Learning
👉 The brain builds models of the world to help you maximize reward (meet your needs) and minimize surprise
Over the last few chapters, we’ve talked about the brain’s goal: navigate the world to meet our needs.
But how does the brain actually do this?
🧠 Predictive coding is a field of neuroscience that answers this question.
The job of the brain (says predictive coding) is to create a model of the world. This model predicts what will happen to you next.
When the brain’s model is right, you can use this prediction to take action and get what you need.
When the brain is wrong, you are surprised by what happens next. You may be unprepared or ill equipped to handle reality.
The more closely your brain is able to model reality, the more effective you can be in it.
The brain is, therefore, a learning machine that tries to minimize surprise while maximizing reward.
Throughout this chapter, we’ll focus on the brain, and the hard problems the brain has to solve in order to get you through your day.
Research shows that there’s wide variety in the strategies brains employ to solve these problems – and this variety leads to the differences in personality that we see among people. We’ll talk about that variety towards the end of the chapter.
🤔 Reflection of the Day:
Make one prediction about what will happen today. What are some of the assumptions you must be making to create that prediction?