Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference. | Quanta Magazine

Behind the scenes, our sensory areas ceaselessly compute with probabilities, and only the most likely model makes it into our consciousness. It is the brain’s projections that ultimately give meaning to the flow of data that reaches us from our senses.

seem. They are not photographs of the brain in action in real time.

The world we experience as ‘out there’ is actually a reconstruction of reality that is built inside our heads. It’s an act of creation by the storytelling brain.

The human mind perceives, forms concepts, learns, makes judgements, feels emotions, uses language, remembers, invents, dreams, desires. How can so much complexity be captured in a single image? Clearly, some aspects of mental life must be prioritised at the expense of others. But which ones? And after those choices have been made, does the 'picture