# Language, Self and the Shadow Audience Presenter: Robert Worden Contribution: Pre-recorded Video presentation Public ID: talk-59d5a0672890ee22 ## Submitted abstract The highly developed human sense of self is one of our most distinctive traits. We each acquire our sense of self in conversations, as we learn how conversational partners regard us. Our primary sense of self is not ‘myself as I experience myself’, but ‘myself as I think other people see me’ – a second-hand view of myself. In private verbal thought, with nobody else physically present, other people are represented as a shadow audience in our minds – an audience which sees what we do or say, and judges us for it. The shadow audience is the source of human emotion and motivation. Language started in conversational pragmatics, before there was complex syntax or semantics. Pragmatics requires us to mind-read, to infer what a conversational partner thinks, wants or needs. In this way we infer what or conversational partners think about us – how they assess our social status. In any conversation, we are concerned about our own social status in the eyes of a conversational partner, or of a shadow audience. This is illustrated by the pragmatic phenomenon of conversational irony. Source: [submitted source]() Abstract SHA256: c3e821957c0b490a549dc3e4f90a62c49c42cad0fdcd90c676dbdab041549add ## Organizer review checklist - [ ] Confirm the submitted title, presenter, and abstract with the presenter. - [ ] Confirm contribution format and scheduling needs. - [ ] Confirm public permissions for any additional material before publication. - [ ] Prepare discussion questions grounded in the submitted abstract. ## Public learning resources These approved event resources are starting points; topic relevance and author identity have not been inferred. - Active Inference Ontology: https://github.com/ActiveInferenceInstitute/Active_Inference_Ontology - Cognitive Agent Modeling: https://github.com/ActiveInferenceInstitute/ActiveInferenceImplementations - GEO-INFER: https://github.com/ActiveInferenceInstitute/GEO_INFER - Generalized Notation Notation: https://github.com/ActiveInferenceInstitute/Generalized_Notation_Notation - pymdp: https://github.com/infer-actively/pymdp - Reproducible publication template: https://github.com/docxology/template OpenAlex discovery-only search (not a verified identity or literature match): https://openalex.org/works?search=Language%2C%20Self%20and%20the%20Shadow%20Audience