predictive processing

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Predictive processing is a family of theories treating perception as hierarchical prediction and correction: generative expectations descend while residual sensory errors chiefly ascend. Action can also change the evidence encountered. The corpus distinguishes Hohwy’s inferential emphasis from Clark’s embodied engagement and treats their shared vocabulary as a framework, not a completed ontology of mind.

Explanation

In RB2, higher levels encode contextual and temporally extended regularities while lower levels handle more immediate expectations. Discrepancies revise the model rather than delivering an untouched world to an inner spectator. Environmental resistance remains essential: prediction error gives the account its route to correction and learning.

Active inference extends the approach to movement, which changes sensory states as well as beliefs. Precision-weighting determines which errors matter for attention and revision. AB’s contrast between changing a guess and changing the conditions encountered provides a parallel explanation in its own expository register.

Hohwy’s evidentiary boundary and Clark’s world-scaffolded engagement preserve different emphases. RB2 cautions that neither a unifying vocabulary nor successful neural description settles all anticipation, phenomenology or living organization. These qualifications prevent the proposal from calling prediction a demonstrated identity with everything mental.

Scope and attribution

Retain the attributed main entry with distinct inferential and embodied emphases.

AB — The Actual Book

Model revision and action are two routes for changing a mismatch.

Occurrence locators: 98, 99, 100; Thinker register: 228; Notes: 242.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Hohwy, Clark, precision and the framework’s explanatory limits remain differentiated.

Occurrence locators: 6, 7, 106, 107, 108, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 134, 135, 137, 146, 178, 241.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.