the-mind
A definition-driven synthesis of mind (based on Joscha Bach’s public work)

Stages of agency: lucidity as governance growth

As we grow, something changes that is easy to miss: we do not only learn facts about the world, we learn to see our own mind at work. Some thoughts stop feeling like “me” and start feeling like “a thought I’m having”. Some motivations stop being invisible drivers and become objects we can negotiate with. In the cited clip, this is framed as lucidity progressing in distinct stages across life. interview: The seven stages of life | Joscha Bach and Lex Fridman

Agency is treated here as an architectural property: an agent is an information-processing control system that regulates future states, not just the present. talk: Self Models of Loving Grace

Inference: if lucidity grows in stages (better self-modeling and internal governance), then agency grows in stages too.

Two working definitions

We will use agency to mean: the ability of a control system to use models to choose actions under constraints (not “magic choice” outside causality). talk: The Machine Consciousness Hypothesis

We will use lucidity to mean: the capacity of the agent to represent its own internal policies, drives, and self-model in a way that makes them governable (so they can be regulated rather than merely enacted).

Why stages show up (the Kegan move)

A useful developmental lens is: growth happens when a process that previously ran you becomes something you can see. Once it is represented explicitly, it can be reasoned about, negotiated with, and re-trained.

In a CCC talk, this is stated in a Kegan-style form: development is making formerly automatic processes visible and conceptualized, so we no longer identify with them. talk: Computational Meta-Psychology

In control terms: each “stage” is a jump in what the agent can treat as part of its world model (including a self-model) rather than as an unexamined controller. That expands the space of policies the system can reliably execute.

The seven stages (as given in the clip)

In the cited clip, the stages are listed as:

  1. Reactive survival (infant)
  2. Personal self (young child)
  3. Social self (adolescence / domesticated adult)
  4. Rational agency / self-direction
  5. Self-authoring
  6. Enlightenment
  7. Transcendence

Stage labels and ordering are as listed in the clip. interview: The seven stages of life | Joscha Bach and Lex Fridman

The same clip frames this seven-stage model as derived from a concept by psychologist Robert Kegan. interview: The seven stages of life | Joscha Bach and Lex Fridman

A control-architecture reading (what changes at each step)

The point of a “stage” is not a label. It is a specific new capability: a new kind of self-modeling that changes which internal loops can be coordinated.

  • Reactive survival → personal self: the system begins to distinguish stable needs/preferences as its own, not just immediate stimulus-response. Agency appears as the ability to maintain a local preference over time.
  • Personal self → social self: the system internalizes social feedback as part of its control law. Agency expands in power (social coordination), but becomes easier to hijack (status, shame, approval).
  • Social self → rational agency: the system gains more explicit, language-like modeling of reasons and counterfactuals. It can deliberate, compare policies, and sustain commitments across contexts.
  • Rational agency → self-authoring: the agent can treat parts of its own value system as editable. It can choose which social scripts to adopt and build a more coherent internal constitution.

Stages 6 and 7 are labeled Enlightenment and Transcendence in the clip. interview: The seven stages of life | Joscha Bach and Lex Fridman

Interpretation: a minimal, non-mystical way to read those labels is extremely high lucidity about identification itself (what the system confuses with “self”), and correspondingly robust governance of attention and motivation.

How to use this map (without turning it into a status game)

This is most useful as a diagnostic:

  • If you keep doing what you “know is wrong”, look for a governance failure: which local loop has authority, and what is it optimizing?
  • If a pattern feels inevitable, ask what is still “subject” (running you) rather than “object” (represented and governable).

And a warning: stage talk can easily become performative. The real test is not the label; it is whether you can reliably execute higher-order commitments in the environments that used to capture you.

Related: the deflationary framing of free will as a control capacity (with compulsion as its opposite). talk: The Ghost in the Machine

References