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"There is a fundamental drive, instantiated by the brain, to minimize errors in our own sensory predictions." Andy Clark on how brains work, via predictive processing. [more inside]
posted by mittens on Nov 23, 2023 - 1 comment

Anil Seth positions consciousness as prediction: Rather than your mind passively receiving sensory information from outside, it is always predicting the world around it, trying to generate a plausible 'controlled hallucination' to keep you alive, always correcting the predictions (sometimes unsuccessfully) based on new information from the senses. Further, he extends this to the sense of self itself--the brain hallucinates a self as a method of internal monitoring through prediction. All along the way, he provides engaging examples from his research lab, and looks at some competing theories.
posted by mittens on Nov 16, 2023 - 10 comments

In Sentience, Nicholas Humphrey distills a lifetime of study of consciousness to give a picture of how he thinks it works to be sentient--that is, to be someone for whom a sensation can be personally meaningful. From monkeys with blindsight to gorillas with nothing to think about but each other, he ranges across the research to come to a conclusion he calls qualiaphilia...consciousness becomes important because it makes life worth living, makes possible empathy, and is apparently quite attractive to potential mates. Having given us a sense of what it means to have a sense of something, he goes on to ask: Who else? Are animals sentient as well? [more inside]
posted by mittens on Nov 12, 2023 - 3 comments

Kevin J. Mitchell explores how free will can exist by taking us through the beginning of life all the way through to humans making decisions. [more inside]
posted by mittens on Nov 9, 2023 - 1 comment