Shifts in Experience

Shifts in Experience

Prediction Error Minimisation offers a way of understanding the human brain. It turns out it is of immense practical value in reducing human suffering.

When I see a cup, I can show the cup to others, thus validating my categorisation as “cup”. With inner experience, this validation is not possible. I cannot show my emotion to someone else. All they can see is the externals of that emotion, how I express it - they cannot experience the emotion itself. Thus, we are largely left alone to classify our inner experience, and it turns out, as human beings, we tend not to do a very good job of it.

The Odoki Method directly targets this fact. The aim of the method is to guide people to look at their experience and see ways in which they have made prediction errors. On seeing that a prediction is incorrect, the human brain cannot but respond by creating a new prediction - one that better explains the situation, given the new information.

These changes can be experienced as a “shift”. Something is different, whether small or large. Once a shift has occurred, the individual just needs to take time to adjust - to let new predictions form.

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