The Backward Step

What if the self isn't a thing but a model? In this episode, we follow the predictive processing framework to its most radical conclusion: the self as a particularly persistent, heavily weighted prior that the brain runs to organize everything else. We explore what happens when meditation begins to loosen that model  from Focused Attention to Open Monitoring to the non-dual states that contemplative traditions have described for centuries. Along the way, we look at what neuroscience says about those states, why psychedelic-assisted therapy and deep meditation appear to be working on the same system, and what enlightenment might actually mean in computational terms. We close with a question about pain, suffering, and a Zen master who one day decided to burn all his books.

Show Notes:

• Paper discussed: "From Many to N-one: Meditation and the Plasticity of the Predictive Mind" — Laukkonen & Slagter (2021), Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
• Concepts covered: self-model, Default Mode Network, non-dual states, Radical Plasticity, psychedelic-assisted therapy, enlightenment as low prior strength, pain vs. suffering
• The Backward Step is hosted by Anuj Ansal, LCPC, a practicing psychotherapist in Chicago, IL

What if everything you perceive is your brain’s best guess not reality itself? In this first episode, we explore a 2021 paper by Ruben Laukkonen and Heleen Slagter that bridges cutting-edge neuroscience with ancient contemplative wisdom, and finds they’ve been describing the same thing from opposite directions.

We cover the Predictive Processing framework the idea that your brain is a prediction machine, sealed in darkness, running a controlled hallucination we call reality. We trace what this means for consciousness, for suffering, for the Default Mode Network, and for the self. And we follow the thread all the way through to what meditation actually does, mechanically, to the architecture of the mind and why that matters for depression, anxiety, and the therapeutic process.

Paper Referenced: “From Many to N-one: Meditation and the Plasticity of the Predictive Mind”  Laukkonen & Slagter, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 2021.

Topics: Predictive Processing · Bayesian Brain · Default Mode Network · Focused Attention · Open Monitoring · Radical Plasticity · Ego dissolution · Psychedelics & therapy · Dukkha · Dogen · Therapy · ACT Therapy · Mindfulness · Meditation

Show Notes:

• Paper discussed: "From Many to N-one: Meditation and the Plasticity of the Predictive Mind" — Laukkonen & Slagter (2021), Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
• Concepts covered: self-model, Default Mode Network, non-dual states, Radical Plasticity, psychedelic-assisted therapy, enlightenment as low prior strength, pain vs. suffering
• The Backward Step is hosted by Anuj Ansal, LCPC, a practicing psychotherapist in Chicago, IL