energies · IV / XX · Sphäre A · Werte & Stufen · All 20

Your brain builds the world — not the other way around.

Your sensory system takes in roughly 11 million bits per second. Arriving consciously: about 50. What happens to the rest is decided by three devices inside you — and none of them asks you first.

Do you know the moment when someone tells you something — and you do not hear it, because your head is on something else? You received the sound. You did not receive the world. Between sound and world sit devices.

I — Structure · Measurable

Predictive-coding models are now standard in computational neuroscience. EEG studies show Mismatch Negativity (MMN) as a neural signal for prediction errors. Replicable in infants from 4 months.

II — Flow · Tradition

Buddhism: "The world is mind-made" (Dhammapada Verse 1). Kant: forms of intuition, categories — we do not see the world but our filters. Indian Māyā doctrine: veil before the direct.

III — Breadth · Synthesis

What tradition described as "veil" can today be modelled as filter architecture. Meditation = filter-awareness. Psychedelics = temporary filter loosening. The devices become object instead of apparatus.

„Most perception is prediction, not reception.“

Perception filters · three inner devices

Predictive Coding

Your brain guesses the world before it arrives — and corrects only on mismatch. Most perception is prediction, not reception. Friston (2010) formalised it as the Free-Energy Principle.

→ Karl Friston · UCL · 2010–2025

Attention filter

Classical estimate (Zimmermann 1989, popularised by Nørretranders): your sensory system takes in roughly 11 million bits/s, of which only about 50 bits/s become conscious. The numbers are order-of-magnitude comparisons, not measurements — but the asymmetry is real. Selection is made by a network of salience region (right insula), DLPFC and attentional networks. You see what you seek.

→ Cohen, Posner · Attention Network Test · 2002–2024

Narrative layer

On top of perception and attention sits a third: your story about yourself. “That’s who I am” — and that filters again. Bruner (1991): narrative self. McAdams (2013): life-script as identity.

→ Bruner, McAdams · narrative psychology · 1991–2023

1 · Karl Friston · Free-Energy-Principle
2 · If nothing on this page surprised you: your prediction apparatus is working flawlessly.