MYSTERIES OF OUR BRAIN: 1/4: The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality by Andy Clark (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 5 August 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Experience-Machine-Minds-Predict-Reality/dp/1524748455
Widely acclaimed philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark unpacks this provocative new theory that the brain is a powerful, dynamic prediction engine, mediating our experience of both body and world. From the most mundane experiences to the most sublime, reality as we know it is the complex synthesis of sensory information and expectation. Exploring its fascinating mechanics and remarkable implications for our lives, mental health, and society, Clark nimbly illustrates how the predictive brain sculpts all human experience. Chronic pain and mental illness are shown to involve subtle malfunctions of our unconscious predictions, pointing the way towards more effective, targeted treatments. Under renewed scrutiny, the very boundary between ourselves and the outside world dissolves, showing that we are as entangled with our environments as we are with our onboard memories, thoughts, and feelings. And perception itself is revealed to be something of a controlled hallucination.
Unveiling the extraordinary explanatory power of the predictive brain, The Experience Machine is a mesmerizing window onto one of the most significant developments in our understanding of the mind.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS I on the World with John Bachelor. |
| 0:05.0 | This is CBS I on the World with John Bachelor. |
| 0:10.0 | Here's John Bachelor. |
| 0:12.0 | This is CBS I in the world, I'm John Bachelor. |
| 0:16.0 | The experience of White Christmas, think about it. |
| 0:19.0 | You've heard it a million times, maybe two million times, |
| 0:22.0 | Bing Crosby, White Christmas, and we look forward to it each year. |
| 0:26.5 | It tells us the calendar is going to change to a new year. |
| 0:30.5 | However, that moment is revelatory of a new book's breakthrough for me understanding of our minds and how they work in our environment. |
| 0:42.0 | The book is the experience machine, how our minds predict in our |
| 0:44.0 | environment. The book is The Experience Machine, how our minds predict and shape reality. |
| 0:47.0 | I welcome Professor Andy Clark, |
| 0:49.0 | Professor of Cognitive Philosophy at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom and several other |
| 0:54.8 | distinguished universities. |
| 0:56.5 | Andy's book is going to take us to White Christmas and explain very |
| 1:01.5 | carefully how it is that we can hear white Christmas when it's not |
| 1:05.9 | there or when it might be there or when it's unintelligible. |
| 1:10.3 | Professor, a very good evening to you. Thank you very much. The experience is white Christmas. |
| 1:17.0 | The suggestion is, do you hear it or not hear it? What have you learned from the experiment that is conducted with a variety of young people who do know the song? |
| 1:28.8 | What have you learned of the predictive brain? |
| 1:32.1 | Good evening to you. Good evening to you. |
| 1:33.0 | Good evening, John. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. |
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