[eternalban]

[I may have to take you up on your profile offer of out of band continuation of this as there is a lot here to delve into and it would make for interesting conversation.]

The model of the psyche that I subscribe to is ~Jungian, with some minor modifications. I distinguish between the un-conscious, the sub-conscious, and consciousness. The content of the unconscious is atemporal, where as the content of the (sub-)conscious is temporal. In this model, background processing occurs in the sub-conscious, -not- the un-conscious. The unconscious is a space of ~types which become reified in the temporal regime of (sub-)consciousness [via the process of projection]. The absolute center of the psyche is the Self and this resides in the unconscious; the self and the unconscious content are not directly accessible to us (but can be approached via contemplation, meditation, prayer, dreams, and visions: these processes introduce unconscious content into the conscious realm, which when successfully integrated engenders 'psychological wholeness'). The ego -- the ("suffering") observer -- is the central point of consciousness. Self realization occurs when ego assumes a subordinate position to the Self, abandons "attachment" to perceived phenomena & disavows "lordship" i.e. the false assumption of its central position, at which point the suffering ends. This process, in various guises, is the core of most spiritual schools. And we can not discount these aspects of Human mental experience, even if we choose to assume a critical distance from the theologies that are built around these widely reported phenomena. I am not claiming that this is a quality of all minds, but it seems it is characteristic of human minds.

The absolute minimum point that you should take away from this (even if the above model is unappealing or unacceptable or woo to you /g) is that we can always meaningfully speak of a psychology when considering minds. If we can not discern a psychology in the subject of our inquiry then it should not be considered a mind.

I do -not- think that we can attribute a pyschology to large language models.

~

Your comment on the mapping of the latent spaces is interesting, but as you note we should probably wait until this has been established before jumping into conclusions.

And also please excuse the handwavy matter in my comment as well. We're all groping in the semidarkness here.