In this episode, Marco Ciappelli, Sean Martin, and guest Andy Clark, a philosopher and cognitive scientist, discuss Clark's upcoming book "The Experience Machine" which explores how our minds predict and shape reality. They delve into the idea that brains are prediction machines and examine the role of conscious and unconscious predictions in shaping our experiences.
Guests:
Andy Clark, Professor of Cognitive Philosophy at the University of Sussex [@SussexUni]
The University of Sussex Profile: https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p493-andy-clark
On Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Clark
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Hosts:
Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli
Sean Martin, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast [@RedefiningCyber]
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/sean-martin
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Episode Introduction
Welcome to the Audio Signals Podcast; today's episode features an exciting conversation with Andy Clark, a philosopher and cognitive scientist from the University of Sussex. Andy's interests lie in understanding how minds work, and in this episode, we discuss his new book, The Experience Machine. The book delves into how our minds predict and shape reality and how we can control our predictions to a certain extent.
We start by exploring the idea that brains are prediction machines, and everything that our brains do can be understood by thinking of them as in the business of making predictions, not just about the world outside but also about our own bodies and future activities. As we discuss the premise of the book, we ponder over the question of how much control we have over our predictions and how much control others have over them. Andy's response to this is intriguing - we probably have a bit more control than we think, but not as much as we'd like.
We also explore the science and technology that allow Andy and others to bring this theory upfront. Andy shares that we're well beyond the stage of it just being a kind of idea. It's now a well-worked-out computational story about how predictions and sensory evidence are balanced by different bits of our brains. The theory is pretty well dominant, and we're hitting both the bases of having a theory and showing that brains like ours can actually do it.
So, sit back and enjoy this exciting conversation that will change the way you think about your mind, your predictions, and your reality. Don't forget to share and subscribe to the podcast, and invite your friends and family to join in on the fascinating journey of exploration and discovery.
About the Book
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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Resources
The Experience Machine (book): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/608016/the-experience-machine-by-andy-clark/
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Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording as errors may exist. At this time we provide it “as it is” and we hope it can be useful for our audience.
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voiceover00:15
Welcome to the intersection of technology, cybersecurity, and society. Welcome to ITSPmagazine podcast radio. You're about to listen to a new episode of audio signals get ready to take a journey into the unknown, the unknown and everything in between. record that no specific point in time nor space. ITSPmagazine is co founders Marco Ciappelli. And Shawn Martin followed their passion and curiosity as they venture away from the intersection of technology, cybersecurity, and society to discover new stories worth being told. Knowledge is power. Now, more than ever
Marco Ciappelli01:04
Sean
Sean Martin 01:06
When was last....
Marco Ciappelli01:08
Is that your new signature? When was the last time?
Sean Martin 01:12
Well it's either that or I'm just wondering, well, maybe maybe Have you ever?
Marco Ciappelli01:21
Ah, god. So this is about shad. Though it is a elucidation of are you right? Well, you know,
Sean Martin 01:32
why does it even sit native? Let's put it this way. denting diversity, we hallucinate?
Marco Ciappelli01:37
Not Not, not on purpose? That's my answer. I certainly haven't on purpose, I would remember that
Sean Martin 01:44
it doesn't say I'm gonna, I'm gonna loose in here. I didn't
Marco Ciappelli01:47
take stuff that make you think about doing that. But there are several theories that we discuss one of those today that talk about how we build our own reality. You know, I don't know, I can think a lot of philosophers in the past from, you know, looking at things the way they are, if they're there. Therefore, they are if I think, ergo zoom, and so many different things, but now I think science is allowing us to actually look more into how maybe, our mind and our brain really, really works. So I'm very excited about this conversation is on audio signals word funny enough audio, book, writing, it's all together. Now technology's mixing everything. And with Shawn, we're gonna talk about this book coming up, coming out soon as called the Experience Machine and how our minds predict and shape reality by Andy Clark. So people watching the video they can see him is right here and the Clark and people listening trust us. He's here. So and how are you? Here?
Sean Martin 02:59
Well experienced him audibly today.
Marco Ciappelli03:01
I am not making this up. But I guess you're here.
Andy Clark03:04
I'm definitely here. Mind you. To take all those things with a pinch of salt nowadays, but you know, I really am here. Definitely. Exactly. Well, we're
Marco Ciappelli03:13
excited. Let's start with, with your giving your your version of your, your own reality, who are you? And then let us know in the public that our audience listen and see their mind.
Andy Clark03:30
I'm Andy Clark. I'm a philosopher and cognitive scientist, currently working at the University of Sussex, although I've worked in the States for many years as well. And basically I you know, my interests are I just didn't how minds work. And I'm willing to grab whatever's out there in the in the domain of science and technology to try to shed light on that. And that's what I've been doing for many years thinking about neural networks, robotics, embodied cognition, the extended mind, and kind of bringing it all together in the book, the Experience Machine, that's the hope.
Sean Martin 04:09
And there is a word in some of the stuff that I read about this, and I don't know what I find interesting is that, is it kind of the Marcos point at the beginning? Do we have control over this? Do others have control over this so that we can actually sculpt and experience or do we just good? I don't know. I'll just leave it there for
Andy Clark04:36
you. Yeah. I mean, that's an exciting question. The you know, the premise of the of the book is that there's a huge body of research coming together around the idea that what brains really are a prediction machines that just about everything that brains do, can be understood by thinking of them as in the business of making predictions, not just about, you know the world outside about your own body, about your own future activities, everything. Now, if this sort of account is right, then those predictions make a difference to everything that we see touch, think and feel. And the question that you're asking is, how much control do we have over all of that, given the predictions are playing a role? And I think that the, I think that the answer that we can circle around to here is, we've probably got a bit more control than we think, but not as much as we'd like. Because, you know, no matter how much I want to predict certain things, you know, my, the predictions that structure most of my experience are the sort of residue of all the experiences I've had before. And there's not much that I can do about those, they just are what they are. So I can push and prod my prediction machinery a bit by, I don't know saying things to myself, like, that tingly feeling before doing this podcast isn't a sign of impending failure, it's a chemical signal of readiness to deliver a good performance. So you know that that kind of reframing helps. At the same time, of course, a lot of our predictions are operating unconsciously, people can be given placebo drugs where those drugs are clearly labeled placebo. And you would think that that would mean that they understand what a placebo is, it's inert, it's not going to affect the organic causes of your whatever it is. And you still get the effects because they entrain unconscious expectations if it's well packaged, and somebody in a white coat or authoritatively says, but take this, it might help even though it's a placebo, it seems to work. So I think, a huge mountain of unconscious predictions with a little bit of conscious prediction, and our wiggle room is mostly around the conscious predictions. But just understanding the predictions matters so much will help us to
Marco Ciappelli07:08
So is there some pointing in where we are with our science and technology, of course, that allow you and others that brings this theory up front? To actually say, yep, we can actually see this now. I mean, is there just still theory? Are we are we going into experimental scientific method?
Andy Clark07:34
Yeah, I think we're well beyond the stage of it just being a kind of idea. Or at least it's, you know, it's now a well worked out computational story about how predictions and evidence, sensory evidence, in particular, are balanced by different bits of brains, basically. And there's also a very well worked out story about how the brain gets to implement the different elements of the computational story. So we're hitting all the kinds of classic, you know, the classic picture is to explain something about human psychology, you need to first have a theory of how it could be done. And computational stuff is a very good way of showing that you've got a theory that would actually work. And then you've got to show that brains like ours can actually do it. I think the way we're hitting both of those bases, and this theory is pretty well dominant. Now, I would say, in cognitive neuroscience, I don't think it's filtered entirely out to all the other sciences of mind yet, but, but seems to me, it's the way things are going. You know, there are nuances, different people have different ideas about exactly how different bits of this work, exactly what you do with prediction error signals, which are big players here. But the general idea that brains are prediction machines, using the sensory information in a different way, using the sensory information to test the predictions. So sensory information now plays this really different role. It's sort of like a little thing that you use to test the predictions that are doing most of the work.
Sean Martin 09:14
And is super interesting, my mind is just kind of going a mile a minute here. And I want to go back to the kind of the sculpture idea where if it's not an overnight thing, right, maybe some scooters are, but I guess it in its roughest form, it might take a day, but it might take three years or a lifetime to achieve what the sculpture is that you want. And, and I'm wondering, I'm picturing somebody chiseling away and, oops, I hit it a little too hard and the arm fell off. Still looks great. People enjoy the sculpture, but it's missing in the art, right? So I'm wondering if, if we risk some of those same things in their lives. Typical world, especially as we bring technology, and then to perhaps to help shape some of the way we take the inputs from our sensors and take the data that we collect and analyze it, that we could end up with some experience that's missing the arm. And is that can we? And is it okay, if that happens?
Andy Clark10:20
We're going to need to circle back on that to understand it fully. So when you say an experience that's missing the arm, you do you mean something missing from the theory? Or do you mean, as it were, that there's be something wrong with our actual human experience of the world as a result of taking this theory on board,
Sean Martin 10:40
either individually or as a larger group or even full society? Yeah, I
Andy Clark10:46
mean, it's a tough question, because you know, I'm a convert to this story. So I think that this is the closest thing we've had yet to a unified account of mind, perception, action, and how we humans deal with technologies and inhabit our worlds. At the same time, it's got to be false. Because every story that we've ever come up with is false. One way or another, you know, a model is just a model is just a model. And there'll be lots of things that are wrong with this one. So I suppose the question there is, given that it is just a model, and there will be things wrong with it, what are the things that might be most dangerously wrong with it? Think you know the idea that perception is controlled hallucination comes up here an awful lot people this is a little tagline that lots of people working in this area use. And it gets to something that is real and important. But I think it's dangerous at the same time. Because the real important thing it gets to just is that our predictions are making a difference, and that our experience is constantly constructed around them. So you know, an analogy that I use there is imagine if the weather forecast made a little bit of difference to the actual weather. You know, in the real world, weather forecasts don't work like that. But imagine a world where things are just causally a little bit odd. Weather Forecasts make a difference. And there's a kind of little button that you can tweak up or down so that sometimes it makes more difference than it does at others. But it's always a combination of what whatever, as it were normally Controls the Weather. And these weather forecasts, he thinks that's that's the extent to which experiences are controlled hallucination. Predictions are playing a role. But how much role that is and how strongly in effects experience is controlled by the brain's own estimations of how reliable different bits of the processing are. And so that's the thing called in these things, it's called precision weighting. The prediction against the sensory information doesn't really matter how exactly how that works. But think of it as a volume dial, it's turning up the volume on predictions. And when we really hallucinate the volume is turned right up to the top on the predictions. Those are the cases where I'm expecting to see a pink elephant strongly enough. And that's what I see.
Marco Ciappelli13:20
Normally, if I tell you that this this app goes to 11, even if it goes to 11
Andy Clark13:28
Spinal Tap, exactly. Yeah,
Marco Ciappelli13:32
you start making this connection, we could say what if the weather, you could change it, you know, to a certain extent, and I'm thinking like what you do, because if the person who read the forecast of the weather, say is going to be bad, but not as bad. So it's kind of like, you know, tonight, and then they're like, yeah, he's not that bad, because they told me it wasn't gonna be there. But I think the trick here is really to, as you're going here, I like some example, and say, like, we're not talking about a completely subjective reality that just because I say that, it is, and a lot of people use that in these days to say, yep, that's why I see it. That's the way it is. But hold on. So your what percentage does influencers and I love to hear also in which area? You think maybe we do more? We do it less?
Andy Clark14:26
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so lots to say about all of those things. I mean, sometimes the volume is turned right up, and we clearly see that there's a there's a case that I talked about in the book of a construction worker in the states that fell off some scaffolding and a nail went right through their boot. They were in extreme agony. They were given fentanyl, they went to the hospital they kind of slowly took the nail out, actually a pass right between the toes of their foot. So you know, there was no damage to the bodily system at all, but they were in genuine and excruciating. In pain, because they had this visual information that was indicating a very nasty thing had happened, they had no reason to doubt that information. So the volume on their prediction, if you like, got turned up very high. And the way that ordinary pain is constructed, it's very much the same. So the idea would be that even in cases where there's a real physical calls, standard physical cause, then at the same time, there's the operation of all these predictions. And that's what we see, I think, in long term back pain and chronic pain, and many, many cases of our own daily experience, cancer related fatigue, people's built up expectations about when they're going to feel better, for example, I am going to feel better if I'm in this room. And if I'm in this room, and very often it's the predictions are then doing the work. But I think the important thing to take away, what I'm trying to get at here is that we've now got this sort of continuum between the extreme cases and the absolutely normal way that everything gets constructed. And for me, one of the kinds of beneficial upshots of looking at the world through these kinds of predictive processing glasses that I wear these days, is that things that might have looked like extreme pathologies, and weirdnesses and odd responses, like the construction workers, experience of agonizing pain, or actually just the way we all construct our experience all the time, slightly extreme, because that volume knob got turned up high, but nothing, nothing different. It's everything is this mixture. So I think that taking away the idea that there's no such thing as a raw or correct sensory experience. That's where we get back to that tagline of a hallucination of sorry, controlled hallucination. But the control matters, because we're in touch with the world sensory informations coming in, you can turn the information, the volume up high on the sensory information, if you're, I don't know, if you're in a situation where you really, you're trying to feel something in the dark, and you turn the volume up on touch. So we can do all of that you'll never take predictions out of the equation. But at the same time, we're not normally just float in free, unless you, you know, put me in a sensory deprivation tank for a while and predictions last to start doing most of the work. And we all know what maybe we did kind of what that's like. But yeah.
Sean Martin 17:33
So Andy, many times on this show, when we, when we look at kind of the future of technology and humanity and how they interact with each other always, always find myself going to a place of least common denominator, where we, we take some model like you're describing, and we, we put it to use, right, and that model is developed for widespread use, which then means we have some parameters built in, we kind of box everything in. And everybody kind of feels the same, then in this case, I'm wondering, do we end up in a world where our sensors are, are softened, or the right word there is but and the way that we feel is the same as the person next to me and that next to them? And next to them? What are your thoughts on this common denominator kind of thinking?
Andy Clark18:36
I kind of feel as if this story pulls you in the other direction somehow. It seems to me that what this is kind of suggesting is that there may be way more variety among our individual experiences of the world than we thought that was the you know, language papers over a lot of those gaps. We have to kind of you know, share words for read and microphone and things like that we have to engage those objects successfully in our daily life. But there's an awful lot of room. If these stories are right for the way you experience these things to vary according to your own personal history. And in fact, one of my colleagues at University of Sussex annual Seth is working on something called a perception census. And it is trying to trying to probe people to unearth the subtle differences in experience that might have escaped the net before predictive processing seems to me to suggest that experience might be a lot more varied than we think. I guess you're right, though, that if we all started to embrace it as a you know, the right theory of how we work, that would be a force to bring us all together a bit, but not sure that would be a bad thing.
Sean Martin 19:50
I love where you're taking that so sorry, Mark. I just want to go quickly calm because I think you've shaken me a bit here and I love it because oh he's had this view that the technology is going to kind of rally us and rangolis. So I love that we have an opportunity to take things to whole new levels here.
Marco Ciappelli20:10
I think that's actually the fascinating part is that what I'm thinking is, you have a society that in order to work, we do need to agree on many things, the social contract, right, not only on the law and the extension of what three domains, but also, you know, if we decided we call, you know, there's a cop, it's a cop, you know, there is an equivalent in every language, and many people, I feel like they need that they need to see the world isn't black or white is heaven, or hell is good or bad, and
Sean Martin 20:46
so forth. It's a mug by the way, not a cup.
Marco Ciappelli20:49
It's a cup. Well, you know, if you were Italian? You know, I see it as it is. Now. That was my mistake on the on the Choose of the word, they chosen the word. That's it, though? No, I know. But it did. Very, very, very good job. So to get it back to where I was, this is shaking. Of course, the way we perceive and I'm connecting to science as well, like quantum theory, quantum physicists, physic all of a sudden, it's, it becomes a lot harder to understand, because there is a lot in between there is stuff that we don't really understand and that throw people off. So what do you think these? It's going to reflect in the way that people interact with each other in social relationship in, in a lot of things in our society? Because it, I think it's a theory that shakes a lot.
Andy Clark21:49
Yes, I agree. I mean, the quantum question is, it's kind of interesting, in a, in a strange way here, because we believe that the quantum world probably is the way things are deep down if that, you know, that's our best shot at how things are actually working. Because all the material physical level, predictive processing, is certainly not a story about how, at least not on the face of it, the story about how we construct that sort of grip on reality, it's very much a story about how we construct a daily grip on reality and perception action cycles. So it really brings perception and action together. And we populate the world, our human world with the kind of the kind of objects that are good as levers or fulcrums, for perception and action. So you know, like your, whatever it was mug, glass, whatever, it was that black, black liquid receptacle. So you know, we populate the world with things like this. And they they they help us in our in our daily endeavors. And underneath all of that is some other kind of world that we've got at through populating the world with these things, and then doing some serious science. And I think, I don't think anybody, nobody in predictive processing, at least, I don't think anyone has an absolutely good picture of how we've managed to do this. Because to understand that we need to understand what language is doing. To, to brains are basically in the business of making perception action cycles possible for embodied creatures. I think it's only because we've got all these symbols floating around in language that we can push down and get these really weird views of what reality might be. So I think there's a big opening there for a future work in predictive processing, to try to ask the question, what how does language affect brains that are in this business in ways that will enable them to push deeper and see further and come up with really weird ideas about how things might really be?
Sean Martin 24:00
So I'm hearing this I'm picturing us as a human race evolving, right? And you're talking about actions. And I'm thinking, okay, so I can predict something's going to happen or something will be a certain way. And I'm going to experience that. I want to respond to that. And today, my body is how my body is right? And I'm able to move my arms a certain distance and lift weights. I can walk, I can jump, I can't fly. Right. But if I'm hallucinating, I might think I can. Or if I'm scared enough, because of an experience that I'm about to have, I might react a certain way. Do you think and I don't know if if you've seen any research that says that our bodies will begin to kind of change in the weather kind of thing. Do you think our bodies will begin to adjust based on these changes that we're potentially gonna put into our minds?
Andy Clark24:59
Well, So certainly, in inward looking bodily inflammation already plays a huge role in these stories. So what you're what the brain is kind of trying to do is take everything that it knows to have a good guess about what's out there in the world and what to do about it. And that really includes internal bodily inflammation. So there's interesting work on for example, the perception of your own heartbeat. If you, if you're led to believe that your heart is beating quicker than it is by a bit of false cardiac feedback, you could like have a thing like a watch, that just gives you a pulse, it's actually quicker than your heartbeat. Under those conditions, you're more likely to judge for a neutral face is angry. So the way you see the external world is kind of inflected all the time, by the end would look in bodily information as to you know, whether our experience of the body is going to change because we start to adopt a predictive processing framework for thinking about what's going on. I kind of think it might have be it. I mean, it's a bit like biofeedback techniques, and things, you know, these, these change our experience of the body, and if you change that you change your experience of the world. So I think these models are an interesting sort of meeting point between bodily inflammation and how we judge the world to be. And maybe we'll find ways to exploit that meeting point in ways that that help us I do have a, an ex colleague Sarah Garfinkel working on improving interoception is your sensitivity to his inward looking signals, as a way of helping people with autism become less anxious in certain situations? And that does seem to help.
Marco Ciappelli26:52
Yeah, I mean, I can definitely think a ton of different application, like, you have an overview of theory. But you know, I mean, when I think about anything you do really in life, it could improve your performance, it could make you feel better, and all of that. So let's talk about the book, as I know, you wrote a lot of books, you know, you're a professor, and many of your books actually been, were more of an academic kind of reading in this this one, you actually wrote it for everyone interested in the topic? So how, how do you think you achieved that I, you know, you kind of bring the go back to the volume, but, you know, you bring the volume down a little bit. So it's easy on everybody's ears? And what do you expect? Maybe the people that are interested in the book, they, they will, they will get out of it?
Andy Clark27:43
Yeah, I mean, that there was no real technique involved here, apart from having good editors at Penguin Random House, who basically told me for three and a half drafts that it wasn't yet intelligible. And so I just rewrote it repeatedly, in the hope of reducing the gap between their expectations and anything that I could get down on paper. And I actually think, you know, I was really frustrated halfway through that project, I thought, you know, really, I thought I was writing one book, and I've had to write certainly, that was kind of roughly how I felt about it. But now that I've seen the actual upshot of that, I think it was really worth it. Because when I read it, I think, you know, the core ideas, even though they're underneath this, there's a, there's a huge kind of machine of computational simulations and neuroscience and formalisms, and kind of Bayesian stuff, and all sorts of all sorts of moving parts under the under the surface. But I think that there's a really good sort of picture of those coming through the book, as a result of, you know, my editors, good offices, basically. But what do I hope might come of that? I think that this is an important part of, of our species self understanding. It's, you know, if we can understand and appreciate that experience is never a kind of unfiltered way of getting at the truth about anything. Instead, it's intrinsically filtered by expectations, and by bodily information. This makes a huge difference. I think it might make us I don't know, I'm more sensitive, less likely to jump to conclusions. Let's hope so anyway, at the very least, it's a really interesting fact about us. And I think we can we can, we can learn stuff also about our own performances here, because you mentioned that word, but you know, action is brought about using prediction in these stories. And so, I think that has implications for stuff like sports science, you know, people already know that A good sort of imagination of what you're about to do, assuming that you've got the right skill set, is a very good way of doing stuff. Predictive processing gives you a theory that, that underpins that, where it's actually, it's the brain's prediction of the trajectory of sensory information you would get if you were doing it, right, that actually acts as a motor commands that bring about the action. And that I think, gives ENI it sort of shows just how important it is not to learn what you should do, but to learn what it would feel like to be doing the right thing, once you know that you can make the right thing happen, because that's your brain then predicts that, and the body crushes the errors by moving itself in the right way to make it happen. So so, you know, basically, I think there's a lot of a lot of cool sort of practical implications, stuff that we kind of already knew. But it comes together in this theoretical framework. And understanding ourselves better is always a good thing. I'm kind of yeah, I'll go with Socrates.
Marco Ciappelli31:08
Absolutely.
Sean Martin 31:10
And, and, and then I'm looking at one of the reviews, or comments on your book, talking about the metaphors of how our brain works. And it lists the magician and architect fortune teller scientist, I might throw in the sculptor, because we referenced that earlier, I'm wondering, there's often a preconceived notion that one is one is good at mathematics, or one is good at sports, or one is good at art. And that's how their brains wired, and therefore, that's how they're going to be. So in the context of reading your book, is there an opportunity perhaps to, and I would first go to reinforce that, or to you're enlightening me earlier, to blow that out of the water and say, You can be strong and mathematics, even if you are strong and in your hearts. Right.
Andy Clark32:05
Yeah, I think the I think the takeaway message on that sort of score is that we've got a lot of wiggle room, there's, you know, it's true that some people will start off in their sort of journey of prediction, if you like, from a position in space that makes some things easier to predict, and therefore master than than others, you know, me, for example, I'm not very good at spatial stuff. So it takes me a long time to learn to tie in not sort of a dyspraxia about spatial orientation stuff. But at the same time, if I practice it enough, I can I can learn to do it, I, you know, pass Competent Crew for the yacht in exam, yeah, took a while. And I think that that's just how we humans are that basically, we've got an awful lot of plasticity in there, there's a lot of space for the brain to rewire itself in different ways. And the main thing is just to, to keep trying to do the things that you need to do. So I think that we really shouldn't feel ourselves overburdened by this idea that different, different people are good at different kinds of things. There's truth there, of course, at the same time, you know, that's because we choose to persist, typically, in the things that we're either good at, because, you know, that's, that seems like a very natural thing to do. So you become better at those. And as you become better at those, you're probably going to get a bit worse, or at least not improve in other domains. You know, I think that's just, that's just how we manage as a sort of labor share in society. But yeah, I think the general picture here is very much a neural constructivist plasticity kind of celebrating position.
Marco Ciappelli33:54
I personally think it's, it's very empowering. And again, I'm looking forward to read the book, but to having this flexibility instead of the rigid way that is, again, I go back to you know, society structure that this is how it is, this is how you were born, stick with it, you know, move on almost like a caste in a certain way. But instead of being able to rediscover yourself, reinvent yourself and I think that's what our modern society if we don't try to block it and go back in the middle age that's that's why you should be more open. And and things that you said that really struck a chord with me is the fact that these are kind of things that we can annoy in the back of our head. You know, you think sociology, psychology, meditation, a lot of things they come into into place here but to have this overview, the put it all together in a in a more structure theory. I think it's it's fundamental that I really love that it's almost something think on the self fulfilling prophecy, right? If you believe it are enough, maybe it's gonna happen.
Andy Clark35:05
Well, that's how motor control works on these stories. And so this kind of longer term sort of life project control, because the idea in both cases is that you kind of you have to predict the trajectory that will get you where you want to be. And if you predict it in enough detail, and in the right, you know, in a way, that is, the phrase I use in the book is realistic, yet optimistic, because if you're too unrealistic, you will fail too soon, and you'll get discouraged. And that's no good. But you've got to also be just optimistic enough to be dragging yourself to a good place, as it were. And, you know, you can see in someone like an expert car driver, they just sort of, they kind of see where the car needs to go. They know what it would feel like to be pushing and prodding all the bits in order to get it there, they don't have to think about that their brain knows what that's going to feel like. And so they just see where it's going to go. That's the top level goal. They're expert enough to cash it out with all the right sorts of stuff that costs us all these little prediction errors all the way down to the sensory peripheries. And you end up you know, performing the standard and driving through the tiny gap in the traffic. And that's, that's, that's what life is like, basically, I think we need to become expert predictors, realistic, yet optimistic expert predictors of the way that we want things to pan out. So that's one of that's one of the places where again, the story comes quite close together to well known star stuff that we all think about. And the stuff that you mentioned on meditation as a way of helping to control that volume knob that we talked about earlier. Essentially, meditation looks like a practice that helps us gain a little bit of personal control over the volume knob. And that means we can turn down the volume on high level predictions about ourselves and let the world speak to us a little bit more directly, sometimes. So yeah, it's a lot of things coming together. And I think that's pretty satisfied.
Sean Martin 37:11
Do we have time for one more question, Marco, I have another question
Marco Ciappelli37:14
asked, and I'm good.
Sean Martin 37:19
I don't know how much insight you have on this particular part. But certainly there, there are researchers who do research for the sake of research because they'd love it. And then there are others who do it and or buy up the research to commercialize it, and make a buck. So I'm wondering if and, of course, meditation is something that if they call it a product we can do to experience the results that we're talking about here. But I'm just wondering, are there any products or services or commercial aspects of this you're familiar with? How do we, you're talking about a lot of science right underneath? And surrounding this, this theory? And this model? How does that get exposed to an everyday person to say, Yeah, I want to turn this dial today. Yeah, What app do I use?
Andy Clark38:13
Yeah, good. Good question. Well, there are a few places a few places to go there. One of them as you say, as far as he intimated, there is meditation, it's sort of, there's a thing that helps them now you can think this is taking control of the precision waiting apparatus that determines everything in these stories. So you can now see why that would be a really good thing to do. Lots of work for everyone. I'm absolutely rubbish meditator. I know quite why, you know, I kept trying, this doesn't work for me. But you know, at least you can see why when it works. It works. Now. There's also a thing called pain reprocessing theory that I'm very interested in it's looks to me like a it's a it's a well worked out thing, they sell their products, you know, you can you can you can, you can go and learn about pain reprocessing theory, but it does seem to really work for some people, quite a lot of people. And the idea there is, for instance, you know, pain often seems like a signal to tell you not to do it as if your body's saying don't do this. But when you've got chronic pain, like chronic back pain, it's a signal itself that has gone wrong, very often, it's your body's saying, Don't do this, don't do this, when in fact, it's not going to do you harm to do this. So if you can begin to learn and appreciate that using various techniques, then you can actually start to do a bit more without experiencing more damage that helps you predict that you'll be able to do a bit more without experiencing more damage, and you replace a sort of bad self perpetuating cycle with a good one. I think that's something
Sean Martin 39:50
like a 10s machine. Any sorry. Yeah, well, they're not any different.
Andy Clark39:57
I think the right answer there is I don't know enough about those. chance to answer that question, although
Sean Martin 40:01
I haven't seen as I know, they mess with the nerves. And yeah, I mean,
Andy Clark40:05
generally, that could play into this sort of thing, because kind of messing around with things a bit is a way of stopping high level predictions doing what they normally do this is what psychedelic drugs seem to be doing. psychedelic drugs seem to be sort of messing around a bit with high level predictions. So that lower level stuff can kind of be appreciated again, or that new ways of being can become a bit more apparent to you. So there's quite a bit in the book about how to think about psychedelic drugs, controlled uses of psychedelic drugs as a as a, as a means of managing certain aspects of the predictive brain. So I think there are lots of places pain reprocessing theory, psychedelic stuff, meditation, self affirmation of different kinds, were certainly the sorts of morals of the of the story are didn't know important to everyone and therefore commercially usable.
Marco Ciappelli41:10
And I think I think the key if you understand that there is this possibility, and it's not it's not a panacea, as no one is going to resolve every problem, like you said, I mean, you want to be a good driver, you still need the skill, you want to be a good musician, that an athlete, you still need the skills, you can't just say, oh, yeah, I just want to believe I'm a good driver, and you're crashing a wall for 350 miles an hour. But the point is, I think that if you open your mind, and you're more receptive to make this technique that you just explain work, because you're not putting a wall out there. And you're, you know, giving it a chance. I think that's that's the key.
Andy Clark41:48
Exactly. You have a sense of why it works. And therefore what you need to do to make it work if that means putting in the hard work, as you say,
Marco Ciappelli41:57
Yeah, well, it was a great conversation. And I'm very tempted, and I will email you about that. And an idea on how to talk about a book that you wrote before and talk about technology and as an extension of humanity. But we're ready. I think our audience is already overwhelmed with this. probably thinking, as we hope, Shawn and I always say if listener, and this conversation and turn off the podcast, thinking more than when they started, we did pretty good. So I think this is going to be a book that is going to make people really think this conversation as well. So Shawn, are you thinking and thinking, then
Sean Martin 42:42
therefore you are waiting on Thank you very clearly.
Andy Clark 42:46
Thank you for great conversation. Oh, really? I really enjoyed this conversation.
Marco Ciappelli42:51
Absolutely. Well, yep, and everybody, please stay tuned on audio signals and ITSPmagazine There'll be notes. Either you're watching the video or you're listening to podcasts, please share, tell your friends subscribe. And of course, get the book the Experience Machine how our minds predict and check reality by a Clark right here. Take care. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
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