The illusion of intrinsic meaning: reassessing conscious experience
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The illusion of intrinsic meaning in predictive coding through cognitive artifacts to minimize prediction errors points toward a functionalist attempt at understanding conscious experience. It examines how conscious experience serves functional roles in predictive coding and symbolic cognition systems within the brain. By addressing recent developments in diverse fields like cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, and artificial intelligence, we argue that conscious experience emerges from the need to construct coherent narratives for survival and decision-making. Additionally, the paper explores the implications for artificial intelligence, suggesting that artificial systems could develop analogous cognitive artifacts through predictive models without subjective awareness, contributing to a functionalist understanding of consciousness, and further advancing the discussion on the nature of conscious experience in biological and artificial systems
DOI: 10.56280/1658738928
Author: Thomas W. Loker
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4404889349