Bayesing%2520QualiaMarch19CleanFinal.pdf (373.09 kB)
Bayesing Qualia: consciousness as inference, not raw datum
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-21, 05:59 authored by Andrew ClarkAndrew Clark, Karl Friston, Sam WilkinsonThe meta-problem of consciousness (Chalmers (this issue)) is the problem of explaining the behaviors and verbal reports that we associate with the so-called ‘hard problem of consciousness’. These may include reports of puzzlement, of the attractiveness of dualism, of explanatory gaps, and the like. We present and defend a solution to the meta-problem. Our solution takes as its starting point the emerging picture of the brain as a hierarchical inference engine. We show why such a device, operating under familiar forms of adaptive pressure, may come to represent some of its mid-level inferences as especially certain. These mid-level states confidently re-code raw sensory stimulation in ways that (they are able to realize) fall short of fully determining how properties and states of affairs are arranged in the distal world. This drives a wedge between experience and the world. Advanced agents then represent these mid-level inferences as irreducibly special, becoming increasingly puzzled as a result.
Funding
Expecting Ourselves: Embodied Prediction and the Construction of Conscious Experience (XSPECT); EUROPEAN UNION XSPECT - DLV-692739; 692739
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Journal of Consciousness StudiesISSN
1355-8250Publisher
Imprint AcademicIssue
9-10Volume
26Page range
19-33Department affiliated with
- Informatics Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2019-04-10First Open Access (FOA) Date
2021-01-01First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2019-04-09Usage metrics
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