“What Am I — Qualia, Brahman, Neurons, or just Nothing?”
“How does the mind construct its model of reality — and is the model the same as reality?”
Chat with SageCognitive Science investigates the mind as an information-processing system. This node explores enactive, predictive, and embodied models of cognition. It challenges the traditional view of the brain as a passive receiver of data, showing instead that the brain constructs our experience of the world as a 'controlled hallucination' to manage survival and minimize prediction errors.
Grounded in Karl Friston's work, this model suggests the brain is a prediction engine. It does not wait for sensory data; it generates top-down predictions and only registers the errors. Experience is the brain's best guess of the world.
Francisco Varela and Evan Thompson argued that the mind is not inside the skull. Cognition is Embodied (shaped by the physical body) and Enacted (brought forth through sensory-motor coupling with the environment).
4E Cognition summarizes how the mind is Embodied (uses the body), Embedded (lives in an environment), Enacted (acts), and Extended (uses external tools). It presents a unified alternative to traditional representational cognitive science.
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