On-off synecdoche: A just good enough model of subjective experience

Cognition. 2024.

Martinez-Saito M.

We provide an account of the apparent intermittency of subjective experiences, between conscious and unconscious phases, grounded on three parsimonious notions: (1) the brain is an inference engine and stochastic simulator endowed with a good enough generative model of the world inherited via evolution and forged by experience, (2) the brain's internal model of the self (itself, its body and actions) is an intermittent and simplifed representation invoked only when needed to expedite inference, which specifes and enables first-person subjective experiences through the identifcation of a model of the  self (d-self or synecdoche for the p-self) with the physical self (p-self), and (3) realistic monism as a merger of physicalism and panpsychism. This scheme shifts the focus from problematic standalone subjective experiences to the identifcation of subjective experiences with the system's model of itself and its contingent attributes, is consistent with the empirical and phenomenological evidence and provides testable predictions: (1) only macroscopic scale information that is expedient for survival (d-self shell) can become subjective experience, and (2) the hub of subjective experience is mostly distributed along the posterior medial cortex.

Keywords: сознание, consciousness, approximate inference, self-model, realistic monism, приблизительный вывод, модель себя, реалистичный монизм

Publication based on the results of: Study of neuronal processes in cognitive and fundamental and applied neuroeconomic tasks, taking into account individual differences (2024)