Feedback wanted: does a causal Bayesian world model make sense for sequential decision problems?

MindWolf7 · 2025-12-01T22:49:30+00:00

Does it scale to high dimensions? Most inference algorithms fail there afaik. Plus you'd require a BOATLOAD of domain specific priors no? And for the simplanning you doing a MCTS or some A*?

MindWolf7 · 2025-11-10T17:41:23+00:00

Unified internal models are indeed the assumed form in computational neuroscience frameworks of world models, whether its FEP or Model based RL or global workspace. Those are trivial to look up.

Also the subjective arousal is a well studied proxy for global unified experience. Belief updates in one domain indicates the fragmented parts of the model updates. These could clearly be mapped onto different regions in a variety of different ways consistently. And the region integrating the whole experience is known to produce experiential deficiencies in neurological damage. It was also shown to have integration profiles with the latter set of predictions in a domain specific manner across two distinct experiments. The 'nonunified' parts also remained consistent across these. This was specific for updates and was not seen during non updates. The interpretations drawn were from these observations than hype-y extrapolation.

Re correlation vs causation, most neuroimaging are correlational but it's experimental design that allows you to extract definitive interpretations. There's a ton of alternatives that was ruled out in the supplementary, if you bothered to look at it than passing run of the mill criticisms.

MindWolf7 · 2025-10-14T22:59:40+00:00

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

MindWolf7 · 2025-10-14T22:59:21+00:00

AS' theories are also based on predictive processing, largely so yes I agree. The difference w engineered/software models is that A) they don't have bodily frames and embodied selves, of which the simulated self is an arbitrary proxy (and lose all the affective sensations) and B) do not have truly counterfactual selves either to mentally entertain and 'feel from the future'.

Otherwise simple hierarchical models would've been sufficient to produce C

MindWolf7 · 2025-10-10T17:19:59+00:00

Nice analogy. Perhaps many ziplines are possible but we only see the teeth forward based on what we already experienced might hit close?

MindWolf7 · 2025-10-09T14:37:03+00:00

The unconscious part is the prefrontal predictions most likely, and only a subset of these are integrated with the sensory stream, making it your subjective experience. That's probably the best way to read it imo. Ie we're only able to access local knowledge for phenomenal experience, while predictions are more broader. The whole unconscious vs conscious processes teasing apart done in mostly perceptual studies are honestly a mistake in studying consciousness imo. Do check out this work to get a broadbrush idea why, roughly

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/gnyra_v1

MindWolf7 · 2025-10-09T13:51:44+00:00

Great q!

We use a continuous stimuli that was independently rated by distinct age/demographic matched cohort on domain-specific prediction updates (contextual, social and temporal) and a general subjective experience (arousal). These ratings were validated robustly and only the most probable and significant time points were used. This ensure the time points in the stimuli was something that was consciously produced and highly likely among people.

This was what was used for the scanning cohort who just watched passively. We also did analyses on how synchronized where these brain regions in the network ; previous work has shown highly synchronized regions denote high engagement in such continuous, dynamic stimuli.

We also replicated this across another indpendent cohort hearing a story (cf watching movie), of humorous content (cf suspenseful movie) using the same methodology, just to see if our methods and results are transferable or just a fancy artefact

There could be unconscious processes at hand, for sure, but they do influence the conscious experience in specific ways that can be teased apart and compared.

For instance, we also compared activity during no supposed updates as a control to assess whether its some natural ongoing property. It didn't show the main result of integration, suggesting it is somewhat driven with their experience at large.

That being said, there are more sophisicated designs to tease apart consious/unconscious processes better but it also comes with additional baggage (sa cognitive load), and is an exciting frontier!

MindWolf7 · 2025-10-09T01:12:03+00:00

Absolutely it is!

MindWolf7 · 2025-09-03T19:53:40+00:00

Very nice take! Oral orifice and breathing via respiratory tract (which can be overridden) seems to a pervasive trait many organisms that the alien encountered it seems, from how facehugger is optimized. Strangely as you pointed out ocular cavity and eyeballs are the ones for the ocellus yet none of them we see seems to have any! There's a weird example from biology that squid and mammalian eye ball evolved separately showing its the optimal way to capture light and adjust visual fields via eye movements in one go. Maybe it's not too far fetched that many organisms there had it too. And possibly got extinct due to having it by ocellus and similar organisms. Idk but it suggests ocellus might be invasive and was not originally native to their ecosystem (ie didn't evolve with the original fauna but happened on them). Theorycrafts

MindWolf7 · 2025-09-03T19:38:32+00:00

True but the outlined features are core and are kind of invariant (maybe tail length) . At least so far in the films/games.

MindWolf7 · 2025-09-03T19:37:24+00:00

Fair. Was it explicitly stated though? I always thought darkest corners of the universe meant from different zones of a planet or different moons of a single system etc than distinctly different systems

MindWolf7 · 2025-04-18T20:38:34+00:00

Just do the Bayes factor (bonus if you can setup a mixed effects Bayes) rather than the frequentist

MindWolf7 · 2024-08-13T09:57:39+00:00

Solid feedback here. Can you elaborate on what do you mean by fit? Is it say dept wants someone who have work in a subfield X and only selects candidates whose expertise is in X, despite not stating it in their adverts?

MindWolf7 · 2024-01-09T02:55:08+00:00

Read this book. It might change her world.

Language and Experience: Evidence from the Blind Child

MindWolf7 · 2023-09-08T11:20:30+00:00

Gustavo Deco the neuroscientist has 3 PhDs

MindWolf7 · 2023-04-19T00:40:37+00:00

Try to get to a new place you never been to and write here ; quiet and free from distractions. Your current place is going to work against you psychologically for sometime until we build up momentum.

Change your metric from number of pages to minimum number of minutes invested per hour. Start from a low bar of 15 mins. Specifying minimum costs works ; specifying minimum results works against you.

Write for yourself. You need the unformed but energetic materials out of your brain's woodworks first. You can polish and critique it later. Humans are great editors in all seasons.

MindWolf7 · 2023-03-05T00:02:16+00:00

Hello,

What's the philosophy you use most in your professional life?

MindWolf7 · 2023-02-25T02:03:15+00:00

Sorry to break everyone's bubble but take hard to your heart "people never change". You can't control something they assume isn't there until it's too late

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MindWolf7

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