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The Experience Machine

How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

For as long as we've studied the mind, we've believed that information flowing from our senses determines what our mind perceives. But as our understanding of neuroscience and psychology has advanced in the last few decades, a provocative and hugely powerful new view has flipped this assumption on its head. The brain is not a passive receiver, but an ever-active predictor.

At the forefront of this cognitive revolution is widely acclaimed philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark, who has synthesized his ground-breaking work on the predictive brain to explore its fascinating mechanics and implications. Among the most stunning of these is the realization that experience itself, because it is guided by prior expectation, is a kind of controlled hallucination. This even applies to our bodies, as the way we experience pain and medical symptoms is shaped by our expectations. From the most mundane experiences to the most sublime, it is our predictions that sculpt our experience.

A landmark study of cognitive science, The Experience Machine lays out the extraordinary explanatory power of the predictive brain for our lives, mental health and society.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Andy Clark (P)2022 Penguin Audio Biological Sciences Neuroscience & Neuropsychology Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Science Mental Health Human Brain Health

Critic reviews

A predictably groundbreaking exploration of the predictive basis of our extended minds from one of our deepest and clearest thinkers, and a true pioneer of this transformational view of who we are and how we work.The Experience Machine delivers a remarkable combination of profound insight and practical relevance, and it showcases Clark's ability to convey complex ideas with fluent and accessible language (Anil Seth, author of BEING YOU: A NEW SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS)
Rare among science books, this one has changed the way I experience the world. I now feel the experience machine doing its work as I pay attention, am surprised, or catch myself having made completely ridiculous predictions. It's a book that will help you understand the way you see, think and act-and it is also a pleasure to read (Susan Blackmore, author of CONSCIOUSNESS: AN INTRODUCTION and THE MEME MACHINE)
It's tempting to think that our eyes and ears passively record the world like cameras and microphones, but our perceptions are much more interesting than that. Andy Clark is a leading figure in understanding the brain as a prediction machine -- we don't passively take in the world, we're constantly anticipating it and interpreting it accordingly. This thoroughly readable book will convince you that the brain and the world are partners in constructing our understanding (Sean Carroll, author of THE BIGGEST IDEAS IN THE UNIVERSE)
All stars
Most relevant
As a neuroscience student and neurodevelopmental health professional I am really drawn to the potential of active inference and predictive processing to revolutionise our understanding of how to understand ourselves and help people. This is a beautifully accessible explanation of a topic that in the research literature goes quickly into very scary maths! I do have one gripe, the author often refers to references in the accompanying pdf...however there are none in the accompanying pdf.

Fantastic

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It took me a little while to get into this, but then realised I needed to listen and learn more. A fascinating look at the mind’s mechanisms and the operations behind ‘prediction’ - learning and forward thinking.

Fascinating stuff

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...by one of its developers. Special plus that Clark reads it himself. I enjoyed listening to it.

A good exposition of predictive processing

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A fantastic exploration of the Predictive Processing theory of human cognition.

If you have any interest in human behaviour or philosophy of mind, get this book! A better collective understanding of the predictive brain will play a big role in the future of the human species.

After reading Clark’s more academic work Surfing Uncertainty, it is great to see this more accessible, yet still diligently detailed book on the same topic.

Paradigm shifting

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Overall, I liked this book. As a Performance coach, looking to improve my work through neuroscience, I was content with Andy Clarks description of what the predictive brain actually is.

I say content because this book is now some years old and neuroscience, being in its 'growth' phase, is developing its understanding at an alarming rate. As such, my understanding of how the predictive brain functions differs in some areas to that which Andy describes. Not that this is a criticism of this book, more so its a testament to how work such as Andys is fundamental to the development of neuroscience in recent years.

Predictably Informative

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