Predictive Processing and the New Science of Human Wellbeing

The picture of the human mind as an embodied prediction machine is now the dominant systems-level model in cognitive neuroscience. Grounded in these new (formally specifiable and empirically testable) cognitive scientific understandings, this project will begin to address some of the questions concerning human nature, character virtue, and routes to human flourishing. What mental attitudes and embodied skills are most conducive to human flourishing, why are these effective, and what practical implications does this have for the many ways we structure our own worlds and practices? By addressing these themes under the overarching umbrella of predictive processing we aim to reveal the shape of a new science of human wellbeing, and to explore how patterned practices, the human-built environment and the wider socio-technological niche can most positively (or negatively) impact our physical and mental health.

​This research project is being carried out across multiple projects, with various researchers, including Andy Clark (University of Sussex); Erik Rietveld (Amsterdam Medical Centre), Julian Kiverstein (Amsterdam Medical Centre), Maxwell Ramstead (McGill), and many more.

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