Andy Clark (Edinburgh) "Busting Out – Two Takes on the Predictive Brain"

SPA research seminar - In this talk, I contrast two ways of understanding the emerging vision of the predictive brain. One way (Conservative Predictive Processing) depicts the predictive brain as an insulated inner arena populated by richly reconstructive representations. The other (Radical Predictive Processing) stresses processes of circular causal influence linking brain, body, and world. Such processes deliver fast and frugal, action-involving solutions of the kind highlighted by work in robotics and embodied cognition. What remains, if this radical option is correct, of the traditional picture of inner states bearing familiar representational contents? The answer is not clear-cut.