Being You

About This Book

Being You by Anil Seth explores his theory of consciousness and the self. Seth proposes that perception does not happen outside-in, with external physical signals being detected and processed to constitute our view of the world, but rather inside-out, with the brain constantly generating predictions of sensory inputs and only registering surprises. According to Seth, consciousness arises from the brain's "predictive processing" of the world, whereby it constantly generates hypotheses about the causes of its own sensory inputs. Our sense of self and subjective experience emerge from the brain's attempts to unify and explain the multisensory information it receives. The book examines how this predictive model of the brain can account for phenomena like qualia, delusions, and altered states of consciousness. Seth also discusses the implications of this view for understanding animal consciousness as well as the potential for machines to develop consciousness.