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Your Brain Hallucinates Your Conscious Reality | Anil Seth | TED

TED · 12M views · 2017-07-18 · 17:01

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Overview

Neuroscientist Anil Seth argues in this TED talk that perception is a controlled hallucination: the brain constantly predicts the world and our shared agreement is what we call reality. He also touches on the construction of the self.

On Hacker News

HN cites it whenever threads touch consciousness, perception or predictive-processing, especially for its examples of expectation changing what you perceive.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2017–2026

Topics

Consciousness & cognitionNeuroscience & the brain
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predictive processingneurosciencecontrolled hallucinationconsciousnessted talk

What people said

guerrilla · 2021-11 · Recommendation

This TED talk has a great example where the same sound sounds different to you based on what you expect to hear, if you need to prove this to yourself [1]. His thesis is also that the brain is a prediction machine. 1. [VIDEO]

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hcarvalhoalves · 2019-07 · Recommendation

I've recently watched this talk titled "Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality" [1] by Anil Seth, seems relevant to the topic. If you are intrigued by the question of the original article you might like the TED talk. [1] [VIDEO]

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psychoslave · 2026-01 · Reference

Like, "Your Brain Hallucinates Your Conscious Reality" as exposed by Anil Seth[1]? Found that one while searching for something like "the illusion of the self" a few years ago. It’s also easy to find this treated in various philosophy/religion through time and space. And anyway as consciousness is eager to project whatever looks like a possible fit, elements of suggesting prior arts can be inferred back as far as traces can be found. [1] [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by TED, played through YouTube.

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