Librería Portfolio

A comprehensive tour of emerging work on the predictive mind
Presented rigorously, but without mathematical formalisms
Pitched to cross disciplinary boundaries, exploring ideas at the intersection of neuroscience, philosophy, artificial intelligence, and psychology
The second ever book-length treatment of the predictive mind, and the first to bring work on the predictive mind together with work on embodied cognition



How is it that thoroughly physical material beings such as ourselves can think, dream, feel, create and understand ideas, theories and concepts? How does mere matter give rise to all these non-material mental states, including consciousness itself? An answer to this central question of our existence is emerging at the busy intersection of neuroscience, psychology, artificial intelligence, and robotics.

In this groundbreaking work, philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark explores exciting new theories from these fields that reveal minds like ours to be prediction machines - devices that have evolved to anticipate the incoming streams of sensory stimulation before they arrive. These predictions then initiate actions that structure our worlds and alter the very things we need to engage and predict. Clark takes us on a journey in discovering the circular causal flows and the self-structuring of the environment that define ´the predictive brain.´ What emerges is a bold, new, cutting-edge vision that reveals the brain as our driving force in the daily surf through the waves of sensory stimulation.



Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Preface: Meat That Predicts
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Guessing Games
Part I: The Power of Prediction
Chapter 1: Prediction Machines
Chapter 2: Adjusting The Volume (Noise, Signal, Attention)
Chapter 3: The Imaginarium
Part II: Embodying Prediction
Chapter 4: Prediction for Action
Chapter 5: Sculpting the Flow
Chapter 6: Engaging the world
Chapter 7: Expecting Ourselves
Part III: Scaffolding Prediction
Chapter 8: The Lazy Predictive Brain
Chapter 9: Being Human
Chapter 10: The Future of Prediction
Appendix 1: Bare Bayes
Appendix 2: The Free Energy Formulation
References
Index