#predictive adequacy

The Lucidity (hopefully Joy) of the Finite: Predictive Adequacy on an Entropic Horizon

Every gain in information increases the organism's capacity to negotiate with entropy, but it cannot abolish entropy itself. This capacity to deal with entropy is pleasure. That is a subtle but important difference. You had a terrible stomach ache which turned out to be an appendicitis attack The operation for appendicitis succeeds. Entropy has not been defeated. It has been postponed. Cancer is diagnosed early. Entropy has not been defeated. It has become more manageable. Vaccination. Nutrition. Medicine. Education. Science. Every one of these is an informational victory that improves the negotiation. None of them however cancels the Second Law.

This brings us back to Spinoza. If he had known predictive neuroscience, he might have rewritten the scholium like this: When the mind understands the cause of its suffering, it acquires a more adequate predictive model of reality. This increases its capacity to regulate its future actions. Although the bodily disturbance may remain, the confusion surrounding it diminishes. The increase in effective regulation constitutes an increase in the mind's power, even if the organism continues to face finite and ultimately mortal conditions.

This is more or less the translation of prop.18, 5. There is one more point that is worth emphasizing. Suffering is not one thing. This example with appendix shows there are at least two distinct components. The first is the disturbance itself. The inflamed appendix, the cancer, the injury. The second is the uncertainty surrounding the disturbance. "What is happening? What should I do? Am I safe? What comes next?"

Spinoza saw the second component with remarkable clarity. Modern neuroscience explains why reducing uncertainty is so powerful. But we are stubborn and insist on the first component. Sometimes reality itself remains tragic even after uncertainty disappears. That is not a failure of understanding. It is a feature of living in a finite organism subject to entropy. That is the point where the above interpretation both preserves Spinoza's central insight and extends it. His "joy" becomes, in modern language, an increase in regulatory power through better prediction. Whether that increase is accompanied by happiness depends on what reality actually is. Sometimes reality rewards understanding with recovery. Sometimes it rewards understanding only with lucidity. Both are increases in adequacy, but they are not emotionally equivalent.