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consciousness is an emergent phenomenon from large numbers of neurons connected together in a particular way. The same neurons could be connected differently and there would be no consciousness. There is no magic molecule or energy field which makes consciousness. If you keep subdividing in the search for the magic ingredient of consciousness, it simply disappears. And yet consciousness definitely does exist. As you say, we experience it. Because we see it from above: it is only from below that it is not there.
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BRAIN A PREDICTION MACHINE
And of learning more about the revolutionary thesis he had developed from these ideas: predictive processing. He had turned the conception of the way the brain interacts with the world on its head, arguing that it was not a passive receiver of information, but instead an ever-buzzing “prediction machine” that anticipates incoming experiences. Unlike the baby mice dreaming dreams of the unseen, the brain uses past experiences and sensations to form these predictions, refining them over time. Meeting new incoming information head-on with acquired expectations, he argued, allows the brain to immediately make sense of what it is experiencing. This is called “topdown” processing—in which the brain actively dictates experience—in contrast to the passive “bottom-up” response to sensation.8
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