Agreed! These topics—the narrative self, the perception of free will, the predictive processing-theory, etc. - are all incredibly interesting and worth studying. But what has been explained in the book doesn’t seem to come close to what consciousness is at all—rather, how our perceptions in consciousness are influenced by our sense of self and story, something that has already been well-studied. I’m fairly convinced by the predictive-processing theory of self and cognition—but I don’t treat this as an explanation for the existence of experience itself. A generative artificial model can have “predictive processing,” but does this give it a subjective, conscious experience? What would it mean, exactly, if it did?
I’m reminded of this post—the reason the two “consciousness camps” seem to be talking past each other might be because we have different intuitions about what needs explaining. To me, what really needs explaining is the fact of consciousness—its existence, not its qualities. Why “feel” at all? This book, while it looks interesting, doesn’t look like it touches that question.
Agreed! These topics—the narrative self, the perception of free will, the predictive processing-theory, etc. - are all incredibly interesting and worth studying. But what has been explained in the book doesn’t seem to come close to what consciousness is at all—rather, how our perceptions in consciousness are influenced by our sense of self and story, something that has already been well-studied. I’m fairly convinced by the predictive-processing theory of self and cognition—but I don’t treat this as an explanation for the existence of experience itself. A generative artificial model can have “predictive processing,” but does this give it a subjective, conscious experience? What would it mean, exactly, if it did?
I’m reminded of this post—the reason the two “consciousness camps” seem to be talking past each other might be because we have different intuitions about what needs explaining. To me, what really needs explaining is the fact of consciousness—its existence, not its qualities. Why “feel” at all? This book, while it looks interesting, doesn’t look like it touches that question.