In the same way that “redness“ is the subjective aspect of brain-based predictions about how some surfaces reflect light, emotions and moods or the subjective aspects of predictions about the causes of interoceptive signals. They are internally driven forms of controlled hallucination. […] The final, and crucial, step in the beast machine theory is to recognize that from this starting point, everything else follows. We are not the best machines of Descartes, for whom life was irrelevant to mind. It is exactly the opposite. ALL of our perceptions and experiences, whether of the self or of the world, ALL are inside-out controlled and controlling hallucinations that are rooted in the flesh-and-blood predictive machinery that evolved, develops, and operates from moment to moment always in light of a fundamental biological drive to stay alive. 

We are conscious beast machines, through and through

(p. 187, 190)

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