What about even longer-term goals and projects? These are not so very different, except that we must now minimize prediction errors in a yet more abstract and temporally extended space. If I plan to become a better surfer, my brain needs to make the “realistic-yet-optimistic” prediction that I will indeed later be such a surfer. With that goal (long-term prediction) active, I can use what I know about how things work in the world to identify important steps along the way, generating a policy that might—according to my current skill set and personal circumstances—include moving to the coast,
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