Uncovering Core Mechanisms of Selfhood: Novel Methods and Implications for Modelling Selfless States

This paper introduces a method for identifying minimally sufficient neurocognitive mechanisms of selfhood. It focuses on extracting context-independent mechanisms from computational models and neuroimaging data of states with disrupted self-specifying processing. A proof-of-concept is demonstrated using active inference models of meditative non-dual awareness and psychedelic ego-dissolution. The resulting predictions suggest that the hierarchical nature of neural systems may be a core mechanism for generating selfhood. The hypothesis posits that flattening the hierarchy in a system allows one to experience qualia without the psychological sense that they are given to a subject. This hypothesis is then implemented in a current computational model of selfhood (Reichle & Boag, 2024). The paper provides two insights: (1) how to deduce core mechanisms of selfhood, and (2) specific guidance on which parameters to modify in computational models of consciousness or selfhood to simulate selflessness.