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Scratching an itch through the scalp to the brain

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item type
quotation
link
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/30/the-itch
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attribution
Scratching an itch through the scalp to the brain, by Atul Gawande
journal
NewYorker.com
year
2012
month
May 9

The full quote/excerpt

The account of perception that’s starting to emerge is what we might call the “brain’s best guess” theory of perception: perception is the brain’s best guess about what is happening in the outside world. The mind integrates scattered, weak, rudimentary signals from a variety of sensory channels, information from past experiences, and hard-wired processes, and produces a sensory experience full of brain-provided color, sound, texture, and meaning. We see a friendly yellow Labrador bounding behind a picket fence not because that is the transmission we receive but because this is the perception our weaver-brain assembles as its best hypothesis of what is out there from the slivers of information we get. Perception is inference.

Shortened version of the quote

Perception is the brain’s best guess about what is happening in the outside world. Perception is inference.

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