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the most interesting idea for me from Julian Jaynes so far is consciousness being a metaphor where the outside world is used as an analog to represent the workings of the mind. (Jaynes is looking more at reflective aspect of C, qualia isn't a big target for him)
"what channels of info are available to construct this model of what's 'going on' in your head?" reading old popsci books on confabulation: "it's as if we hear ourselves speak, and then use what we heard to determine what we meant" hmmmm, very Elephant in the Brain...
global neuronal workspace seems like a decent shot at the brain stuff that corresponds to "being aware of XYZ" in a given moment. it also gives a lot of leads on what you would or wouldn't expect to be accessible by conscious introspection https://t.co/qMnjPqqPno
translating Jaynes' "ancient humans weren't conscious" with this GNW: ancient humans still had a GNW, and shit would propogate through it, but there were no modules that had learned to record and track the history of what has gone through the GNW.
seems plausibly in the realm of either learned cognition or innate, so I'm not *convinced* of Jaynes yet, but this frame makes it WAAAAAAY more clear what the hypothesis might even be at all, and allows me to ask way better questions
so how might a pre-reflective-conscious (PRC) human think? brain claim: if you can observe it, and get a reward signal on it, you automatically learn how to manipulate it PRC can only observe their actions, NOT their own cognition
Jaynes' on language being needed for consciousness: hmmm, I said "sending the quoted version back into the GNW". for Reflective Awareness (RA) you've got to transform *stimulus* to "*stimulus* was just on my mind" language seems like the obv encoding mech, but not necessary?
Tying in Dennett: awareness as GNW and consciousness as a Map jives with DD's multiple drafts thing. And no Cartesian Theater! the GNW is a "theater", but it can only FEELS like one when you feed the Map back through it, and the Map is INSANELY editable https://t.co/yaKFWuH5df
hehe, @yashkaf better start moving faster or I'll beat you to it 🙃😎😈🐆 https://t.co/y19xpfGSr9
i've only read @fortelabs version of Theory of Constructed Emotions, but this whole shtick makes it both make sense, and help me udnerstand why Tiaog and Feldman kept sounding crazy to me... https://t.co/W7uW2tolR1
if emotions are a learned "subsystem" in one's Map, they "aren't real/are made up" sure, but you should still expect lots of consistency and patterns, because the process by which you create your Map still involves a lot of innate shit.
I LOVE the connection to TCE, because it adds more to "what info channels are available for constructing your map?" ALL OF YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM!!!!! you're in a learned danger scenario. activate tension. Map making gets signal about being tense, uses this Emotion to model this
i'm WAAAy more excited for polyvagal theory. if feedback from the nervous system is a key info source through which the Map is created, lets LEARn that bitch! woooow, it's almost like you can't understand the mind without understanding the body 😱🤯🤦 https://t.co/tlejSKspHa
The body has mutually exclusive nervous system states with corresponding motor strategies: Attunment (social emotion, motion, communication), or Threat (run, jump, be in conflict), orFreeze (immbolize, conserve energy, act dead). You’re always in one of them. MEMORIZE THIS. https://t.co/NCHB9E0eXk
@natural_hazard 5 min difference. good boy, fast updating https://t.co/rWX49brfju
This post helps highlight the difference between Jaynes reflective-consciousness and other Type 2 thinking (which makes use of GNW/working memory (what's the difference between them?), but needn't be reflective) https://t.co/N9zrsGB3Y4
This gets at the heart of consciousness as a Map idea, and puts forward very concrete ideas about how to continue investigating it https://t.co/qyPmfrIa2L
on those "you've got no freewill!" studies a while back (brain activity predates conscious awareness of decision) this seems like the delay between "the decision has been made" (and propogated along GNW?) and "I experience awareness of the decision" (it's quoted and piped back)
a thread really hammering in the difference between experiencing X and being aware of experiencing X https://t.co/Ca9QXO9mD7
in epistemic logic, people sometimes use the axiom "if you know A, then you know that you know A" this isn't really true when talking about humans, and i think it's this sort of mistake, but swapping "know" with "are aware of" that has fucked a lot of thinking on consciousness