How Your Brain Predicts Reality — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] This episode is sponsored by Babbel. Not only some people can see this image or understand this sentence. Hello, my name is John. For most people, both seem random and confusing, but by the end of this video,

[00:13] you will be able to see this image and understand that sentence based on new theories of how consciousness works. Also, write in the comments below what you think this sentence is saying. Hello, my name is John. As by the end of the video, what you wrote will give you an interesting clue into who you are as a person.

[00:28] It was only in the late 1800s that the scientific study of consciousness began. By studying animal brains in patients with epilepsy, humans started to understand that electrical signals in the brain send and process information,

[00:42] and these neural pathways are likely leading to our sentient consciousness. But even now, scientists are still trying to grapple with how our consciousness is formed. Like our brain, this jelly-like organ sealed in our skull,

[00:54] a waste on everything in complete silence and darkness, is what creates our ability to hear and see things like how. We know that outside of you there is a reality that exists. Outside of your body and mind is a world full of real materials and objects.

[01:09] And our complex bodies use our senses as windows, per se, to observe, touch, smell, hear, and detect the real world around us. And don't ever let someone tell you you only have five senses.

[01:21] What is this, 350 BC? You have proprioception, which is the sense of your body's position, like I'm standing up or farting over. You have thermoception, the sense of temperature and heat that your body is able to pick up So using our senses we convey the information about the world around us to the brain where complex electrical signals process and read the information and create our perceptions leading to consciousness

[01:45] Visually, it would look like this. You, a person, looking at a coffee cup, your sense of vision gathering the information to the center of the brain, where it does all the work to understand, ooh, yay, that is a coffee cup.

[01:57] But if this were fully true, you'd be able to see this image and hear this sentence. And this is where a new theory of consciousness comes in to try and explain what's going on. There is contemporary thought saying that the brain is actually constantly making predictions

[02:12] based on knowledge and context of the world around you, and your senses are only there to tie these predictions to reality. Known as perception error minimization, your senses are just confirming what your brain

[02:24] has already predicted. Visually, it would look something like this. Your brain is predicting to see a coffee cup, and your senses are just backing up for your brain already predicted with the sense of vision. If you make a cup of coffee, then you put it down on a table, next time you look at

[02:39] it your brain predicts, probably there's going to be a coffee cup there, and then your vision is there to back it up. This helps you control your perception of the world. Our brain is a predicting making machine, so much so that there are even times where the predictions get in the way of reality.

[02:52] This illusion is a great example called Adelson's checkerboard. Your perception of grainage is not due to actual sensory input, or you would be able to tell that these tiles are actually the same color. Since your brain is relying on past knowledge and context of how shadows work, you see these

[03:08] tiles as separate colors. And even when you know they are the same color if you go back with the shadows you still can really unsee it Your brain is a prediction machine that can fix itself in this moment This means that this illusion is cognitively impenetrable

[03:23] Now let's look at the image from the beginning of the video. You don't have any knowledge or context of this image, which is why you can't see it. But it is actually a two-tone image of a woman kicking a horse. Here's her head, here's the horse, she's obviously into some interesting things with her life, or just photo-enlightening it. But now when

[03:37] go back to this image, you can likely make out what it is now. The sensory input of this image has not changed at all. The only thing that has changed is your brain's predictions based on knowledge and context, which now changes what you consciously see. You can

[03:52] see the girl, you can see the horse. Now the sentence that I played for you is just a sentence with the high frequencies taken out. The man's painting a sign. Without any context, it has very R2D2 energy. You can't really understand what is being said. Now let's play the real sentence for you.

[04:05] The man's painting a sign. And we play the original audio and you now can hear it. There's a lot of contemporary science now that our consciousness is much more controlled by our brain's predictions based on the context of our lives.

[04:19] So when you go and look at the comments of what you thought that sentence was or what other people thought, it might give insight into the context of your life. For example, many people in call centers thought that the sentence was saying, Who is calling you?

[04:31] Maybe that's something that they were just used to hearing a lot. Or they're just constantly thinking about picking up the phone. Me obsessed with understanding how consciousness works because consciousness is my whole entire life. So this information to me has honestly changed my whole perspective on everything.

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