3.1 Post summary / Table of contents

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

So far in the series, Post 1 established some foundations about intuitive self-models in general, and then Post 2 talked about the specific intuitive self-model concept “conscious awareness”.

Now we’re ready to meet the protagonist starring in (most people's) intuitive self-models—the mental concept that is conceptualized as being the root cause of many important mental events, especially those associated with “free will”. It's the intender of intentions! It's the decider of decisions! It's the will-er of willing!

Following Dennett, I call this concept: “the homunculus”.[1]

The 1997 movie Men In Black had a character that looked like a human, until his face swung open to reveal that the body [...]

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Outline:

(00:06) 3.1 Post summary / Table of contents

(05:30) 3.2 “The Conventional Intuitive Self-Model”

(07:27) 3.3 The “vitalistic force” intuition

(07:32) 3.3.1 What is the “vitalistic force” intuition?

(10:05) 3.3.2 “Vitalistic force” is built from the interoceptive feeling of surprise (i.e. physiological arousal + prediction error), but is different from that feeling

(13:29) 3.3.3 The “vitalistic force” intuition does not veridically correspond to anything at all

(14:39) 3.3.4 The “wanting” intuition

(15:57) 3.3.5 The intuition that “vitalistic force” and “wanting” seem to be present inside the brain algorithm itself

(17:57) 3.3.6 The “vitalistic force” intuition contributes to bad takes about free will and artificial general intelligence

(23:08) 3.4 The homunculus in contexts

(23:24) 3.4.1 The homunculus, in the context of knowledge and assessments

(24:45) 3.4.2 The homunculus, in the context of “self”

(26:13) 3.4.3 The homunculus, in the context of technical neuroscience research

(28:28) 3.5 What does the homunculus want?

(28:33) 3.5.1 The homunculus centrally “wants” and “causes” X's for which S(X) has positive valence

(31:12) 3.5.2 An edge case: impulsive planning

(33:11) 3.5.3 “I seek goals” versus “my goals are the things that I find myself seeking”

(34:18) 3.5.4 Why are ego-dystonic things “externalized”?

(36:48) 3.6 The homunculus concept does not veridically correspond to anything at all

(38:34) 3.7 Where does it feel like the homunculus is located?

(39:16) 3.7.1 Some people and cultures have a homunculus outside their head

(42:39) 3.7.2 Mistaken intuition: “When I intuitively feel like the homunculus is in my head, I’m just directly feeling where my brain is”

(44:34) 3.7.3 Mistaken intuition: “When I intuitively feel like the homunculus is in my head, I’m just feeling where my eyes see from, and my ears hear from”