The text argues that culture and science need a holistic characterization of mind and body, noting phenomena like open-label placebo effects on chronic pain and the role of gut microbiomes in mood. It claims that vestiges of Cartesian thinking treat systems from the brainstem downward as mere implementation layers for computational processes, rather than as complementary loci of information processing. This perspective frames belief-driven phenomena such as placebo, ritual, and psychosomatic disorders as mysterious obstacles rather than potential sources of insight.
Integrated World Modeling Theory (IWMT) combines the Free Energy Principle and Active Inference with Integrated Information Theory and Global Neuronal Workspace Theory to offer a unified account of consciousness. The theory emphasizes predictive processing models, autoencoders, turbo-codes, and graph neural networks, and highlights the hippocampal/entorhinal system's role in high-level reasoning and conscious access. It suggests novel methods for estimating integrated information using probabilistic graphical models, flow networks, and game theory, and addresses the "Bayesian blur problem"—how discrete experience arises from probabilistic modeling. The article also explores parallels with theories of universal intelligence and implications for artificial intelligence, particularly recurrent computation and symbol grounding.
Integrated World Modeling Theory (IWMT) proposes a unified account of consciousness by combining the Free Energy Principle, Integrated Information Theory (IIT), and Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT). It suggests that the brain's predictive processing can be modeled as variational autoencoders, where beliefs are updated through self-organizing harmonic modes (SOHMs) that form synchronous complexes. Alpha-synchronized SOHMs across posterior cortices may constitute the maximal complexes described by IIT, enabling phenomenal consciousness as mid-level perceptual inference. When these posterior SOHMs couple with frontal complexes, conscious access and higher-order cognition emerge, as described by GNWT. The entorhinal/hippocampal system organizes intermediate-level beliefs into spatiotemporal trajectories, affording episodic memory, counterfactual thinking, and planning.