The immune mind

“The Immune Mind” is about the bidirectional relationship between the immune system and the mind. In that, the book is very similar to “The Biology of Belief.” It discusses the need to shift from Western medicine to Eastern medicine, such as Ayurveda or Chinese medicine. Also, a version of “The body”. The complexity of the systems in our body. The immune-brain loop. Hidden anatomy (we still do not understand many things in our bodies). And how intelligent our internal systems are. For example, smell and sight as super sensors of disease.

Exteroception, interoception and predictive processing

At its core, predictive processing posits that our brain generates a model of the outside world, which it constantly builds on and updates. What you just perceived was not reality but instead your brain’s inference — its best guess — of what it expected to see. Predictive processing is actually a rational, clever and extremely energy-efficient way of running a processing machine. Predicting and adjusting is better than constantly reacting.

Feelings

Feelings that stem from inside your body — such as from your heart or your intestines — are your brain’s best guess of the state of your internal world. Just like exteroception, interoception is the predictive brain trying to make meaning from the mess of sensory information. Emotions are goal-directed, the…