Ok, this is basically what I believe too, modulo the occasional manifestation of desires/anxieties/memories. Here’s my current version of the multiple agents model:
(1) There are processes in the brain like the “dream-generator” and “various pieces of System 2″ that I experience as definitely not me. They are not conscious or all that agenty but have enough of a semblance of intent that you might forgive someone for anthropomorphizing them.
(2) There are methods of introspection such as focusing, meditation, and lucid dreaming which allow you deliberate access to these processes. The internal experience of accessing these processes is becoming or fusing with them, e.g. Focusing feels like speaking for a suppressed voice. What’s actually going on might be “accessing data and algorithms that was hidden from you.”
(3) You experience various states of mind hooked onto each process. The combination of you hooked onto process A is significantly different in terms of experiences, values, and/or personality from just you or you hooked onto process B. The claim is that it is often useful to think about these different states as “different agents living in the same brain.”
Ok, this is basically what I believe too, modulo the occasional manifestation of desires/anxieties/memories. Here’s my current version of the multiple agents model:
(1) There are processes in the brain like the “dream-generator” and “various pieces of System 2″ that I experience as definitely not me. They are not conscious or all that agenty but have enough of a semblance of intent that you might forgive someone for anthropomorphizing them.
(2) There are methods of introspection such as focusing, meditation, and lucid dreaming which allow you deliberate access to these processes. The internal experience of accessing these processes is becoming or fusing with them, e.g. Focusing feels like speaking for a suppressed voice. What’s actually going on might be “accessing data and algorithms that was hidden from you.”
(3) You experience various states of mind hooked onto each process. The combination of you hooked onto process A is significantly different in terms of experiences, values, and/or personality from just you or you hooked onto process B. The claim is that it is often useful to think about these different states as “different agents living in the same brain.”