WEBSITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION - BETA VERSION, PAGES STILL MISSING!
This work is licensed under
CC BY-SA 4.0
: also see my full Copyright statement.
Expectation and Anticipate are means by which we map the past onto the
possible future so as to be best prepared. The normal Living environment
tends to be predictable-enough and have recognisable signs and rhythms that
make anticipation a pretty accurate survival tool.
The ability to move goes hand-in hand with the sensory capacity to know whether we are in the right place (and a direction for the right place), and an expectation of what might be there – usually based on some kind of memory. Thus, movement, sensing, meaning-making, navigation through space with some kind of reference system, expectation and memory are all interdependent capacities.
Expectation is not a memory of previous experience, but rather a memory of previous meaning-making. Expectation is a useful trait because it provides the means for Gestalts to work. If we did not (unconsciously) expect our world to be lit from above (and not from below) then we would not be able to quickly interpret lighter, brighter (but not too bright) patches of the visual field as being "on top" and darker ones as being "below" or "inside". So expectation is a shorthand means to respond quickly to the environment and as such a useful survival trait. Expectation arises because all living organisms attempt to predict the immediate future so as to be ready to respond to it. Homeostatic feedback loops would escalate and explode (or implode) if they did not employ some form of damping based on a prediction of the most likely future. You can only catch a ball because you are able to anticipate its trajectory and have your hand in exactly the right place in the right shape and angle at the right moment. Anything that is capable of movement (including a single cell moving itself with a single flagellum) only moves because it expects the movement will take it to a better place than the one it is in already – otherwise the motion would be an energy-depleting survival liability.
It is possible to expect good stuff, bad stuff, be in a neutral open state (not expecting anything but being open to whatever arises, which is only possible when we feel "safe-enough"), or to be in a state of dis-interest and disengagement (boredom). Neutral engaged expectation is a state of exploration – a Right-cortex activity – which occupies an interesting behavioural position in which the dominant expectation is positive anticipation, but there is also a slight and variable awareness that safety is less than 100%. If this potential non-safety rose to a certain threshold, then we would cease exploration and enter a Left-cortical survival state. Boredom is a lassitude arising from disengagement (which may simply arise through an environment that is itself insufficiently complex or curiosity-stimulating). In the Living world, this kind of disengagement is only possible in safety for well-fed apex predators, but it also arises as a result of systemic overwhelm – i.e. when the world is so unremittingly unsafe that it is necessary to disengage in order to have some respite.
Expectation of possible futures is always slightly skewed towards survival physiology (see "Plan A/Plan B" below). Boredom of any kind induces a mild "survival" state – either restlessness or lassitude. Anticipation may be experienced as excitement (if the expectation is of something "good") or anxiety (if the expectation is of something "bad") – with the initial interoceptive experience of emotion being exactly the same. In contrast, contentment, appreciation, gratitude, love, and other similar emotive states tend to be more centred around the present moment.
