As I said before, I'm not qualified to comment on your theory in a technical sense. So, I'll just mention some possible parallels with an article in the current Scientific American magazine (04/24) entitled : A Truly Intelligent Machine. George Musser, the author, doesn't use the term "meta-management", but the discussion seems to be saying that Intelligence is more than (meta-) information processing. For example, "to do simple or rehearsed tasks, the brain can run on autopilot, but novel or complicated ones --- those beyond the scope of a single module --- require us to be aware of what we are doing". In a large complex organization, such supervision --- etymology, to see from above (meta-) --- is the role of upper management. And the ultimate decision-maker, the big-boss, is a Meta-Manager : a manager of managers.The Meta-management Theory of Consciousness uses the computational metaphor of cognition to provide an explanation for access consciousness, and by doing so explains some aspects of the phenomenology of consciousness. — Malcolm Lett
I think Metzinger's views are very plausible. Indeed his views on the self as a transparent ego tunnel at once enabling and limiting our exposure to reality and creating a world model is no doubt basically true. But as the article mentions, it's unclear how this resolves the hard problem. There is offered a reason why (evolutionarily speaking) phenomenality emerged but not a how. The self can be functionally specified, but not consciousness — bert1
..wonder what you make of Thomas Metzinger's self-model of subjectivity (SMS) which, if you're unfamiliar with it, is summarized in the article (linked below) with an extensive review of his The Ego Tunnel. — 180 Proof
It's also the same idea put forward by Donald Hoffman's User Interface Theory of Perception. — Malcolm Lett
Just out of interest, I'll have a go.
So, let's say that this kidney simulation is 100% accurate of a real kidney, to the level of, say, molecules. And that this kidney simulation has a rudimentary simulation of its context operating in a body, so that if a simulated kidney were to pee, then it could. In this example, the kidney would indeed pee, not on his desk, but inside the simulation.
If we take as an assumption (for the sake of this thought experiment) that consciousness is entirely physical, then we can do the same thing with a conscious brain. This time simulate the brain to the molecular level, and again provide it some rudimentary body context so that the simulated brain thinks it's operated inside a body with eyes, ears, hands, etc. Logically, this simulation thus simulates consciousness in the brain. That's not to say that the simulated brain is conscious in a real world sense, but that it is genuinely conscious in its simulated world. — Malcolm Lett
That's not too say that his particular telling of the story isn't valuable, but I do feel a sense of frustration when I read something suggesting that it's one particular person's ideas when actually these are already ideas in the common domain. — Malcolm Lett
Also, you speak of "inside the simulation". Imagine you're running a simulation of a tornado. Then all the minds in the universe disappear, but the computer the simulation is running on is still active. With all the minds gone, is there still a simulation of a tornado going on? Or is it just a bunch of noise and pixels turning off and on? I think the latter, and this goes back to my point that any simulation is ultimately just a bunch of electric switches turning off and on in a certain way. It takes a mind to attach meaning to the output of those switching actions. — RogueAI
1. The primary world 2a. Molecular simulation engine 3a. Biological conscious mind 2b. Silicon simulation engine 3b. Silicon conscious mind
oh well then, in principle... MAYBE — flannel jesus
But this is at odds with my introspective account of deliberation. Deliberation itself seems to be explicitly phenomenal — hypericin
Is your idea that phenomena such as self talk is a model of the unconscious deliberation that is actually taking place? This does not seem to do justice to the power that words and images have as tools for enabling thought, not just in providing some sort of executive summary. Think of the theory that language evolved primarily not for communication but as a means of enabling thought as we know it. Can meta management explain the gargantuan cognitive leap we enjoy over our nearest animal neighbors? — hypericin
Since the cost/benefit ratio of this change seems very favorable, we should expect at least crude deliberation to be widespread in nature. Adding language as a deliberative tool is where the real cognitive explosion happened. — hypericin
my intuition is that reductive scientific methods can explain consciousness - and so a big motivation -- in fact one of the key drivers for me - is that I want to attempt to push the boundaries of what can be explained through that medium. So I explicitly avoid trying to explain phenomenology based on phenomenology. — Malcolm Lett
So I wouldn't say that my theory diminishes any of that, rather that it offers a theory of just one part. — Malcolm Lett
Sure. That is indeed a different take. I'm taking what I like to think of as a traditional scientific approach, otherwise known as a reductionist materialist approach. Like anyone in this field, I'm driven by a particular set of beliefs that is driven by little more than intuition - my intuition is that reductive scientific methods can explain consciousness - and so a big motivation -- in fact one of the key drivers for me - is that I want to attempt to push the boundaries of what can be explained through that medium. So I explicitly avoid trying to explain phenomenology based on phenomenology. — Malcolm Lett
My concern was that you were treating what we in the everyday sense term "deliberation", such as self talk, as epiphenomenal, as the "cognitive sense" corresponding to the real work happening behind the scenes. Was that a misunderstanding? Is self talk not the sort of deliberation you had in mind? — hypericin
So if we forbid ourselves from reducing the meaning of a scientific explanation to our private use of indexicals that have no publically shareable semantic content , and if it is also assumed that phenomenological explanations must essentially rely upon the use of indexicals, then there is no logical possibility for a scientific explanation to make contact with phenomenology. — sime
The interesting thing about science education, is that as students we are initially introduced to the meaning of scientific concepts via ostensive demonstrations, e.g when the chemistry teacher teaches oxidation by means of heating a testtube with a Bunsen Burner, saying "this here is oxidation". And yet a public interpretation of theoretical chemistry cannot employ indexicals for the sake of the theory being objective, with the paradoxical consequence that the ostensive demonstrations by which each of us were taught the subject, cannot be part of the public meaning of theoretical chemistry. — sime
Is it possible to simulate consciousness with rocks? I think the only honest answer anyone can give is, "I don't know". — Malcolm Lett
Does that answer your question? — Malcolm Lett
Thus, the rock-based simulation and our reality are effectively the same thing. — Malcolm Lett
Take an example. I have the deliberation "I should go to the store today", and I am aware of that deliberation. I initially thought you would say that verbalization "I should go to the store today" would be just the summarized cognitive sense of the actual deliberation, some non-verbal, non conscious (I should go to the store today). The language would come after the deliberation, and is not the form that the actual deliberation takes.
Is this what you think? Or do you think the brain deliberates linguistically whether or not we are aware of it, and the meta management just grants awareness of the language? — hypericin
I think you're right. It's an idea I've been only loosely toying with and hadn't tried putting it down in words before.It's an interesting question, deserving of it's own thread. — hypericin
↪Malcolm Lett I'm still 'processing' your MMT and wonder what you make of Thomas Metzinger's self-model of subjectivity (SMS) which, if you're unfamiliar with it, is summarized in the article (linked below) with an extensive review of his The Ego Tunnel. — 180 Proof
There’s also a good reason why deliberation isn’t something we use much in ML today. It’s hard to control. Deliberation may occur with minimal to no feedback from the physical body or environment.
The model-free strategy efficiently produces habitual (or automatized) behavior for oft-repeated situations. Internally, the brain learns something akin to a direct mapping from state to action: when in a particular state, just do this particular action. The model-based strategy works in reverse, by starting with a desired end-state and working out what action to take to get there.
Meta-management as a term isn’t used commonly. I take that as evidence that this approach to understanding consciousness has not received the attention it deserves.
It’s now generally accepted that the brain employs something akin to the Actor/Critic reinforcement learning approach used in ML (Bennet, 2023).
The content of consciousness — whatever we happen to be consciously aware of — is a direct result of the state that is captured by the meta-management feedback loop and made available as sensory input.
I'll bundle this withWhat might be missing between this description and true human consciousness? I can think of nothing ...
*Our emotional affect additionally adds information, painting our particular current emotional hue over the latent state inference that is made from the raw sensory data.
The self-referencing models sound reminiscent of Douglas Hofstadter's nested feedback loops espoused in his 1979 book, Gödel, Escher, Bach, and elaborated in his 2007 book, I Am a Strange Loop. He suggested that one of those "slimmed-down models" might be the sentient core of what we experience as The Self and know as "I" or "me", the central "Planner".The tree search algorithm in AlphaZero is 'nothing but' an algorithm for the allocation of resources to nodes in the search tree. This example is interesting from another point of view. At a node deep in the tree, AlphaZero uses a slimmed down version of itself, that is, one with less resources. You could say it uses a model of itself for planning. It may be modelling itself modelling itself modelling itself modelling itself modelling itself modelling itself. Meta-management and self-modelling are not in themselves an explanation for very much. — GrahamJ
At a node deep in the tree, AlphaZero uses a slimmed down version of itself, that is, one with less resources. You could say it uses a model of itself for planning. It may be modelling itself modelling itself modelling itself modelling itself modelling itself modelling itself. Meta-management and self-modelling are not in themselves an explanation for very much. — GrahamJ
Yes, we interpret those differences via introspection, but it's only with very careful examination that you can use those phenomenal characteristic differences to infer anything about differences of actual cognitive computational processing and representation. I treat the brain as a computational system, and under that paradigm all state is representational. And it's only those representations, and their processing, that I care about. — Malcolm Lett
Tying this back to your original question a few posts earlier, I think perhaps the question you were asking was something like this: "does MMT suggest that deliberative processing can occur without conscious awareness or involvement, and that conscious experience of it is some sort of after-effect?". In short, yes. — Malcolm Lett
The idea of "model" to me is something like an informationally lossy transformation from one domain into another. A map lossily transforms from physical territory to a piece of paper. A model airplane lossily transforms from big expensive functional machines to small cheap non-functional hobby objects. Representational consciousness lossily transforms from physical reality to phenomenal representations of the world. — hypericin
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