The Mind That Lies: Constructed Perception, the Inescapable Self-Model, and the Plurality of Control in Conscious Experience
Research Summary
Synthesizes predictive-processing perception, the self-model theory of subjectivity, and competition-based theories of consciousness to argue that our sense of an objective world and a single unified self are useful constructions of the brain - citing evidence that the self-world boundary dissolves in advanced meditators.
Abstract
We take it for granted that we perceive the world as it is, that we stand outside our experience as its impartial witness, and that a single self authors our thoughts and choices. This paper argues that all three convictions are constructions of the brain rather than facts about reality. Drawing together predictive-processing accounts of perception, the self-model theory of subjectivity, and competition-based theories of consciousness, it advances three linked claims: first, that what we perceive is a generative model - a "controlled hallucination" - and not the world itself; second, that this model is inescapable by design, because its own constructed character is rendered transparent to us, so that knowing it is a model does not let us step outside it; and third, that the unified self who seems to perceive and decide is a narrative imposed after the fact upon many competing subsystems contending for control. The argument is anchored empirically in recent work showing that even the most basic structural feature of ordinary experience - the division into an inner self and an outer world - tracks a measurable difference in the brain's intrinsic neural timescales, and that this difference collapses in advanced meditators who report non-dual awareness. That the self-world boundary can be dissolved is the strongest available evidence that it was built. The mind does not lie maliciously; it lies usefully.
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