Radio Lab had an episode about 15 years ago that also implied the concept of modules or sub agents. But you've crystalized it here in a way they only implied.
I wonder if this hypothesis lends credence to Internal Family Systems. The way a subagent might get "stuck" from trauma could cause it to be cordoned off from other sub agents.
Intriguing article. I've always thought of my brain as having many parallel processors running separate tasks, but the sub-personal agents model is probably is more accurate. As I was reading, I couldn't help but wonder if some AI researchers have 'broken" their neural networks, which already have multiple layers, into competing agentic regions, which can steal nodes from other agentic regions.
These ideas play well with Joseph Campbell's view of myth and ritual, which was to define the type of self that would grow:
“The address of mythological symbols is directly to these centers; and the responses proper to their influence are, consequently, neither rational nor under personal control. They overtake one. The symbols function, that is to say, as energy-releasing and -directing signs; and in traditionally structured cultures, they are deliberately imprinted in vividly impressive (often painful) rites, timed to catch the individual at those moments of ripening readiness when, in the critical periods of our human growth, the intended innate dispositions come to maturity.
In this sense, a mythology in its pedagogical functioning might be defined as a corpus of culturally maintained sign stimuli fostering the development and activation of a specific type, or constellation of types, of human life.”
Thank you for these engaging posts. Is your blog Melting Asphalt archived? The site does not load for me and I was hoping to read the other posts in your Jaynes' series - esp. - "Hallucinated Gods" & "Your Oddly-Shaped Mind"
Being 74 years old I'm on the internet, let's be honest, for entertainment. But this isn't entertainment. It's work! If, as paleoscientist Jessica Thompson said, the brain consumes a quarter of the body's energy, so thinking hard should make you lose weight, I'm going to lose a couple of kilograms (a) digesting this and (b) chasing down all the references! For the next couple of days I won't have to worry about what I'm going to do with my free time. The information density... wow.
Radio Lab had an episode about 15 years ago that also implied the concept of modules or sub agents. But you've crystalized it here in a way they only implied.
I wonder if this hypothesis lends credence to Internal Family Systems. The way a subagent might get "stuck" from trauma could cause it to be cordoned off from other sub agents.
Intriguing article. I've always thought of my brain as having many parallel processors running separate tasks, but the sub-personal agents model is probably is more accurate. As I was reading, I couldn't help but wonder if some AI researchers have 'broken" their neural networks, which already have multiple layers, into competing agentic regions, which can steal nodes from other agentic regions.
These ideas play well with Joseph Campbell's view of myth and ritual, which was to define the type of self that would grow:
“The address of mythological symbols is directly to these centers; and the responses proper to their influence are, consequently, neither rational nor under personal control. They overtake one. The symbols function, that is to say, as energy-releasing and -directing signs; and in traditionally structured cultures, they are deliberately imprinted in vividly impressive (often painful) rites, timed to catch the individual at those moments of ripening readiness when, in the critical periods of our human growth, the intended innate dispositions come to maturity.
In this sense, a mythology in its pedagogical functioning might be defined as a corpus of culturally maintained sign stimuli fostering the development and activation of a specific type, or constellation of types, of human life.”
More: https://www.vectorsofmind.com/p/joseph-campbells-view-of-myth
Thank you for these engaging posts. Is your blog Melting Asphalt archived? The site does not load for me and I was hoping to read the other posts in your Jaynes' series - esp. - "Hallucinated Gods" & "Your Oddly-Shaped Mind"
Leo
Yea the website just went down a few days ago, we will reach out to Kevin and see what's up, will get back to you.
I was wondering if you were going to hit Sperry. Great stuff. Very well done.
I've put tulpas in my fiction a couple of times, including here on Substack.
https://randallhayes.substack.com/p/the-rake
Just a note. Dan Dennet died over a year ago, so you may have some tense issues in the essay.
Being 74 years old I'm on the internet, let's be honest, for entertainment. But this isn't entertainment. It's work! If, as paleoscientist Jessica Thompson said, the brain consumes a quarter of the body's energy, so thinking hard should make you lose weight, I'm going to lose a couple of kilograms (a) digesting this and (b) chasing down all the references! For the next couple of days I won't have to worry about what I'm going to do with my free time. The information density... wow.