Two types of “valence” in my model—“real” and “guessed”
The blue-circled signal is the valence guess from the corresponding Thought Assessor in the striatum. The red-circled signal (again, it’s one signal drawn twice) is the corresponding “ground truth” for what the valence guess should have been.
Just like the other “long-term predictors” discussed in the previous post, the Steering Subsystem can choose between “defer-to-predictor mode” and “override mode”. In the former, it sets the red equal to the blue, as if to say “OK, Thought Assessor, sure, I’ll take your word for it”. In the latter, it ignores the Thought Assessor’s proposal, and its own internal circuitry outputs some different value.[3]
Just to be clear, these paragraphs mean that the arrows labeled “Actual valence” are often just a duplicate of the “Valence guess”, specifically when the steering system is in “defer-to-predictor” mode. When in that mode, the Steering Subsystem doesn’t add any informational content that directs the thought generator, right?
In “defer-to-predictor” mode, all of the informational content that directs thought rerolls is coming from the thought assessors in the Learned-from-Scratch part of the brain, even if if that information is neurologically routed through the steering subsystem?
[Edit: Or is “Actual valence” never just defering to the predictor, because it’s calculated based on the whole scorecard?]
[Edit2: In this post, you say “And I’ll also assume the Steering Subsystem is in defer-to-predictor mode for the valence signal, rather than override mode (see Post #6, §6.4.2).”, so I guess not.]
You might (or might not) have missed that we can simultaneously be in defer-to-predictor mode for valence, override mode for goosebumps, defer-to-predictor mode for physiological arousal, etc. It’s not all-or-nothing. (I just edited the text you quoted to make that clearer.)
In “defer-to-predictor” mode, all of the informational content that directs thought rerolls is coming from the thought assessors in the Learned-from-Scratch part of the brain, even if if that information is neurologically routed through the steering subsystem?
To within the limitations of the model I’m putting forward here (which sweeps a bit of complexity under the rug), basically yes.
A tedious clarification question:
Just to be clear, these paragraphs mean that the arrows labeled “Actual valence” are often just a duplicate of the “Valence guess”, specifically when the steering system is in “defer-to-predictor” mode. When in that mode, the Steering Subsystem doesn’t add any informational content that directs the thought generator, right?
In “defer-to-predictor” mode, all of the informational content that directs thought rerolls is coming from the thought assessors in the Learned-from-Scratch part of the brain, even if if that information is neurologically routed through the steering subsystem?
[Edit: Or is “Actual valence” never just defering to the predictor, because it’s calculated based on the whole scorecard?]
[Edit2: In this post, you say “And I’ll also assume the Steering Subsystem is in defer-to-predictor mode for the valence signal, rather than override mode (see Post #6, §6.4.2).”, so I guess not.]
You might (or might not) have missed that we can simultaneously be in defer-to-predictor mode for valence, override mode for goosebumps, defer-to-predictor mode for physiological arousal, etc. It’s not all-or-nothing. (I just edited the text you quoted to make that clearer.)
To within the limitations of the model I’m putting forward here (which sweeps a bit of complexity under the rug), basically yes.