We don’t need no stinkin’ awareness

Consciousness is inference Karl Friston once wrote. A useful idea which can take us along some strange but strangely familiar paths.

For example, anyone disposed to accept a statement passed on by a social consensus or political party may easily sidestep the need to verify the statement via inference. When inference isn’t needed, neither is a conscious awareness that the statement only relies on consensus.

The consensus says – We don’t need no stinkin’ inference.

If inference is consciousness and consciousness is inference then to control inference is to control consciousness. Those who merely accept a consensus may not be fully conscious of good alternatives.

The consensus says – We don’t need no stinkin’ alternatives.

A slogan or mantra may be crude and inaccurate as a statement about the real world, but simple enough to bypass inference. In bypassing inference, awareness of the crudity and inaccuracy is also likely to be bypassed.

The consensus says – We don’t need no stinkin’ awareness.