Making Bets

I really liked this piece on how our brain is in a constant state of betting on the future in real time. The hed and dek sort of says it all: “Your brain doesn’t see reality — it tries to predict it” and “Our brains are gambling addicts placing bets on what reality holds. And sometimes, they bet wrong.”

He kicks off the excerpt (from a longer book) with a story that explains the concept, which boils down to that we don’t calmly observe all the facts before we start moving. We take in enough information and then make a bunch of assumptions. And sometimes our predictions are correct, sometimes they’re not, and sometimes we don’t know what we set into motion by our prediction that wouldn’t have happened if our brains worked differently.

He explains: “You start with a prediction, a top-down expectation of what your brain thinks it’s about to see. Then bottom-up incoming sensory data either confirms this prediction or updates it if things don’t fit. This is known as the predictive processing theory.”

If all of this is true, slowing down, waiting to take in information, and giving yourself time to assess the “bottom-up incoming sensory data” before acting would all point towards better outcomes. The slow and steady tortoise wins not because it keeps plodding on, but because it moves more slowly. It enables its brain to use the data before taking a wrong step.

Keep reading to the end. It gave me a lot of food for thought.