The Brain Is Not a Spectator
The boundary between self and environment is porous, possibly illusory. You are not a mind looking out at reality from behind glass.
Herbert Simon argued that memory should be considered part of the environment, not separate from it. The brain doesn’t operate within the world — it’s part of the world.
This is a subtle shift with large implications. You aren’t a mind looking out at reality from behind glass. The boundary between self and environment is porous, possibly illusory. What you’ve experienced, learned, and remembered isn’t stored inside you and then applied to the world. It is the world, partially.
The Buddhists said something like this two and a half millennia earlier.