objective description, and philosophers love to argue. Adhering to a regime of efficient causes and third-person descriptions, science as it has been defined has no place for subjectivity or teleology. A solution to the “hard problem” of consciousness will require a radical approach: to take the point of view of the cognitive system itself. To facilitate this approach, a concept of agency is introduced along with a different understanding of intentionality. Following this approach reveals that the autopoietic cognitive system constructs phenomenality through acts of fiat, which underlie perceptual completion effects and “filling in”—and, by implication, phenomenology in general. It creates phenomenality much as we create meaning in language, through the use of symbols that it assigns meaning in the context of an embodied evolutionary history that is the source of valuation upon which meaning depends. Phenomenality is a virtual representation to itself by an executive agent (the conscious self) tasked with monitoring the state of the organism and its environment, planning future action, and coordinating various sub- agencies. Consciousness is not epiphenomenal, but serves a function for higher organisms that is distinct from that of unconscious processing. While a strictly scientific solution to the hard problem is not possible for a science that excludes the subjectivity it seeks to explain, there is hope to at least psychologically bridge the explanatory gulf between mind and matter, and perhaps hope for a broader definition of science