Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: According to active inference, constantly running prediction engines in our brain play a large role in delivering all human experience. These predictions help deliver everything we see, hear, touch, and feel. In this paper, I pursue one apparent consequence of this increasingly well-supported view. Given the constant influence of hidden predictions on human experience, can we leverage the power of prediction in the service of human flourishing? Can we learn to hack our own predictive regimes in ways that better serve our needs and purposes? Asking this question rapidly reveals a landscape that is at once familiar and new. It is also challenging, suggesting important questions about scope and dangers while casting further doubt (as if any was needed) on old assumptions about a firm mind/body divide. I review a range of possible hacks, starting with the careful use of placebos, moving on to look at chronic pain and functional disorders, and ending with some speculations concerning the complex role of genetic influences on the predictive brain.
Source: Entropy
DOI: 10.3390/e26080677
Author: Andy Clark
Institution: University of Sussex
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,955
Funder: European Research Council
Award: G4294916141
OpenAlex ID: W4401510058