The brain, as Lisa Feldman Barrett shows, is a prediction machine—forever forecasting and assembling from educated guesses. It’s narrative as survival. Large language models mirror this, stringing together probable words to simulate coherence.
But meditation breaks the loop. It halts the brain’s automatic storytelling, interrupts the fiction of certainty, and calls us back to sensation—to perception before prediction. Like Wittgenstein’s call to free philosophy from the snares of language, meditation frees consciousness from the tyranny of anticipation.
I’ve always appreciated the spontaneous answers that pop out when people ask me questions. It leads to responses that it’s hard to manufacture on your own.
But it was rare. You’d have to wait for an interview, some client work or a thoughtful friend to show up.
Until now. Open your AI of choice (I used 4o in this example) and share an idea you’re interested in. Tell it to ask you 4 questions.