2.1 Post summary / Table of contents

This is the second of a series of eight blog posts, which I’ll be serializing over the next month or two. (Or email or DM me if you want to read the whole thing right now.)

The previous post laid some groundwork for talking about intuitive self-models. Now we’re jumping right into the deep end: the intuitive concept of “conscious awareness” (or “awareness” for short). Some argue (§1.6.2) that if we can fully understand why we have an “awareness” concept, then we will thereby understand phenomenal consciousness itself! Alas, “phenomenal consciousness itself” is outside the scope of this series—again see §1.6.2. Regardless, the “awareness” concept is centrally important to how we conceptualize our own mental worlds, and well worth understanding for its own sake.

In one sense, “awareness” is nothing special: it's an intuitive concept, built like any other intuitive concept. I [...]

---

Outline:

(00:06) 2.1 Post summary / Table of contents

(05:06) 2.2 The “awareness” concept

(05:10) 2.2.1 The cortex has a finite computational capacity that gets deployed serially

(06:25) 2.2.2 Predictive learning represents that algorithmic property via a kind of abstract container called “awareness”

(07:44) 2.2.3 “S(apple)”, defined as the self-reflective thought “apple being in awareness”, is different from the object-level thought “apple”

(09:19) 2.3 Awareness over time: The “Stream of Consciousness” (“Cartesian Theater”)

(15:02) 2.4 Relation between “awareness” and memory

(15:07) 2.4.1 Intuitive model of memory as a storage archive

(16:10) 2.4.2 Intuitive connection between memory and awareness

(17:26) 2.5 The valence of S(X) thoughts

(18:52) 2.5.1 Positive-valence S(X) models often go with “what my best self would do” (other things equal)

(20:49) 2.5.2 Positive-valence S(X) models also tend to go with X's that are object-level motivating (other things equal)

(22:15) 2.6 S(A) as “the intention to immediately do action A”, and the rapid sequence \[S(A) ; A\] as the signature of a deliberate action

(22:26) 2.6.1 Clarification: Two ways to “think about an action”

(24:49) 2.6.2 For any action A where S(A) has positive valence, there's often a two-step temporal sequence: \[S(A) ; A actually happens\]

(26:42) 2.6.3 This two-step sequence corresponds to “deliberate” / “intentional” actions (as opposed to “spontaneously blurting something out”, “acting on instinct”, etc.)

(28:58) 2.6.4 The common temporal sequence above—i.e. \[S(A) with positive valence ; A actually happens\]—is itself incorporated into the intuitive self-model. Call it D(A) for “Deciding to do action A”

(29:35) 2.6.5 An application: “Illusions of free will”

(31:38) 2.7 Conclusion

The original text contained 6 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
September 25th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/73xBjgoHuiKvJ5WRk/intuitive-self-models-2-conscious-awareness

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“[Intuitive self-models] 2. Conscious Awareness” by Steven Byrnes

LessWrong (30+ Karma)