We like to believe that we exist in an objective world, that our lived experience is a relatively raw feed of the inputs given to us through our sense. It turns out this is pretty widely disproven now.
The theory of Predictive Coding says that in order for our brain to be as insanely efficient as it is we have to rely on predictions about what is happening. Almost everything it does is about sorting our world into concepts and categories and testing those predictions against input to identify errors. Concepts and categories are fundamental to the human experience, our Interoceptive Predictions, based on our experience and concepts, determine what comes into our Affective Niche.
This means we construct our world, it's not an objective feed of input from the world but a curated stream of input we select solely to test our predictions.
We additionally form Objective, Subjective, and Intersubjective Realities based on our interpretation of our curated stream of input. Unfortunately because System 1 is a Coherence Machine we suffer from many errors in judgement.
Given all of this, it is clear that everything happening in our brain is part of the process of categorization. I believe that much like leading teams we need to give our brain a clear initial objective for it's categorization, in other words Treat your brain like a team of neurons and give it a clear vision and a mission.
- How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the BrainLisa Feldman Barrett
- Bayesian Approaches to Brain Functionshare.google
- Predictive Processingshare.google
