#129 – Lisa Feldman Barrett: Counterintuitive Ideas About How the Brain Works
Oct 4, 2020
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Lisa Feldman Barrett, a groundbreaking neuroscientist and psychologist, shares fascinating insights into how our brains process emotions. She challenges the traditional views of emotional origins, explaining that emotions are constructed through context and experience. The discussion touches on the brain as a predictive engine, the role of empathy in human interactions, and the complexities of emotional perception. Barrett also explores how these insights relate to societal issues, emphasizing the importance of kindness in a polarized world.
The brain's main function is to predict and correct its predictions based on sensory data, not just react to stimuli.
Proper brain development requires diverse sensory experiences, including social interaction.
The brain's perception of reality is limited by its sensory input and internal model.
Dreams and psychedelic experiences offer insights into the brain's internal model and can provide new perspectives on reality.
Deep dives
The Brain's Predictive Nature
The brain constantly predicts and interprets information from the body and the external world. It creates an internal model based on past experience and uses it to anticipate future events. The brain's main function is not to react to stimuli, but to predict and correct its predictions based on incoming sensory data.
Wiring the Brain through Sensory Input
The brain requires sensory input from the environment to wire itself properly. This includes not only physical input but also social interaction. Without appropriate sensory input, brain development may be impaired. Humans need a variety of sensory experiences to thrive, and diversity is essential for brain function.
The Brain's Limited Perception of Reality
The brain's perception of reality is limited to the sensory information it receives. It constructs an internal model of reality based on statistical regularities and past experiences. However, there may be a much bigger and richer reality that humans with their cognitive capabilities are not perceiving. The brain's understanding of reality is constrained by its sensory input and its internal model.
The Role of Dreams and Psychedelics
Dreams and psychedelic experiences provide insights into the brain's internal model. During sleep, the brain's control network is relaxed, allowing for unconstrained predictions and experiences. Psychedelics, by altering sensory perceptions, may temporarily disrupt the brain's internal model and offer new perspectives on reality.
The brain constructs concepts to make predictions about emotions and the world.
The brain constructs concepts to make predictions about emotions and the world. It uses past experiences to create categories or concepts, which serve as predictions for future situations. These concepts can change based on the situation and are continuously constructed by the brain. Emotions are constructed instances of these concepts, and their content can vary depending on the context. The brain's predictions of internal bodily changes, motor actions, and sensory experiences contribute to the construction of emotions and our perception of the world.
Conceptual categories are based on functional features rather than physical features.
Conceptual categories are based on functional features rather than physical features. Unlike classical categories, which have a fixed set of necessary and sufficient features, conceptual categories are formed by the most typical instances of a category that share functional similarities. The brain constructs these categories on the fly, considering the specific situation and function at hand. This flexibility in concept formation allows for more diverse and abstract categories to emerge, such as ad hoc concepts that serve a specific function despite lacking shared physical features.
Empathy requires effort and foraging for novel information.
Empathy requires effort and foraging for novel information. To empathize with someone who is different from us, we need to invest resources in exploring their experiences and perspectives. This expenditure is metabolically costly, as it requires us to depart from our internal model and predictions. However, empathy is essential for our social relationships, as humans have socially dependent nervous systems. By empathizing and understanding others, we can also enhance our own body budgets and promote social cohesion.
Romantic love and social attachment are crucial for regulating our nervous systems.
Romantic love and social attachment play a vital role in regulating our nervous systems. Humans are socially dependent and rely on social connections to manage their body budgets. Engaging in social attachment through love and connectedness helps regulate and wire our developing brains and body budgets from infancy. Romantic love, specifically, is a deeply attachment-oriented phenomenon that contributes to our overall well-being and the functioning of our body budgets.
Lisa Feldman Barrett is a neuroscientist, psychologist, and author. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
00:00 – Introduction
06:35 – Are we alone in the universe?
08:03 – Life on Earth
12:55 – Collective intelligence of human brains
21:43 – Triune brain
27:52 – The predicting brain
35:48 – How the brain evolved
41:47 – Free will
50:40 – Is anything real?
1:03:13 – Dreams
1:09:00 – Emotions are human-constructed concepts
1:34:29 – Are women more emotional than men?
1:43:05 – Empathy
2:14:46 – Love
2:18:40 – Mortality
2:20:16 – Meaning of life
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