The problem is, neurobiology proves there are no world models.
Silicon Valley bet on the wrong cognition model, a psychological version trapped in 20th C bunk, and everyone pays the price listening to cult leaders like Scott Alexander worm their way out of consciousness.
How can you say there are no world models, when I can literally draw out a simple one for you on demand?
You can argue that's they're not the governing principle of cognition, but it seems farcical to say they don't even exist, when we are trying to explain them to eachother all the time.
No what you're describing is arbitrary and idiosyncratic. The brain doesn't use that to survive, it doesn't need them. Anything external to that is completely separate from thought. What you're describing is an arbitrary game for entertainment to fill up your time and confuse yourself and others. It has no relationship to the choices you would make to survive, and can only interfere with it. The "world model" you're describing is arbitrary fiction.
“We refute (based on empirical evidence) claims that humans use linguistic representations to think.”
Ev Fedorenko Language Lab MIT 2024
World models aren't linguistic. You seem to be conflating (at least) two different things, then claiming because one doesn't apply the other doesn't exist.
Edit: Also come to think of it, that quote is odd, like it's rather late to the party. The NPC meme is several years old and came from a study that most people don't have an inner voice - that they don't think with words.
Of course world models are linguistic. What working memory or neural syntax bypasses linguistic externals when the term is in of itself linguistic. The entire concept of model is linguistic in origin. Biology doesn't have models.
First off, we don't use predictions, that's another model, it's false (Spontaneous Brain Northoff or read Mofakham's papers).
In terms of words, they barely represent and never reference. Any statement like that serves primarily status gain, not know knowledge transmission (I proved this from the first statement above as well).
The reality is CS built a math model from totally false premises as it relates to communication and knowledge. It works for efficient value trading using symbols in place of actions. Does it have a future, no.
The problem is how do we shift to a real neurodynamic system of sharing?
I think you might be confused about the expression "world model". In this context it clearly means that a person has an understanding of reality based on "math->physics->chemistry->biology->psychology" instead of "peer pressure->group identity" or whatever you see in QAnon or cults or whatever.
If a person primarily evaluates the truth content of a statement based on identity or something instead of math/physics/etc then that person has no "world model", and vice versa.
That's not what world model means, neither in psychology or artificial intelligence — two fields Scott writes a lot about so he should know how the term is used or define how he uses it if he uses a non-typical definition.
No it's neurobiological, psychology and particularly cog-sci is in error, as both place language ahead of concepts. Our understanding of reality per language is post hoc, it's an illusion. Life is always ad hoc, any violation of a narrative model is easily evaded for survival. This is simple stuff folks!
Neurology has not proven any such thing. Our knowledge of neuroscience on the cognitive level is super limited and we don't have a good understanding about how any higher-order cognition works.
That's irrelevant. Cog-sci is largely folk psychology, and the problems in automating inference in AI demonstrate the model would eventually collapse. Question is how do we toss this model aside for an irreducible form of post-symbolic relationship between brains and machines?
I appreciate your gumption but I really think that you don't understand things as well as you think you do. Maybe read someone other than Paul Churchland.