Predictive Paradigm: The Physics of Intention (pt. IV)
How Our Minds Torture Us Into Our Best Future
In our previous post on the “Octopus of Attention,” we explored how attention—both fluid and multi-faceted—keeps our predictive engine alive and reactive. Now, we turn toward intention. If attention is the flashlight illuminating what’s relevant in each moment, intention is the bright star we set out in the distance, continually reorienting ourselves to it—shaping our actions, mindset, and even body to move toward it. And in so doing, we allow the future to reach into the present and shape our actions.
Intention (goals, targets, plans, wishes, desires) feels so natural that we may easily gloss over them. Of course we set goals. Of course they motivate us to change. So what? What I am attempting to do in this series is not to repeat the obvious, but to build our understanding how a predictive system naturally evolves from the ground up in the human form. An understanding of why intention is an inevitable part of our intelligence and how we can leverage it far beyond obvious goal-setting. So let's start from the ground up.
Picture yourself running along a familiar trail—maybe it's through a park. Your pace is steady, your breathing rhythmic, yet each step meets resistance—heavy legs, burning lungs, internal protests. And despite these sensations, you continue forward, drawn by something intangible ahead of you—a destination not fixed in space, but placed intentionally by you, somewhere in your future, somewhere in your self. A part of your self is fixed, just ahead, and the rest attempts to align itself through action. It's somewhat painful, but it works. Let's dissect why.
Intention as Tension
Notice that the very word “intention” carries its own hint: tension. The moment we say “I plan to do this,” we create a force field inside ourselves, a subtle pull from within. A stable part of us anchors itself in the future—"out there," somewhere—and our entire predictive machinery, body included, reshapes itself around this anchor.
Back to running: You set the intention—"I will run for thirty minutes." Immediately, your predictive system imagines a future state where you're running comfortably. Yet your current physical state isn't aligned with this vision, creating predictive tension—a mismatch your system seeks to resolve. Your body responds to this tension through small adaptations: legs begin moving, breathing deepens, heart rate rises. Over time, repeatedly experiencing this tension reshapes muscles, metabolism, and neural pathways, gradually aligning your current self with the future you continually predict.
Alas, it’s the torture we nurture for our future.
Intention as Predictive Model
Sometimes it’s tempting to think an intention is just a quick phrase—“I’ll get in shape” or “I’ll spend more time writing.” But each of these statements hides a vast landscape of beliefs, emotions, and assumptions. Declaring, “I will run a half-marathon,” might mean you see yourself joining the ranks of “real runners.” Notice:
Who am I becoming? A runner, an athlete, a disciplined individual? (Identity-shaping)
Am I driven by health, joy, challenge, or competition? What if I fail? (Emotional associations)
Who am I trying to mimic? Who am I trying to beat or impress? (Mimetic influence)
How is my body responding to this goal? Every physiological system—muscles, hormones, vascular responses—begin aligning itself with this future state. (Body-level predictions)
All of that is folded into the predictive model we call “intention.” And this opens up a whole playground. When you dare to ask "Why do I want to run a half-marathon?", you might end up with a very different life trajectory. Perhaps boldness takes you to ultra marathons across the Sahara, or, maybe what you really want is a profound freedom in your body, that can only be reached through dance. Or you arrive at an intention to radically shift your life's rhythm altogether. When you boldly open your subconscious predictive model, intentions no longer just reinforce familiar directions; they open up unimagined futures.
Playing with Metaphors
One of the intriguing ways to strengthen intention is by experimenting with metaphors. Instead of just “running,” you might imagine yourself being carried forward by wind at your back, or see a star on the horizon you’re magnetically drawn toward, or visualize yourself transforming into a panther on the prowl. Each metaphor tweaks your internal predictions about how you move, what running feels like, and how your body rallies its energy. Sometimes, simply viewing your intention as a joyful pull rather than a grim duty can transform the experience from drudgery to delight. Different goals invite further metaphors: Instead of imagining intention as movement toward a point, we might conceptualize it as expansion—like a growing tree. We might also think of intentions as creating gravitational wells in our predictive landscape, where the deeper the well, the stronger the pull.
The Inevitable Evolution of Intention
Predictive systems operate by anticipating what comes next. But anticipation alone isn’t sufficient. Imagine a system without intention—it would endlessly react, forever adjusting but never truly progressing. It would exist in a loop, adapting but directionless, efficient yet purposeless. This is the life of bacteria.
Valence changes the story. In predictive-processing terms, the mind uses a single “world model” composed of priors—basic assumptions about how things work and which states are good or safe. When valence is baked into these priors, the system doesn’t just predict what will happen, it also weighs how much it wants certain outcomes. “If I read 100 books this year, will it bring me joy or progress?” The same machinery that forecasts the stove’s heat can rank potential futures by desirability.
Finishing a marathon, mastering a skill—our predictive engine doesn’t just wait to see if these come to pass. The moment we glimpse a resonant goal, the rest of the self adapts: habits rearrange, posture shifts, emotions align to close the gap between now and that chosen tomorrow. No extra modules are needed; the same error-correction loop that handles “What will I see next?” pivotally addresses “Which future do I want most—and how do I get there?”
Who Set My Intentions?
Perhaps the most profound question in this exploration is: what is the part of us that sets the intention in the first place? If our entire being is a predictive system, what allows one aspect of that system to establish a fixed point that the rest reorganizes around?
This capacity for one part of our predictive apparatus to transcend its local domain and establish a broader organizing principle may be what we experience as agency or will. It's not separate from the predictive system but perhaps an emergent property of its complexity—the ability of predictions to fold back upon themselves and establish new predictive horizons.
Intention, then, is not merely goal-setting. It's the establishment of creative tension within our predictive systems—a tension that catalyzes reorganization across multiple layers of being.
The runner who continues despite fatigue isn't simply overriding discomfort through willpower. They're engaged in a complex predictive dance where one part of their predictive system has established a fixed point that reverberates throughout the whole, creating a tension field that transforms movement, physiology, and eventually identity.
Understanding intention this way reveals its profound creative power. By consciously establishing predictive fixed points and experimenting with different metaphorical frameworks for how these points interact with our broader predictive systems, we gain unprecedented agency in our own becoming.
(Caveat emptor: Evolution likely modified our priors to boost the survival instinct, sex drive, and social cohesion. More on these here and here.)
Bringing It All Together
Ultimately, intention is fundamental to prediction: it is how prediction evolves into a purposeful, directional, and self-evolving loop. Without intention, prediction is just adaptation without aim. By predicting where we want to go, we allow our future ambitions to call the shots in the present. Yes, it creates tension. Yes, the road can be uncomfortable. But that very friction is the fuel of momentum, and momentum is the fuel of growth.
In the next instalment, we’ll explore another fundamental aspect of the predictive mind: what we call the self, and its seeming opposite - meditative states of no self. For now, experiment: set an intention—big or small—and watch how your mind and body rearrange themselves in response. Notice the early detail: How your mind brings about the first step of a run. How it feels to have an obscenely bold dream. Whether you sense it as a pull from ahead or a push from behind, there’s something undeniably profound about steering your own future. Your predictive system can’t help but rise to the challenge.