The future of consciousness science is going through very interesting turbulent times. Three decades ago, the C-word was taboo in mainstream academia. Today, it is teeming with all sorts of approaches, techniques, and theories. Then, there wasn’t hardly any signal. Today, there is perhaps too much noise. Join us at the heart of consciousness science, as we delve into an in-depth exploration of the field’s trajectory from its nascent stages to its current state and future prospects. This online series is a unique opportunity to learn from and interact with some of the very minds currently leading the field forward.

This presentation is about whether we can learn anything about consciousness from the free energy principle (FEP). This presentation will first gently introduce the FEP to a general, nontechnical audience. The FEP says that anything with a Markov blanket will look as if it infers the statistics of other things “beyond” the blanket, to which it is coupled, but from which it can be separated. We will then discuss the “inner screen model” of consciousness that follows directly from applying the FEP to model known human neurophysiology. The ensuing neo-Cartesian model of consciousness provides a deflationary account of the “homunculus.”