887: Andy Clark | How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality

Hallucinations

Schizophrenia and similar conditions often involve prediction errors that lead to hallucinations and delusions. Andy Clark explains that the brain strives to eliminate prediction errors, but when these errors are falsely generated, it creates misguided signals that the brain tries to make sense of 1. This can result in hallucinations, such as phantom phone vibrations or auditory hallucinations, where the brain fills in gaps with incorrect information 2.

Our reality is what's left when we accommodate the prediction errors.

--- Andy Clark

Understanding these mechanisms can foster empathy for those experiencing mental illness, as their brains are simply trying to make sense of faulty signals.

   

PTSD

PTSD involves the brain's response to prediction errors, particularly those preceding traumatic events. Andy Clark notes that individuals with PTSD have a heightened response to prediction errors, leading to locked cycles of aversive reactions 3. This mechanism helps explain why some people develop PTSD while others in similar situations do not.

The prediction machinery is focused inwards as much as it's focused outwards.

--- Andy Clark

This understanding also sheds light on how racial biases in prediction errors can lead to tragic outcomes, such as police shootings, where the brain's predictions are influenced by unconscious stereotypes 4.

   

Body Image

Prediction errors also play a role in conditions like anorexia and body dysmorphia. Andy Clark describes how individuals with these conditions have unrealistic perceptions of their bodies, driven by faulty predictions 5. Interventions that alter these predictions, such as virtual reality experiences, can help improve body image.

We are somehow making all kinds of predictions about our own bodily state and about how our bodies ought to be.

--- Andy Clark

This concept is similar to phantom phone vibrations, where the brain's predictions overwhelm sensory information, leading to incorrect perceptions 6.