It reminds me of this paper from MIRI a few years ago discussing models which treat themselves as an explicit part of the environment. I think it's a very productive approach - https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.09469

Wow, wish more papers were so well written and pleasing to read!

This is wild projection, but it reminds me of the good advice I got when writing undergrad philosophy papers – map out your tree of arguments (especially if they're logically complicated), and structure your writing around that; talk in as conversational prose as you can because it mercilessly exposes jargon; highlight when you introduce new concepts.

Yes - all of our conscious reality, including both the environment and our sense of self, are experiences of perception formed inside the mind by the body and brain. Our sense of an "external" world is very much an "internal" reality, and the boundary between self and world is a mental construct.