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John Jason Light's avatar

One of the human superpowers is that we have a brain capable of holding Popper and Bayes. We seem to be unique among animals in having two different and complementary ways of viewing and processing the world.

I speak of the hemispheres, which for most of life’s existence were a way to eat safely. (One side looking for food while the other side looks for predators.)

Since humans have twice as many neurons as just about any other animal, we have chosen instead to hold two ways of thinking about the world in the two hemispheres.

The right hemisphere sees the world through a Bayesian lens, just as every other being’s brain does. The left hemisphere sees the world through a Popper lens, which no other being’s brain does.

So the human brain is the best of both worlds, and this is also why each side can claim their side is correct.

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John MacIntosh's avatar

Thanks for this .. how fundamental yet seemingly unloved a topic. This is literally the sh!t that keeps me up at night, lol.

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