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The Projective Consciousness Model and Phenomenal Selfhood
Kenneth Williford1, Daniel Bennequin2, Karl Friston3
1Department of Philosophy and Humanities, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, United States.
Frontiers in Psychology
|January 9, 2019
Summary
The Projective Consciousness Model (PCM) integrates geometry and active inference to explain consciousness. It offers a comprehensive theory of phenomenal selfhood, detailing how organisms integrate perception, emotion, and memory for effective behavioral control.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Neuroscience
- Philosophy of Mind
- Computational Neuroscience
Background:
- Outstanding conceptual issues in the theory of consciousness require a unified framework.
- Existing models often struggle to integrate phenomenological structure with computational mechanisms.
- The need for a theory explaining subjective aspects like self-consciousness and the first-person perspective.
Purpose of the Study:
- To summarize and extend the Projective Consciousness Model (PCM).
- To relate the PCM to key conceptual challenges in consciousness research.
- To provide a comprehensive account of phenomenal selfhood.
Main Methods:
- Combining a projective geometrical model of consciousness's phenomenological structure.
- Integrating a variational Free Energy minimization model of active inference.
- Linking geometrical and active inference components via projective transformation.
Main Results:
- The PCM provides an account of the cybernetic function of consciousness: modulating cognitive and affective dynamics for agent control.
- Projective transformation is identified as crucial for integrating perception, emotion, memory, reasoning, and imagination.
- The model makes empirical predictions and aligns with a neurocomputationalist framework.
Conclusions:
- The PCM offers a unified explanation for how conscious organisms control behavior, enhance resilience, and optimize satisfaction.
- It accounts for subjective aspects of experience, including pre-reflective self-consciousness, the first-person viewpoint, ownership, and social self-consciousness.
- The PCM represents a significant advancement in understanding phenomenal selfhood.
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