In The Expectation Effect, David Robson writes of the brain’s predictive function:
“According to an increasing number of neuroscientists, the brain is a ‘prediction machine’ that constructs an elaborate simulation of the world, based as much on its expectations and previous experiences as on the raw data hitting the senses. For most people, most of the time these simulations coincide with objective reality, but they can sometimes stray far from what is actually in the physical world” (12). *
To predict accurately, the brain has to start with precise memories. They are the foundation of expectation; they prime the brain for what is to come. When memory is faulty, the prediction machine fails us. Robson quotes neuroscientist Moshe Bar of Bar-Ilan University in Israel: “‘We see what we predict, rather than what’s out there’” (13).
Joe Biden. Need I elaborate? Okay, then… During his “It’s-mostly-about-me” commencement address at West Point, Biden said he was accepted but turned down an appointment to the Naval Academy. There’s no record of such an appointment, just as there is no record of his having, as he said, three degrees or of graduating at or near the top of his class, of driving a “big rig,” or of some other personal stories like conversations that could never have occurred, like one with French President Mitterrand dead 25 years before the conversation supposedly took place or with the Amtrak train conductor, also deceased before their talk. With regard to his claim about his ranking high among students at Syracuse, fact-checkers have revealed his standing at #76 out of 85 classmates. False memories? Outright lies?
Biden’s numerous falsehoods are rather well documented, so there’s little to be gained by enumerating all of them here. Instead, the focus here is on his brain’s predictive ability and its alignment with realities.
The role of memory in assessing the present is a topic I have mentioned with regard to the eyes’ blindspot. We see with a brain that fills in details not visible to us as we scan a scene. We don’t need all the actual currently available visible details to recognize faces and places we have previously encountered. Does the brain make mistakes in this? Of course: “Oh! Sorry. I thought you were someone else.” But the brain usually serves us well in this regard. We can distinguish among similar people, such as relatives and even between twins. But the key lies in accurate or nearly accurate memories.
Biden’s numerous falsehoods are rather well documented, so there’s little to be gained by enumerating them here. Instead, the focus here is on his brain’s predictive ability and its alignment with realities.
Why Keep Appeasing Iran?
Apparently, Biden’s—like Obama’s—releasing billions of dollars to the Iranian theocracy committed to “death to America” is based on a prediction not founded on experience, that is, on accurate memory. No previous appeasement strategy has worked to mitigate Iran’s disruptive terrorism. The recent release of six billion dollars to the regime shows an alignment out of touch with reality. Just as the Obama/Biden Administration’s nuclear deal met with subterfuge and obfuscation and attacks through Iranian intermediaries, so any prediction that favors a positive expectation is doomed to failure from the start. Yet, Biden will continue to hold expectations not in alignment with reality. Thus, the recent condolences sent to Iran on the death of its president, the “butcher of Tehran,” Raisi.
Why Keep Insisting on EVs?
There is no evidence that America’s switching to carbon neutralism by 2050 will do anything whatsoever to offset the rate of temperature change (supposedly upward) across the planet. No one can quantify the percent of change effected by green tech. In the interim and because of his predictions, America’s energy, the most fundamental reason for the country’s rise to world dominance over the past two centuries, will fail to keep abreast of needs, America’s dependence on outside sources of rare earths and strategic metals will increase, and pollutants associated with “green energy tech” will become a growing environmental threat. Additionally, his expectations that countries like Russia and China will act in world interests and not their own interests, are similarly rooted in faulty memory or in the fog of false and fictional memories.
Will the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars do what Biden predicts? What if, as meteorologist John Shewchuk argues, any current or future rise in temperature is part of an ongoing two-millennia Bray/Hallstatt Cycle ** or 976-year Eddy Cycle related to the ending of the Little Ice Age? Will Biden’s commitment to de-carbonizing America generate the expectations he predicts? And what if, upon looking back in 2050, America finds that extrapolated data—NOAA’s estimates on temperatures derived from U.S. Historical Climatology Network stations that do not exist—provided a biased record over decades? What if Biden’s “existential threat is no more real than his numerous fabrications?
Predictions based on falsehoods are as useful as wings on an ostrich.
Here’s My Prediction
Experience informs my prediction. Biden will continue to expect a world unsupported by past realities.
*Robson, David. (2022)The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World. New York. Holt.
**BRAY, J. Glaciation and Solar Activity since the Fifth Century BC and the Solar Cycle. Nature 220, 672–674 (1968). https://doi.org/10.1038/220672a0
“According to an increasing number of neuroscientists, the brain is a ‘prediction machine’ that constructs an elaborate simulation of the world, based as much on its expectations and previous experiences as on the raw data hitting the senses. For most people, most of the time these simulations coincide with objective reality, but they can sometimes stray far from what is actually in the physical world” (12). *
To predict accurately, the brain has to start with precise memories. They are the foundation of expectation; they prime the brain for what is to come. When memory is faulty, the prediction machine fails us. Robson quotes neuroscientist Moshe Bar of Bar-Ilan University in Israel: “‘We see what we predict, rather than what’s out there’” (13).
Joe Biden. Need I elaborate? Okay, then… During his “It’s-mostly-about-me” commencement address at West Point, Biden said he was accepted but turned down an appointment to the Naval Academy. There’s no record of such an appointment, just as there is no record of his having, as he said, three degrees or of graduating at or near the top of his class, of driving a “big rig,” or of some other personal stories like conversations that could never have occurred, like one with French President Mitterrand dead 25 years before the conversation supposedly took place or with the Amtrak train conductor, also deceased before their talk. With regard to his claim about his ranking high among students at Syracuse, fact-checkers have revealed his standing at #76 out of 85 classmates. False memories? Outright lies?
Biden’s numerous falsehoods are rather well documented, so there’s little to be gained by enumerating all of them here. Instead, the focus here is on his brain’s predictive ability and its alignment with realities.
The role of memory in assessing the present is a topic I have mentioned with regard to the eyes’ blindspot. We see with a brain that fills in details not visible to us as we scan a scene. We don’t need all the actual currently available visible details to recognize faces and places we have previously encountered. Does the brain make mistakes in this? Of course: “Oh! Sorry. I thought you were someone else.” But the brain usually serves us well in this regard. We can distinguish among similar people, such as relatives and even between twins. But the key lies in accurate or nearly accurate memories.
Biden’s numerous falsehoods are rather well documented, so there’s little to be gained by enumerating them here. Instead, the focus here is on his brain’s predictive ability and its alignment with realities.
Why Keep Appeasing Iran?
Apparently, Biden’s—like Obama’s—releasing billions of dollars to the Iranian theocracy committed to “death to America” is based on a prediction not founded on experience, that is, on accurate memory. No previous appeasement strategy has worked to mitigate Iran’s disruptive terrorism. The recent release of six billion dollars to the regime shows an alignment out of touch with reality. Just as the Obama/Biden Administration’s nuclear deal met with subterfuge and obfuscation and attacks through Iranian intermediaries, so any prediction that favors a positive expectation is doomed to failure from the start. Yet, Biden will continue to hold expectations not in alignment with reality. Thus, the recent condolences sent to Iran on the death of its president, the “butcher of Tehran,” Raisi.
Why Keep Insisting on EVs?
There is no evidence that America’s switching to carbon neutralism by 2050 will do anything whatsoever to offset the rate of temperature change (supposedly upward) across the planet. No one can quantify the percent of change effected by green tech. In the interim and because of his predictions, America’s energy, the most fundamental reason for the country’s rise to world dominance over the past two centuries, will fail to keep abreast of needs, America’s dependence on outside sources of rare earths and strategic metals will increase, and pollutants associated with “green energy tech” will become a growing environmental threat. Additionally, his expectations that countries like Russia and China will act in world interests and not their own interests, are similarly rooted in faulty memory or in the fog of false and fictional memories.
Will the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars do what Biden predicts? What if, as meteorologist John Shewchuk argues, any current or future rise in temperature is part of an ongoing two-millennia Bray/Hallstatt Cycle ** or 976-year Eddy Cycle related to the ending of the Little Ice Age? Will Biden’s commitment to de-carbonizing America generate the expectations he predicts? And what if, upon looking back in 2050, America finds that extrapolated data—NOAA’s estimates on temperatures derived from U.S. Historical Climatology Network stations that do not exist—provided a biased record over decades? What if Biden’s “existential threat is no more real than his numerous fabrications?
Predictions based on falsehoods are as useful as wings on an ostrich.
Here’s My Prediction
Experience informs my prediction. Biden will continue to expect a world unsupported by past realities.
*Robson, David. (2022)The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World. New York. Holt.
**BRAY, J. Glaciation and Solar Activity since the Fifth Century BC and the Solar Cycle. Nature 220, 672–674 (1968). https://doi.org/10.1038/220672a0
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