I think of the human brain as primarily performing the activity of minimizing prediction errors. That’s not literally all it does in that “prediction error” is a weird way to talk about what happens in feedback loops where the “prediction” is some fixed setpoint not readily subject to update based on learning information (e.g. setpoints for things related to survival like eating enough calories).
I tend to think that there are several of these, some of which relate to deeper emotional needs, which I think is an important distinction.
if we try to choose between these approaches, which is that it depends on the notion of there being some important distinction between minimizing prediction error one way or another.
I’m stating that in different minds, it sure looks to me like there is indeed a fundamental preference for different ways of minimizing prediction error. I tend to call this “heaven” or “enlightenment” orientation although I think it’s quite correlated with what I’ve heard called “masculine” or “feminine” orientation.
I’m stating that in different minds, it sure looks to me like there is indeed a fundamental preference for different ways of minimizing prediction error. I tend to call this “heaven” or “enlightenment” orientation although I think it’s quite correlated with what I’ve heard called “masculine” or “feminine” orientation.
Sure, we might find preferences, but those preferences must themselves be the result of these same brain processes over which the preferences operate, thus they are not grounded in a way that we can say a person prefers one more than another in anything more than an initial approach.
Thus, at best, I think we can say this distinction between enlightenment and heaven orientation something like a starting orientation but it’s not one I expect to hold up. I guess thinking of them that way I don’t mind them so much, although the way you’ve referred to them reads to me like you are suggestion people have essential dispositions that differ rather than different conditions from which they start.
Sure, we might find preferences, but those preferences must themselves be the result of these same brain processes over which the preferences operate,
Why must they? Surely it’s possible there are parts of the mind that are influenced by other processes outside of the predictive processing components?
It’s pretty clear to me for instance that people act differently when on psychedelics not because somehow they’re making a prediction about what will happen when they’re on psychedelics, but because it’s actually changing the way in which the brain accesses and makes those predictions. So it’s not hard to imagine other chemicals in people’s brains operating at different biological set points fundamentally altering the way their brains would like to update. Not to mention biological brain differences, etc.
It could be starting dispositions as well, that can then be changed, but I don’t see a principled reason that that should be the case.
But then if so much flexibility is possible, what is even producing this distinction between enlightenment and heaven approaches?
I guess I should be clear I’m generally unhappy living with concepts that are descriptive and don’t have gears. So while you might see a pattern that looks like this split, I’m not really satisfied by it so long as we don’t understand the mechanism by which this pattern appears, and I’m generally not willing to stake much on patterns that don’t have causal explanations, hence why I’m poking at this.
I tend to think that there are several of these, some of which relate to deeper emotional needs, which I think is an important distinction.
I’m stating that in different minds, it sure looks to me like there is indeed a fundamental preference for different ways of minimizing prediction error. I tend to call this “heaven” or “enlightenment” orientation although I think it’s quite correlated with what I’ve heard called “masculine” or “feminine” orientation.
Sure, we might find preferences, but those preferences must themselves be the result of these same brain processes over which the preferences operate, thus they are not grounded in a way that we can say a person prefers one more than another in anything more than an initial approach.
Thus, at best, I think we can say this distinction between enlightenment and heaven orientation something like a starting orientation but it’s not one I expect to hold up. I guess thinking of them that way I don’t mind them so much, although the way you’ve referred to them reads to me like you are suggestion people have essential dispositions that differ rather than different conditions from which they start.
Why must they? Surely it’s possible there are parts of the mind that are influenced by other processes outside of the predictive processing components?
It’s pretty clear to me for instance that people act differently when on psychedelics not because somehow they’re making a prediction about what will happen when they’re on psychedelics, but because it’s actually changing the way in which the brain accesses and makes those predictions. So it’s not hard to imagine other chemicals in people’s brains operating at different biological set points fundamentally altering the way their brains would like to update. Not to mention biological brain differences, etc.
It could be starting dispositions as well, that can then be changed, but I don’t see a principled reason that that should be the case.
But then if so much flexibility is possible, what is even producing this distinction between enlightenment and heaven approaches?
I guess I should be clear I’m generally unhappy living with concepts that are descriptive and don’t have gears. So while you might see a pattern that looks like this split, I’m not really satisfied by it so long as we don’t understand the mechanism by which this pattern appears, and I’m generally not willing to stake much on patterns that don’t have causal explanations, hence why I’m poking at this.
My guess is that there are attractors in this broad space, similar to other personality differences.