In particular, we differ from existing accounts in taking affective valence and control to be central to the sense of self. Active inference and predictive processing have already been used to provide accounts of depersonalization in psychiatric contexts ( Seth et al., 2012 Gerrans, 2019), and although we find these accounts promising, we seek to build on them in important ways. By selfless experience, here, we mean the diminished sense of self that is reported in a wide variety of cases including depersonalization and meditative insight. Our aim in this paper is to provide an updated account of selfless experience within the active inference framework 1. The active inference framework-a popular approach to modeling action and perception that uses principles of variational Bayesian inference ( Friston et al., 2017)-is particularly promising for understanding these phenomena. These reports occur most prominently in the context of psychiatric disorders such as depersonalization (e.g., Colombetti and Ratcliffe, 2012 Seth et al., 2012 Miller et al., 2020), meditation (e.g., Britton, 2019 Lutz et al., 2019), and psychedelic drugs (e.g., MilliГЁre, 2017 Deane, 2020). One lens through which philosophers and cognitive scientists have been recently exploring the self is through cases where subjects report a loss, or diminishment, of their sense of self. Thinkers from various disciplines (e.g., from philosophy of mind, cognitive science, phenomenology, and Buddhist philosophy) are beginning to collaborate on various topics revolving around self and subjectivity. And yet, these assumptions have long been the focus of skepticism within both Western and Eastern philosophical traditions. In daily life, we take for granted the existence of a self: we feel that we are possessors of certain qualities, the experiencers of certain sensations, that we are different and distinct from one another, and that we endure from day to day. We will explore the implications for understanding and treating dissociative disorders, as well as elucidate both the therapeutic potential, and possible dangers, of meditation. We will show how, by beginning with a conception of self-modeling within an active inference framework, we have available to us a new way of conceptualizing the striking experiential similarities and important differences between these selfless experiences within a unifying theoretical framework. Finally, we explore how depersonalization may result from an inferred loss of allostatic control and contrast this phenomenology with selfless experiences reported by meditation practitioners. We go on to develop a view of the self as playing a central role in structuring ordinary experience by вЂњtuningвЂќ agents to the counterfactually rich possibilities for action. Building on our recent active inference research, we propose an account of the experiences of selfhood as emerging from a temporally deep generative model. In this paper, we propose a unified account of these selfless experiences within the active inference framework. Little is understood about how these contrasting dysphoric and euphoric experiences should be conceptualized. However, for meditative contemplatives from various traditions, вЂњselflessвЂќ experiences are highly sought after, being associated with enduring peace and joy. People suffering from depersonalization can experience the loss of a sense of self as devastating, often accompanied by intense feelings of alienation, fear, and hopelessness.

3Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology, University of Exeter, Exeter, United KingdomДisruptions in the ordinary sense of selfhood underpin both pathological and вЂњenlightenedвЂќ states of consciousness.2Department of Informatics, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom.1Department of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.George Deane 1, Mark Miller 2* and Sam Wilkinson 3

Does depersonalization go away