[Paper Review] On the Minimal Theory of Consciousness Implicit in Active Inference

Christopher J. Whyte, Andrew W. Corcoran+7 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Oct 9, 2024

Embodied and Extended Cognition8 citations

TL;DR

The paper argues that a minimal, testable theory of consciousness emerges from active inference, identifying a small set of implicit commitments shared across models.

ABSTRACT

The multifaceted nature of subjective experience poses a challenge to the study of consciousness. Traditional neuroscientific approaches often concentrate on isolated facets, such as perceptual awareness or the global state of consciousness and construct a theory around the relevant empirical paradigms and findings. Theories of consciousness are, therefore, often difficult to compare; indeed, there might be little overlap in the phenomena such theories aim to explain. Here, we take a different approach: starting with active inference, a first principles framework for modelling behaviour as (approximate) Bayesian inference, and building up to a minimal theory of consciousness, which emerges from the shared features of computational models derived under active inference. We review a body of work applying active inference models to the study of consciousness and argue that there is implicit in all these models a small set of theoretical commitments that point to a minimal (and testable) theory of consciousness.

Motivation & Objective

• Motivate a unified approach to consciousness by starting from active inference, a first-principles Bayesian framework.
• Identify the shared features and implicit commitments that give rise to a minimal theory of consciousness.
• Propose a testable, streamlined theory that can account for multiple conscious phenomena across paradigms.

Proposed method

• Review a body of work applying active inference to consciousness research.
• Analyze underlying assumptions to identify a small set of core commitments.
• Derive a minimal theory of consciousness from these common features.
• Discuss how the resulting theory can be empirically tested.
• Synthesize insights to enable comparison across different consciousness theories within the active inference framework.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 What implicit commitments underlie active-inference models of consciousness?
• RQ2 What constitutes a minimal, testable theory of consciousness within the activeInference framework?
• RQ3 How do existing active-inference models converge to or diverge from this minimal theory?
• RQ4 What empirical predictions follow from the minimal theory and how can they be tested?

Key findings

• There is a small set of theoretical commitments that recur across active-inference models of consciousness.
• Consciousness can be seen as emerging from shared features within active inference representations and processes.
• A minimal theory can unify disparate observations across paradigms under a common framework.
• The proposed minimal theory yields testable predictions about conscious states and experiences.
• The work provides a basis for comparing different theories of consciousness within the active-inference approach.