ActInf Podcast 13.2.2 Cybernetic Big 5 & FEP
Jan 25, 2024
Scott David is the Director of the Information Risk Research Initiative at the University of Washington Applied Physics Lab, focusing on active inference. He discusses integrating Cybernetic Big Five Theory with the Free Energy Principle, emphasizing how context and goals redefine personality traits. The conversation dives into the role of emotional factors across living systems, exploring empathy in corporations and evolutionary biology. David also examines how generative models and environmental perceptions shape stability and change in personality.
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Cybernetic Personality
- Personality is viewed within a cybernetic framework, relating individual phenotypes to goals and environmental contexts.
- This perspective shifts away from essentialist views, seeing personality as an empirical pattern with underlying cybernetic realities.
Personality and Qualia
- Scott David questions the difference between personality and living formality and suggests FEP allows for situated personality.
- He also discusses the challenge of ascribing personality to entities lacking qualia, like corporations, and how this relates to empathy.
Evolution of Personality
- Adam Saffron notes the major transitions in evolution, like qualia and access consciousness, affect personality expression.
- He distinguishes between generalized agreeableness as a tendency for cooperation and the feeling of compassion as a separate process.