Inês Hipólito researches philosophy of mind and complexity. She lectures at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. We asked her what neuroscience says about orientation.
From Turing machines to active inference
Inês traces the path from Turing machines to active inference. The external environment shapes psychological experience, and the observer sets a system’s boundaries. Brains predict. Predictive coding and Bayesian inference explain how we sense the world.
Orientation as the Schwerpunkt
Inês explains why, in neuroscience terms, orientation is the Schwerpunkt, the focal point. Skilled performers such as Cristiano Ronaldo show what that looks like. Flow comes from an empty mind, mushin, and from being attuned to the environment.
Surprise and change
Living things adapt through niche construction while the second law of thermodynamics runs. Minimizing surprise is the goal. Counterfactuals and courses of action connect to the Free Energy Principle. People and organizations can get stuck in unhealthy patterns, and destruction and creation in Boyd’s sense frees them.
Inês gives orientation a scientific footing. It sits at the center of how we perceive and act.
Where is your organization stuck in a pattern that no longer fits its environment?
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Written by Ponch Rivera with AI assistance in production. The full conversation is in the player below.