The final challenge was to see that the predictive machinery of conscious perception has its origin and primary function not in representing the world or the body, but in the control and regulation of our physiological condition. The totality of our perceptions and cognitions—the whole panorama of human experience and mental life—is sculpted by a deep-seated biological drive to stay alive. We perceive the world around us, and ourselves within it, with, through, and because of our living bodies.
