always a little bit off

for awhile i led a small meditation group in a room that had a fairly noisy clock. for the most part i ignored the ticking of the clock. but i heard once that repetitive sounds can be insightful, so a few times i paid really close attention to both the sound and how my mind reacted to it.

the clock was fairly regular, but there was often a slight variation in the sound and timing of the second hand ticking.

from that i suspected that my mind was always slightly anticipating the sound, often comparing the anticipation with the experience, and then from that noting if things were expected or unexpected. if it did something different, that might be noteworthy enough to draw my attention.

that amazed me.

because it meant to make comparisons and determine “unexpectedness” my mind was constantly predicting and estimating what kind of experience i was about to have. then my mind compared its prediction to actual experience. all below my usual awareness.

my theory seems to have played out in more detail and rigor. last month some researchers at caltech and mit posited the we use a ‘forward model’ when planning motion. this allows, for example, baseball batters to swing at a ball that is too fast to perceive real time.

from my meditation experience, i suspect this kind of internal modeling is happening often and not just in planning motion. it might be that we’re interpolating most things, and then relating more to the mental model than to direct perception. but maybe i’m going too far with my idle conjecture? what do you think?

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