Chapter III

Meta-representations: Meaning

Our internal representations are the thing that paints the walls of our experience, without them our world simulation would be awfully incomplete. As I mentioned in past occasions, internal representations encompass aspects such as memory, mental scenes, and the inner speech. Which is the reason why we’re able to have knowledge regarding our condition within the world. Our world simulation embodies, and uses a great number of internal representations to build up an even subtler model of the world —the layer of meta-internal representations, seen on chapter II—. That’s why things are familiar to us. Without this “scheme of relations”, life would be disorienting.

The fact that we can be aware of objects, events, and people without having them before us, demonstrates that each of us contains an inner model of the world, which complements our sensorial representation of it —previously explained—. In such a way, one could find oneself in the company of another person in a monotonous environment, not at all stimulating, however both are capable of having an entertaining conversation about the vastness of the world, rousing the imagination, at the same time of evoking memories, expectations, and concepts within the mind…

I make a brief pause here to throw some light on the concept of meta- internal representations: They receive the prefix “meta”, because they are representations based on other representations, in other words, what we got here are two models, one dependent on another. In this case, sensorial aspects are simulated —represented—. “In poetic terms, it is the capacity that our world simulation has in order to know itself”.

It is to remark that both models coexist within the same virtual space inside the brain. We can think of it as one more extension of our world simulation. It is not either a chance that the sensorial world seems to be permeated by our “schemes of meaning”, as if those mental constructs were in some way projected outer.

This is in fact one more feature of our world simulation. Our internal representations are dispersed throughout the phenomenal space we inhabit, though in an implicit way. According to what they’re representing, it determines in which part of our world simulation can be found. For example, we human beings are incredibly good at creating an inner map of the places, and environments we move through. It’s to clarify that internal representations depend on previous sensorial experiences to exist —in this case, previous sensorial experiences about places—.

What is fascinating is that we can include these internal representations within our experience of the worlds —though in an implicit way—, as if these were complete volumetric structures taking place in the outside, which reminds of amodal percepts —previously mentioned at chapter II—. In other words, our inner meta-model of space —implicit structure of experience— can interlock with our visual model —explicit structure of experience— to contribute to a complete representation of the world around us. In this way, our internal representations provide us with information that our senses can’t give at the moment.

”We can’t see through the walls and be explicitly conscious of the world beyond where we're, therefore the brain has to include an implicit-complementary model of the environment.” This “virtual space” we project onto our inner movie of the world, is even bigger than we usually think. We could as well render in an implicit way cities, countries, even the entire planet, if our model of the world is enoughly “deep”.

In the same way, there are internal representations of events, or situations, which allow us to create narratives. Everyday conversations, rumors, anecdotes, books, and even mental states such as “day-dreaming”, can incentivize the creation of mental scenes that are at the same time able to morph into histories, and phantasies. Which is a convenient tool at the moment of communicating with other human beings.

Qualia beings —Subagents—. Internal representations

The brain includes a huge array of entities —inner representations of other beings—; the physical-external world is filled with other biological machines, which have their own inner model running on simultaneously, it is obvious that in some point of evolution it was necessary to embody inner representations of other creatures, in order to monitor their behavior, “keep them on line” —recognize risks, predicts events, and avoid unexpected outcomes—. Bear in mind that the essential objective of a dynamical system capable of sustaining itself is reduced to get enough control over the chaos of its environment —this includes other creatures—, so as to predict its behavior, but first it must embody an inner model of its environment.

In other words…the people we interact with actually exist as sophisticated automatas within our world simulation —”as if it was some kind of extravagant cosmic theater”—. Remember that we only have access to a representation of the environment, in the same way, we only have access to well-defined sensorial replicas of other human beings. In a literal sense, the people we know exist only within the limits of our own brains. However, what we’re looking for in this chapter are the “remnants” that the sensorial experience leaves, which are at the same time archived by the brain for later use —meta-internal representations—.

It is not a coincidence that when you dream about known people, most of the time they usually appear, and behave just as they would do while having a “real” interaction with them. A considerable part of the organizing principles that the brain utilizes in order to create human beings —in the act of representing, and rendering the environment—, seems in some way “stored”, being implicitly “encoded” within our world simulation. In such a way, the brain is capable of rebuilding them —”as if it brought them back to life”— when we are in those hallucinatory —passive— states that we know as dreams.

In the same way, these organizing principles are used to render our mental scenes —imagination—. These oniric replicas conserve the respective attitude, personality, and temper according the person, combined with their correspondent “vibe” —explained in chapter II—, referring to the way in which the presence of someone feels like —such as whether it is pleasant or not, complemented with certain patterns of qualia—. Which also can be extrapolated to objects, events, places, etcetera.

An additional note that I would like to put here is that usually in dreams —not always— our known ones may be experienced as cartoonish versions of themselves, keeping their features or more remarkable traits, at least to some extent.

In the last paragraph we mentioned dreams —a familiar phenomenon for most people—, therefore let’s now get into exotic states of consciousness, where these entities are also present but in a completely new way. Is at this “level” where those entities may even acquire the form of supernatural beings —the phenomenal character with which you experience them is usually much more intense and vivid in contrast with dreams, in some cases more than the common state of wakefulness—...Commonly these entities take the role of archetypes, metaphysical concepts, religious belonging deities, some aspects of nature, and even internal representations of whole societies, depending on your context and determined by the way in which you filter those representations —complemented even with other internal representations—.

I make an emphasis here, mentioning that subagents —without taking into account their category— keep existing during our ordinary state of consciousness —wakefulness—, however in a passive and implicit way. Either when we think on social implications about certain actions we take, instantaneously these representations become active to influence the user, and then modifying their behavior, for example, if you think on getting an ear piercing, the inner meta-representations of your parents, your teacher, even your friends become activated, is there when it comes the famous “what will everyone say?”, along with possible scenarios taking form within your imagination.

As I mentioned previously, these inner representations are capable of influencing explicitly the emotions, and actions of the subject that carry with them. The human brain evolved to create this kind of inner models in order to ensure its place within a tribal group; it is not a chance that we’ve them. These representations don’t just take on the role of social groups, but of everything that can have a “face”, so to speak, anything that is capable of expressing signs of sapience, intelligence, empathy, inner intentions and others…In such a way, even a cluster of chaotic stimuli can become an entity within the mind, if this results enough suggestive to consider that possibility.

I remark that these internal representations can still present in an implicit way while our ongoing ordinary experience, the thing is that during exotic states of consciousness that these entities may acquire an explicit and consistent appearance.

Our model of the world is a recognizing patterns machine, a sequence of events that seems unrelated from an impartial standpoint, could acquire meaning, or coherence if these can resonate with the inner representations of a subject; thus, an entity can be projected into the external world once it is associated with certain events, “signs” or “hints”, synchronicities, etcetera. Giving rise to the convincing illusion that an entity is actually interacting with the “external world” in a subtle way; that is commonly reported by people with compulsive obsession, fanaticism, generalized anxiety, and other disorders such as schizophrenia, or psychosis. Also, in some cases, these entities can even “posses” the user, in other words, the internal representations could take control of the model that simulates the physical body, which allows them at the same time to determine actions; this is above all worrying, when the intentions of the entity represents a danger to other people, such as the user himself.

Everything that’s happening in our internal representation layer is constructed from vibes, which are ruled by valence gradients, I mean, emotional values —the hedonic parameter—, so it can determine the general “tone” of our world simulation.

Artistic representation that illustrates the way in which the meta-internal representation layer is involved within our minds, coexisting with the perceptual replica of the world; with actual causal influence over each other, also illustrating the belief of suspecting that some entities, such as deities live beyond the ordinary “human world”.
Author: Aarón T. M.

The world you experience around you doesn’t exist as a detached and independent entity, but rather as a sophisticated diorama sharing the same “room” with all of the stuff we experience as beliefs, thoughts, memories, including other elements of your phenomenology, forming part of the same entity made of qualia (your consciousness; the thing that you are), so they both are constantly interacting with each other.

All parts of our experience are in contact with one another, in an interconnected way, operating synergically for the sake of making the whole thing work, in order to ensure their own survival. Do not forget either that our minds can be thought of as an ecosystem full of replicators, where each cluster of coherence is literally fighting for your attention, acquiring major “solidity” and permanence within our minds.

As I depicted in the drawing above, I consider the common social phenomenon of believing that all of those deities live beyond the “human world”, like in heaven, or even other “alternate realities”, is because those autonomous intelligent qualia entities have their origin in the same place right next to where our experience of the world is being constructed, inside the brain…
As an example of the previous "caption," the popular manga named "Goodnight, Punpun" shows this kind of phenomenon occurring "within" the mind of the main character. "God”, represented by a big head of a random man, floating around, appears occasionally throughout the chapters and serves as a personal life advisor to Punpun, representing the mental and insightful process through which Punpun moves during his path to adulthood.

Design made by Luke Stuart. Comic Artist, illustrator, and designer. Goodnight, Punpun (2017).