The article "Do Thrifty Brains Make Better Minds?" by Andy Clark, in the New York Times, is not directly about Buddhism. But it touches on something that is very much about Buddhism. We like to think that our senses and brains are simply giving us an accurate scan of what's "out there," but neuroscience tells us it isn't that simple. In fact, Clark writes, our brains save "bandwidth" by making assumptions and predictions.
Without our realizing it, our brains and senses "fill in" data that isn't in the "scan" with data already stored in our heads. "What is marked and passed forward in the brain's flow of processing are the divergences from predicted states," Clark says.
Here's the part that I found most interesting:
"All this, if true, has much more than merely engineering significance. For it suggests that perception may best be seen as what has sometimes been described as a process of "controlled hallucination" (Ramesh Jain) in which we (or rather, various parts of our brains) try to predict what is out there, using the incoming signal more as a means of tuning and nuancing the predictions rather than as a rich (and bandwidth-costly) encoding of the state of the world. This in turn underlines the surprising extent to which the structure of our expectations (both conscious and non-conscious) may quite literally be determining much of what we see, hear and feel."
This is so similar to what the Buddha taught about how we create our reality from mental projections. The "filled in" data, the unconscious expectations, are created mostly from our own past experience. So, from our earliest childhood, we are conditioned to perceive the world in a particular way. And we think these conditioned perceptions are "reality."
If this interests you, do read the whole article and watch the video of the "hollow face illusion." It's quite startling.
Thanks Barbara. As a guy with my background I couldn’t get through the setup for the jargon. I’m serious. Usually in my neck of the woods when words like “precoding” and “prediction based strategy” are bandied about there’s an Abstract, an Introduction and enough figures and block diagrams to determine in 15 seconds if it’s worth spending 20 minutes on.
In that article references aren’t given until more than 2/3 of the way down.
That form is as to how professional researchers practice as chanting is to chanting practice. When you’ve read thousands of examples of such kind of literature, a distilled, boiled down version is actually harder to read than a well written research paper.
Kinda it should be the research equivalent of an enso.
So I greatly appreciate your taking 1 paragraph, and comparing to a Buddhist viewpoint..
Just got back from a 7 day sesshin in which our osho spent much of his dharma talk time on the subject of the Buddhist view of reality. As he puts it, our common perception is that we are a self, a solid entity, that lives behind our eyes and looks out through them–that is, that there is a thing called the self and that it lives inside the body, and that the eyes are its windows. Part of the purpose of meditative practice is to ’see’ that this is an illusion by entering a state of pure awareness and leaving thought (and how thought processes perception) behind–specifically by having your awareness anchor itself on breathing and body awareness and bypass thought. I almost wonder what would happen if one were to look at the hollow face illusion while in a profound state of zazen samadhi.
“I almost wonder what would happen if one were to look at the hollow face illusion while in a profound state of zazen samadhi.”
I had a similar wondering, about what exactly is required to see through our conditioned illusions, particularly in relation to the illusion of self as a solid & separate entity (which is of course our samsaric version of the “hollow face illusion”). What, finally, allows us to glimpse it as it truly is, viz. transparent, conditioned, empty? And the “answer,” I suppose, is none other than the entire Buddhist path
Sweet synchronicity: I was just watching a Robert Thurman lecture, on DVD, in which he was speaking about why Buddha Shakyamuni chose to appear in India. An important piece of the picture, as he presented it, was that India was the kind of culture in which people generally speaking were able to at least imagine a being like the Buddha — something necessary for him, first of all, to be perceived at all, and secondly, to be accepted at least to the point of not being crucified, assassinated, burned at the stake or in some other fashion “eliminated” for being just way too far off of most people’s conceptual maps.
This was a great article, much in line with a talk I had a few days ago with a co-worker. I am one of two females working with 50 or so men, and conversations are so difficult because they have everything all figured out and complete, before I even talk. I am just asked to confirm their perceptions. It’s like being in a closed box most of the time.
Certain words are like signals to ones assumptions. Sometimes the “filled in data” is so foreign to what is being conveyed. I once told someone I owned a home, he then described it and my neighborhood, how large the plot was and was saddened that I didn’t have space to have a garden. So far from the truth…I was stunned. Where did you get this scenario,, I asked…just his thoughts and beliefs. Those thoughts and beliefs became his truth and mine in a strange way. It was true and real and even debatable for him. Kind of scarey to say the least, as if someone’s mind is creating my life.
Buddhist practice has been the BEST for me, it allows me to step back and SEE or try to see what I am looking at, shut up and hear what I am hearing. I know I am listening well when I ask a probing question that brings some insight to the person who is talking. I am still working on communicating effectively at work, without the assumptive trigger words ( that’s difficult as who knows what are someones trigger).
I enjoyed your article, it brought much insight and one good thing is that I am not experiencing something odd!
Your articles and insights are such an excellent source for me. Continue in good health, wisdom, awareness and always be well !
Your articles always come to me on Thursday and I really look forward to them as a highlight of my week !
Pema — I’m so glad you found the article helpful.
I could be wrong, but, it looks like Clark is talking about “generic images” which are, keeping things simple, concepts held in the mind due to propensities that determine how and what is perceived…a basic concept in Mind & Cognition teachings.