How is it that thoroughly physical material beings such as ourselves can think, dream, feel, create and understand ideas, theories and concepts? How does mere matter give rise to all these non-material mental states, including consciousness itself? An answer to this central question of our existence is emerging at the busy intersection of neuroscience, psychology, artificial intelligence, and robotics.In this groundbreaking work, philosopher
and cognitive scientist Andy Clark explores exciting new theories from these fields that reveal minds like ours to be prediction machines - devices that have evolved to anticipate the incoming streams of
sensory stimulation before they arrive. These predictions then initiate actions that structure our worlds and alter the very things we need to engage and predict. Clark takes us on a journey in discovering the circular causal flows and the self-structuring of the environment that define "the predictive brain." What emerges is a bold, new, cutting-edge vision that reveals the brain as our driving force in the daily surf through the waves of sensory stimulation.
How is it that thoroughly physical material beings such as ourselves can think, dream, feel, create and understand ideas, theories and concepts? How does mere matter give rise to all these non-material mental states, including consciousness itself? An answer to this central question of our existence is emerging at the busy intersection of neuroscience, psychology, artificial intelligence, and robotics.In this groundbreaking work, philosopher
and cognitive scientist Andy Clark explores exciting new theories from these fields that reveal minds like ours to be prediction machines - devices that have evolved to anticipate the incoming streams of
sensory stimulation before they arrive. These predictions then initiate actions that structure our worlds and alter the very things we need to engage and predict. Clark takes us on a journey in discovering the circular causal flows and the self-structuring of the environment that define "the predictive brain." What emerges is a bold, new, cutting-edge vision that reveals the brain as our driving force in the daily surf through the waves of sensory stimulation.
Preface: Meat That Predicts
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Guessing Games
Part I: The Power of Prediction
Chapter 1: Prediction Machines
Chapter 2: Adjusting The Volume (Noise, Signal, Attention)
Chapter 3: The Imaginarium
Part II: Embodying Prediction
Chapter 4: Prediction for Action
Chapter 5: Sculpting the Flow
Chapter 6: Engaging the world
Chapter 7: Expecting Ourselves
Part III: Scaffolding Prediction
Chapter 8: The Lazy Predictive Brain
Chapter 9: Being Human
Chapter 10: The Future of Prediction
Appendix 1: Bare Bayes
Appendix 2: The Free Energy Formulation
References
Index
Andy Clark is Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the School of
Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, at Edinburgh
University in Scotland. He is the author of Being There (1997),
Mindware (2001), Natural-Born Cyborgs (2003), and Supersizing the
Mind (2008). His interests include artificial intelligence,
embodied cognition, robotics, and the predictive mind. In 2018 he
was profiled in The New
Yorker.
"Surfing Uncertainty will be a much discussed and seminal work in
the field of the philosophy of cognitive science." -- David D.
Hutto, Australasian Journal of Philosophy
"A stimulating read for anyone interested in the intersection of
neuroscience and philosophy of mind from a scientific perspective."
--Library Journal
"A wonderful book...Clark's Surfing Uncertainty will become an
essential point of departure for philosophers and cognitive
scientists trying to come to grips with the apparatus of predictive
processing." -- Metascience
"This is a truly important book. It is evocatively written and
reflects a truly gargantuan amount of work. It sets the stage for
future debates not only about the empirical merits of Bayesian
characterizations of human cognition, but also the broader
philosophical picture in which such Bayesian characterizations are
embedded. I predict that many of us will be reading, discussing,
and analysing this book in the months and years to come." --British
Journal
for the Philosophy of Science
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