Listening

We imagine that we are listening to each other, to the world, to ourselves. But much of what passes for listening is not listening at all — it’s predicting, interpreting, defending, and preparing to reply. The mind, as Philip Glass so vividly puts it, is full of racket. The composer describes this internal noise as a "crowd of ninety-five lunatics" and a "tyrant-censor" standing guard, filtering and distorting whatever comes in. This is not far from what neuroscientists call the predictive mind.