To make a specific prediction, the brain must combine knowledge of the invariant structure with the most recent details.

The hippocampus is in the perfect position, at the top of the cortical pyramid, to remember what is novel.

If some of these synapses are active when your layer 2,3, and 5 cells fire, the synapses are strengthened. If this occurs often enough, these layer 1 synapses become strong enough to make the cells in layers 2,3, and 5 fire even when a layer 4 cell hasn’t fired—meaning parts of the column can become active without receiving input from a lower

Connections between neurons became modifiable. A neuron could send a signal or not send a signal, depending on what had happened recently. Behavior could now be modified within the life of an organism.

The cortex builds a model of your body but it can’t build a model of the brain itself. Your thoughts, which are located in the brain, are physically separate from the body and the rest of the world.

This bottom-up/top-down matching mechanism enables you to decide between two or more interpretations. And once you decide, you relay your interpretation to the region below.

“Here is the name of the sequence that I am hearing, seeing, or touching. You don’t need to know about the individual notes, edges, or texture. I will let you know if something new or unpredicted happens.”

We do, however, believe we are being creative when our memory-prediction system operates at a higher level of abstraction, when it makes uncommon predictions, using uncommon analogies.

It is because the story is stored in your head in a sequential fashion and can only be recalled in the same sequence.