“The brain is first and foremost a prediction engine. It’s an anticipatory engine. It’s using what it knows about the world, and it’s seeking out to understand the world for itself…what it expects to be happening next.” – Mark Miller, philosopher of cognition and host of the Contemplative Science Podcast
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Your brain uses the chaotic inputs it receives through the senses to create an internal simulation that represents the external world as orderly. Then it uses that simulation to predict what is going to happen next and decide what you should do about it.
According to Mark Miller, our perceptions of the world seem to be constructed on an ongoing basis through a combination of information collection (outside-in processes) and rapid-fire predictions (inside-out processes). The challenge is that it’s not always easy for us to tell (as the perceiver) how much of what we perceive comes from the outside and how much we construct from within (based on extrapolations fro past experience.
Learning occurs as the brain compares what it predicted to be true in the world with the ongoing stream of information our senses collect from the world (which is of course constantly changing). Without the chaotic changes in the outer world, our inner world wouldn’t have the data it needs to update its models.
At the same time, we are trapped in a field of uncertainty in that we can’t objectively confirm the degree to which our subjective perceptions are accurate.
Although what we perceive/construct (internally) may not correspond perfectly with what is actually happening in the world (externally), we are able to live for the most part as though it did. It usually doesn’t matter that what we construct internally is basically a simulation of the external world because it’s usually a pretty good simulation.
There are times, however, when our internal simulation deviates too much from what is actually happening in the external world, and that’s when we run into problems. As the gaps between our previous internal models and emerging external reality grow, if we don’t update the internal models, we end up out of sync with the outside world – including how other people see the world – in ways that make us less effective. If we cling too tightly to an older version of the internal simulation, the gaps between the inner simulation and outer reality can become so large that we end up deluded, mentally ill or at least treated as though we are deluded or mentally ill because we seem so out of touch with what others perceive to be reality.
(adapted from The Gray Area with Sean Illing: Your mind needs chaos, Oct 9, 2024 – link below)
https://podcasts.apple.com/jp/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611?i=1000672316807
During the interview, Miller refers to the work of Anil Seth. For those who are curious, here is the reference:
“Anil Seth from Sussex University, neuroscientist of consciousness says, then we might say something like, perception is controlled hallucination. It’s hallucination because it’s being generated from the top down, but it’s controlled hallucination because it’s not just that you’re having any experience, you’re hallucinating your brain’s best guess about what’s actually happening. So, of course, it’s controlled by real world dynamics.”
Here’s a link to a TED talk by Anil Seth:
© Dana Cogan, 2024, all rights reserved.