Brain as a Prediction Machine. This is my first post on here since Dara invited me a few months ago. Feels like it might be a fun place to discuss consciousness and brains.

In my Cognition and Emotion class in grad school, we just watched this video. In it, Andy Clark discusses the Predictive Processing framework for consciousness. As I understand it, basically the hypothesis is that brains are prediction machines. They model the world the state of the environment moment-to-moment. They're constantly updating models of the world and using both outside data and internal models to construct perception. The main "stuff" of consciousness (qualia) are prediction errors--data that wasn't already predicted by the models. 

What do ya'll think about this hypothesis?

Edit: Video I put in the URL doesn't seem to be showing up, so pasting it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1Ghrd7NBtk

Are We Ever Awake/Free/Thriving Enough To Not Practice? Through the years, I’ve had periods in my life where I feel so overwhelmingly good that all my daily spiritual practices (yoga, meditation, prayer, Big Mind process, relatefulness, spiritual study, etc) fall to the wayside.

When I feel super awake, connected to everyone and everything, able to flow with whatever is happening, in an unshakeable trust that Basic Goodness is all there is, it’s really easy for me to go: Well, this is it. I’m done. No point in doing any practice of any kind anymore. And that’s not to say that I abandon practice entirely. I still lead my sessions online a few times a week or whatever, but the underlying attitude in me is this is all optional.

And yet, the feedback that I keep getting from Life is that I do, in fact, need practice.

There’s something about making the daily commitment to presence, to myself, to Spirit, and dedicating one or several periods of my day to some form of spiritual practice that is just so nourishing.

And when I stop doing it, it’s like if I stop doing physical exercise. After a while things start feeling kinda stagnant, and my way of being in my life gets wonky. I’m more likely to make choices that could hurt me and the people close to me.

I’m grateful that I can always come back to the routine of one or more daily practices. It feels healthy. : )