ActInf GuestStream 114.1 ~ How do inner screens enable imaginative experience?

"How do inner screens enable imaginative experience? Applying the free-energy principle directly to the study of conscious experience"
Chris Fields, Mahault Albarracin, Karl Friston Alex Kiefer, Maxwell J.D Ramstead Adam Safron
Neuroscience of Consciousness, Volume 2025, Issue 1, 2025, niaf009, https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niaf009
https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2025/1/niaf009/8117684?

This paper examines the constraints that the free-energy principle (FEP) places on possible model of consciousness, particularly models of attentional control and imaginative experiences, including episodic memory and planning. We first rehearse the classical and quantum formulations of the FEP, focusing on their application to multi-component systems, in which only some components interact directly with the external environment. In particular, we discuss the role of internal boundaries that have the structure of Markov blankets, and hence function as classical information channels between components. We then show how this formal structure supports models of attentional control and imaginative experience, with a focus on (i) how imaginative experience can employ the spatio-temporal and object-recognition reference frames employed in ordinary, non-imaginative experience and (ii) how imaginative experience can be internally generated but still surprising. We conclude by discussing the implementation, phenomenology, and phylogeny of imaginative experience, and the implications of the large state and trait variability of imaginative experience in humans.

Highlights
- We present a model of imaginative experience that is compliant with the free-energy principle (FEP).
- We particularly address the questions of how imaginative experience is controlled and how it can be surprising.
- We emphasize the roles of thermodynamic energy flows and metacognitive control in regulating both imaginative and non-imaginative experience.
- We discuss the implementation, phenomenology, and phylogenetic distribution of imaginative experience, as well as state and trait variability in imaginative experience in humans.

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