predictive theory

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 theory presents the brain as continually generating expectations about sensory input and correcting mismatches, rather than first passively receiving a finished world. Perception revises the forecast; action can change the input to meet it. AB emphasizes embodied readiness, while RB2 distinguishes related predictive approaches and their limits. This neural account neither defines all life nor settles anticipation beyond brains.

Explanation

AB reverses the familiar sensation-first picture. Predictions travel toward the senses, while mismatch returns to correct the working model. Walking in darkness and encountering a missing stair illustrate both smooth expectation and its failure. Action is not merely a later command: turning or reaching can help make expected sensory conditions occur. The models remain bodily readiness for coping, not a detached calculator's neutral descriptions.

RB2 develops a family of related but distinct approaches, including predictive coding, predictive processing and active inference. It adds precision-weighting and distinguishes variational from thermodynamic free energy. Hohwy's evidentiary boundary is taken seriously without treating it as causal imprisonment: Clark's bodily and environmental scaffolding remains important. The author's synthesis is an embodied, costly organ of anticipatory engagement, not a final explanation of mind.

The qualifications limit the scope of the entry. RB2 refuses to identify phenomenology with prediction-error minimization or to infer literal biological inference merely from an as-if model. AB likewise distinguishes anticipation from self-maintenance and predictive success from determinism. Generic forecasts, next-token prediction and cross-scale feedback comparisons therefore do not automatically belong to this neural theory.

Scope and attribution

Positive book ownership is AB and RB2. RB3's predictive-feedback analogy is related context, not sufficient evidence for the full theory. PB's next-token statement is a reproduced AI voice; RB1's predictive success concerns inquiry. The separate predictive processing and predictive coding identities remain unmerged.

AB — The Actual Book

AB presents the predictive reversal through ordinary perception and action: the brain forecasts, mismatch corrects it, and bodily movement can fulfill expectation. Its embodied interpretation rejects an inner calculator and preserves the distinction between anticipation, self-maintenance and metaphysical determinism.

Occurrence locators: 92, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103; Notes: 242.

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

RB2 supplies a differentiated theoretical family, hierarchical prediction/error flow, active inference and precision. It preserves Hohwy's inferential boundary alongside Clark's scaffolding, distinguishes kinds of free energy, and refuses both a reduction of phenomenology and an automatic identification of life with Bayesian inference.

Occurrence locators: 6, 7, 106, 107, 108, 109, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 124, 126, 134, 135, 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.