[stevenhuang]

Have you heard of information theory?

Numbers can mean anything. A multitude of numbers as voltage potentials and ion gradients sufficiently describe your brain.

Biology manifests this arrangement as a brain, without which this arrangement would also be similarly meaningless.

Your argument against deriving meaning from statistics completely ignores that the brain also works this way.

[dS0rrow]

> Have you heard of information theory?

> Your argument against deriving meaning from statistics completely ignores that the brain also works this way.

The brain is not predicting it's compressing.

[naasking]

> The brain is not predicting it's compressing

Compression requires prediction, therefore your brain requires prediction.

[dS0rrow]

Some form of prediction being used by the higher-level neurons doesn't make the brain a prediction engine.

[naasking]

I'm not sure who claimed the brain was a "predictive engine" or what that means exactly. The OP specifically referenced predictive coding which describes precisely what is meant, and has empirical support.

If you meant this as a comparison to machine learning, then a predictive coding model closely matches.

[stevenhuang]

The current prevailing theory in neuroscience is in fact the brain is a prediction engine.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictive_coding