Dissolving the self : Active inference, psychedelics, and ego-dissolution

Abstract: Psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin, LSD and DMT are known to induce powerful alterations in phenomenology. Perhaps of most philosophical and scientific interest is their capacity to disrupt and even “dissolve” one of the most primary features of normal experience: that of being a self. Such “peak” or “mystical” experiences are of increasing interest for their potentially transformative therapeutic value. While empirical research is underway, a theoretical conception of the mechanisms underpinning these experiences remains elusive. In the following paper, psychedelic-induced ego-dissolution is accounted for within an active inference framework, as a collapse in the “temporal thickness” of an agent’s deep temporal model, as a result of lowered precision on high-level priors. The argument here is composed of three moves: first, a view of the self-model is proposed as arising within a temporally deep generative model of an embodied organism navigating an affordance .... https://www.philosophymindscience.org/index.php/phimisci/article/view/39

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Dissolving the self ; volume:1 ; number:I ; day:12 ; month:02 ; year:2020 ; Philosophy and the mind sciences ; 1, Heft I (12.02.2020)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: George Deane

Further information

• DOI: 10.33735/phimisci.2020.I.39
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2020051409563216745481
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 14.08.2025, 10:58 AM CEST