Keen On

The human brain is so unbelievably complex that we barely understand its most basic functions. According to the British neuroscientist Daniel Yon, our brains - which some speculate are the most mysteriously complicated things in the universe - might even have minds of their own. In his latest book, A Trick of the Mind, Yon argues that our brains quite literally create our own realities. So is all reality entirely subjective, then? Not quite. Yon describes the brain as functioning like a scientist, constantly generating predictive models based on past experiences to interpret ambiguous sensory data. Rather than passively receiving information, we actively construct our perceptions through these mental frameworks. This isn't pure subjectivity, though—it's what he calls a "duet" between external stimuli and internal predictions. Our brains need these biases and preconceptions to make any sense of the world's overwhelming complexity. Without them, we'd be lost in what Yon calls "chaotic, volatile, unstable myster