Editorial: Predictive Processing and Consciousness

Predictive Processing (henceforth PP) is a recent, exciting framework emerging at the crossroads of cognitive science, statistical modeling and philosophy of mind (Friston 2005, 2010). Informed by recent developments in computational neuroscience and Bayesian psychology, it offers a paradigm shifting approach to studying cognition, often being presented as “the first truly unifying account of perception, cognition and action” (Clark 2015, p. 2). Its highly ambitious character is expressed in Jakob Hohwy’s statement that it postulates only one mechanism which has the potential to “explain perception and action and everything mental in between” (Hohwy, 2013, p. 1). The account has already been successfully applied to a rich variety of mental phenomena, but only recently have philosophers and psychologists begun to apply it to one of the more mysterious aspects of mind, namely, consciousness. This special issue assembles some of the leading experts on the predictive processing paradigm and discusses some of its prospects and problems in this regard. In this introduction, we first sketch the explanatory framework and introduce some of the key recurring notions in this context. We then lay out some of the tasks arising from the goal of addressing consciousness with it, distinguishing those pertaining to different aspects (or kinds or concepts) of consciousness. We then provide an overview of the main ideas of the papers.