Andy Clark admits it’s stran­ge that he took up “pre­dic­ti­ve pro­ces­sing,” an ambi­tious lea­ding theo­ry of how the brain works. A phi­lo­so­pher of mind at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Sus­sex, he has devo­ted his care­er to how thin­king doesn’t occur just bet­ween the ears — that it flows through our bodies, tools, and envi­ron­ments. “The exter­nal world is func­tio­ning as part of our cogni­ti­ve machi­nery,” he said. But 15 years ago, he rea­li­zed that had to come back to the cen­ter of the sys­tem: the brain. And he found that pre­dic­ti­ve pro­ces­sing pro­vi­ded the essen­ti­al links among the brain, body, and world.

Clark lays out the theo­ry in a new book, The Expe­ri­ence Machi­ne: How Our Minds Pre­dict and Shape Rea­li­ty, which is remar­kab­le for how it con­nects the high-level con­cepts to ever­y­day examp­les of how our brains make pre­dic­tions, how that pro­cess can lead us astray, and what we can do about it. I recent­ly caught up with the per­sonable Clark to talk about our pre­dic­ti­ve brains. He explai­ned, among other things, what’s behind chro­nic pain, why we are sus­cep­ti­ble to mis­in­for­ma­ti­on, and how self-affir­ma­ti­on real­ly can help impro­ve your golf game. Clark’s insights were as bright as the mul­ti­co­lo­red shirt he was wearing.

Rea­li­ty is your brain’s best guessssing