[bubblyworld]

Something that strikes me about this model is that it's bottom up - sensory data feeds in in its entirety, the action centre processes everything, makes a decision, sends a command to the motor centre.

There's a theory that real brains subvert this, and what we perceive is actually our internal model of our self/environment. The only data that makes it through from our sense organs is the difference between the two.

This kind of top-down processing is more efficient energy-wise but I wonder if it's deeper than that? You can view perception and action as two sides of the same coin - both are ways to modify your internal model to better fit the sensory signals you expect.

Anyway, I guess the point I'm making is you should be careful which way you point your arrows, and of designating a single aspect of a mind (the action centre) as fundamental. Reality might work very differently, and that maybe says something? I don't know haha.

[gnz11]

I think you are correct. My understanding is that the brain uses sense data just to confirm predictions it has already made. The model in which the brain is just reacting to incoming sense data is outdated from what I understand.

[cootsnuck]

Correct. At least that's what current research is pointing to. Makes sense from an efficiency standpoint as well. We forget how "messy" / "noisy" our minds' conceptions of reality are. We use heuristics for a lot of things, we rely on applicable, learnable patterns. And our brains seem to be well suited to this more "artistic" interpretation of reality which biases our perception of sensations.