توضیحات
For as long as we've studied the mind, we've believed that information flowing from our senses determines what our mind perceives. But as our understanding has advanced in the last few decades, a hugely powerful new view has flipped this assumption on its head. The brain is not a passive receiver, but an ever-active predictor.
At the forefront of this cognitive revolution is widely acclaimed philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark, who has synthesized his ground-breaking work on the predictive brain to explore its fascinating mechanics and implications. Among the most stunning of these is the realization that experience itself, because it is guided by prior expectation, is a kind of controlled hallucination. We don't passively take in the world around us; instead our mind is constantly making and refining predictions about what we expect to see. This even applies to our bodies, as the way we experience pain and other states is shaped by our expectations, and this has broader implications for the understanding and treatment of conditions from PTSD to schizophrenia to medically unexplained symptoms. From the most mundane experiences to the most sublime, it is our predictions that sculpt our experience.
A landmark study of cognitive science, The Experience Machine lays out the extraordinary explanatory power of the predictive brain for our lives, mental health and society.
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I enjoyed it! A lot of what the book was describing were things I mused about before, and I’m glad to read someone more competent on the subject talk about it with such passion and conviction. It is interesting how the predictive model of our brains brings new perspectives on multiple scenarios. However, I’m bumping this book from a 5 down to a 4 because I didn’t read past chapter 8 which is 61% of the book (everything else after were details) so I can’t speak about the arguments made in the book in depth. And honestly, since I’m already aligned with the author’s POV before opening this book, I don’t think I can form any good, coherent thought that is reasonable and logical. I stopped at chapter 8 because it was the end of the “narrative” part of the book and I felt seeing the evidence wouldn’t really value add to me. It’s just looking at a mirror which is kinda boring.Is the author repetitive (as some reviews said)? I was agreeing the whole way through so I don’t know. The author just didn’t say anything out of pocket. Is the author able to lay good grounds of the predictive brain theory? I mean, it’s just me nodding along. I didn’t really think much about it. Will you be convinced after reading this book? I was convinced before reading it.I guess my prediction that I will like this book might have altered what I deem as “truth” a little, so the lower rating is to counter this.