How do inner screens enable imaginative experience? Applying the free-energy principle directly to the study of conscious experience.

The free-energy principle (FEP) constrains possible models of consciousness, especially those of attentional control and imaginative experiences like episodic memory and planning. The paper first reviews classical and quantum formulations of the FEP, focusing on multi-component systems where only some parts interact directly with the environment. It discusses internal boundaries structured as Markov blankets, which act as classical information channels. The analysis shows how this framework supports models of attention and imagination, explaining how imaginative experience can use the same spatio-temporal and object-recognition frames as ordinary perception, and how it can be internally generated yet still surprising. The paper concludes with implications for implementation, phenomenology, phylogeny, and the large variability of imaginative experience in humans.

Study at a glance

Abstract

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.