Norms, Scripts, Narratives, Languages (Lecture) — Course home

Hello and welcome. It's September 20th, 2023. We're at the Active Inference Institute in the course Active Inference for the Social Sciences and here with Mal Abarasan who will be presenting today on Norm Scripts and Linguistics under Active Inference. So thank you, Mal, to you. Awesome. So hi, everyone. As last time, there was a presentation on semiotics and semantics. I won't dig too far into linguistics, but I'll touch on it at the end of the course. So what are we going to do? In this module, we're going to explore the concept of Active Inference and its relevance to social norms and human decision making. As you will have seen in the previous classes, Active Inference is a theoretical framework that seeks to explain how organisms, including humans, engage with their environment to minimize uncertainty and maintain their internal states. We're not going to dig into these concepts too, too much because I assume they have been previously explained at length. However, I will explain how they connect to social phenomena. So this framework has significant implications for understanding social behavior as it can help explain how individuals conform to social norms and make decisions based on the expectations of others. We'll delve into the role of Active Inference in human societies, emphasizing how humans and other organisms constantly seek to minimize their uncertainty about the world by updating their beliefs and taking actions to maintain a stable internal state. This is a crucial process for survival. It allows individuals to predict and adapt to their environment in the context of human societies. Active Inference plays a critical role in explaining how individuals navigate complex social situations, conform to social expectations, and make decisions that align with their beliefs and values. Furthermore, we'll explore the concept of theontic value with an active inference, which refers to the value attributed to actions based on their adherence to social norms and expectations. By adhering to social norms, individuals can minimize the uncertainty associated with their actions and maintain a sense of predictability and stability in their social environment. So together, all these insights will provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the complex interplay between active inference, social norms, and human decision making. So let's dive in. We'll start by introducing a philosophical framework. Building on the framework of Active Inference, inactivism offers us a complementary lens to understand the dynamic and contextual nature of social cognition. So while active inference provides the computational underpinnings for understanding social norms and decision making, we still need to anchor ourselves within a larger theoretical framework. Inactivism enriches this perspective by emphasizing the practical and developmental aspects of social understanding. So what is inactivism? If it hasn't been introduced before, inactivism is a philosophical stance that extends beyond traditional theories of cognition, and traditional theories of cognition, emphasizing the role of inter- interactions and relational dynamics in shaping both individual and social cognition. It argues that cognition is a dynamic, real-time, fluid, and contextual social action. You can read more about this in Ineshi Bolito's texts and Thomas Van Es in 2022. Generative models and hermeneutics serve as a cognitive structure and framework for interpretation, respectively. These elements are continuously updated based on social interactions and signals, thereby facilitating effective communication and understanding. So, permaneutics provides a theoretical framework for interpreting social signals and cues, crucial for effective social interactions. So, permaneutics allows for a nuanced understanding of contextually constituted meaning. It goes beyond the conventional notion of self-contained objects to explore the deeper contextual meanings in behavior and…