COGWEAVE
cogweave is an infrastructure project for interdisciplinary cognitive science, currently in development. It is designed to support more dynamic, transparent, and collaborative knowledge creation across the mind sciences, addressing structural problems in how researchers share ideas, develop theories, and publish work. cogweave is built on the premise that the field’s most important questions require forms of collaboration that existing academic infrastructure does not adequately support.
THE PREDICTIVE NARRATIVE SELF: SIMULATION, DIALOGISM AND AI (ongoing research)
This project develops the Predictive Narrative Self (PNS) framework—an account of selfhood as continuously generated and constituted through three interlocking processes: generative memory, dialogical simulation, and prospective coherence. The framework will first appear in the upcoming de Gruyter volume on memory and self (edited by A. Newen, N. Axmacher, and T. Lukaschewski). Currently, I am extending it to human-AI interaction: when users engage with large language models in sustained dialogue, artificial “voices” are internalized as components of the predictive self-model, which is a structural consequence of how human minds work, with significant implications for mental health, AI design, and governance.
CONSTRUCTING THE PAST, THE FUTURE, AND WHAT IS NEVER TO BE (book project)
This book-in-progress advances the thesis that many processes we characterize as distinct, such as perception, episodic memory, imagination, and even the building and maintenance of selfhood, are underpinned by a certain kind of predictive simulation as their shared generative capacity. The book begins with the established case for perception as active hypothesis testing rather than passive reception, and extends it to episodic memory, prospection, imaginative skill, and fantastical world-building. The final parts turn to the self, dialogical interactions among various predictive sub-models, and the psychiatric implications of this framework. The book closes by asking what genuinely imaginative AI would require and what current systems still lack.
CONSULTING & ADVISORY WORK
Alongside my research, I offer advisory and consulting services to investors, founders, and organizations working at the intersection of neuroscience, AI, and mental health. I provide scientific and philosophical due diligence and intellectual credibility assessments, brainstorming partner sessions, and research strategy and positioning advice.
Sofiia Rappe 