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Why Uncertainty Is Essential for Consciousness: Local Prospect Theory vs. Predictive Processing.
Francis Heylighen1, Shima Beigi1
1Center Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
Local Prospect Theory (LPT) offers a new view of consciousness, emphasizing subjective experience and free will. It models decision-making using uncertainty and a "local prospect" for agents to choose reactions, contrasting with deterministic unconscious processes.
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Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Philosophy of Mind
- Theoretical Psychology
Background:
- Predictive Processing (PP) theories focus on optimizing prediction accuracy in the brain.
- Consciousness, subjective experience, and free will remain complex phenomena.
- Global Workspace Theory provides a model for neural activation and working memory.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce and develop Local Prospect Theory (LPT) as a novel framework for understanding consciousness.
- To reframe decision-making by incorporating uncertainty and subjective experience.
- To explore the implications of LPT for understanding free will and contrasting conscious with unconscious processes.
Main Methods:
- Conceptualizing consciousness as a self-maintaining process of circulating neural activation.
- Defining a "local prospect" as a subjectively experienced range of potential developments.
- Proposing entropy-based measures to quantify the breadth of potential actions and perceptions.
Main Results:
- LPT posits that uncertainty is essential for conscious decision-making, enabling free choice.
- Conscious processes involve asynchronous, non-linear interactions in a temporary working memory.
- Unconscious processes are characterized as automatic and deterministic.
Conclusions:
- LPT provides a framework to understand how consciousness allows for de-automatized reactions and free will.
- The theory offers potential for empirical testing through measures like action variety and perceptual breadth.
- LPT offers insights into practices like mindfulness and meditation for broadening consciousness.