Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science¶
Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 181-204.
Cited by¶
3 citations across 3 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Abductive Reasoning
- Perception is the substrate-furthest case worth keeping in view — it shows that abduction is not merely a deliberate epistemic practice in human institutions but a structural pattern that the nervous system itself implements when it commits to a best-guess interpretation of a noisy signal, a unification Clark (2013) makes explicit by treating perception, action, and cognition as instances of one underlying predictive-inference pattern.
This sourceSynthesis arguing that brains are hierarchical prediction-error-minimizing machines and that perception, action, and cognition are instances of one underlying predictive-inference pattern — the basis for treating perceptual inference as Bayesian abduction.
Supported in partVerified against the work's full text
Clark presents predictive processing as one framework unifying perception, action and cognition, with percepts as best estimates from noisy evidence; he never frames this as abduction.
“best seen as a framework whose primary virtue is to display some deep unifying principles covering perception, action, and learning”
- Perception is the substrate-furthest case worth keeping in view — it shows that abduction is not merely a deliberate epistemic practice in human institutions but a structural pattern that the nervous system itself implements when it commits to a best-guess interpretation of a noisy signal, a unification Clark (2013) makes explicit by treating perception, action, and cognition as instances of one underlying predictive-inference pattern.
- Foresight
- The prediction-error machinery of the cortex is, at the level of structure, populating the same future-anticipation role that strategic foresight populates at the institutional level, a reading developed by Clark (2013) and Friston (2010).
This sourceArgues hierarchical prediction-error minimization lets bounded agents anticipate upcoming states, treating anticipatory representation as a structural feature of perception. SUPPORTS the predictive-coding-as-foresight claims (158, 162).
Supported in partVerified against the work's full text
Clark describes cortex minimizing prediction error to predict upcoming input; the institutional strategic-foresight parallel is not drawn in this paper.
“Sensory stimulation might be the minor task of the cortex, whereas its major task is to ... predict upcoming stimulation as precisely as possible.”
- The prediction-error machinery of the cortex is, at the level of structure, populating the same future-anticipation role that strategic foresight populates at the institutional level, a reading developed by Clark (2013) and Friston (2010).
- Predictive Coding
- This distinction redirects attention from the glamour of prediction toward the often-neglected error pathway that does the real work.
This sourceSynthesis arguing that hierarchical prediction-error minimization lets bounded agents cope with the sensory torrent (upper levels see only the residual the lower levels cannot explain); supports the closed-loop vs. mere-forecast distinction and the explaining-away / counterfactual-residual diagnostic.
Supported in partVerified against the work's full text
Clark states that only residual prediction errors propagate forward up the hierarchy and notes the bandwidth savings of coding only error, but does not frame it as coping with a sensory torrent.
“leaving only any residual”
- This distinction redirects attention from the glamour of prediction toward the often-neglected error pathway that does the real work.
Verification¶
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