The Brain Is a World Model
The Brain Is a World Model Why do we see things that are not physically there? Visual illusions are often described as mistakes made by the brain. But I believe they reveal something much more interesting. The brain is a world model. It does not simply record the light entering our eyes, frame by frame, like a camera. Instead, through years of experience, it learns the statistical structure of the world: how objects move, what colors they tend to have, what usually happens next, and which visual features tend to belong together. What we perceive is generated using this learned model. And prediction may be one of the main algorithms by which the brain builds it. Perception is more than receiving information The visual information reaching the brain is always incomplete. Neural processing takes time. Objects move. We move. Our eyes move several times every second. Parts of the world are hidden behind other objects. Lighting changes constantly. If the brain merely waited for sensory...