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APAXXX10.1177/00030651211042377John Dall’AglioSex And Prediction Error, Part 2
ja Pa
Jouissance refers to an excess enjoyment beyond (yet tied to) speech and
representation. From the perspective of some Lacanian analysts, jouis-
sance is precisely what testifies against any relationship to the brain—
jouissance “slips” out of cognition. On the contrary, it is argued here that
jouissance has a central place in contemporary neuropsychoanalysis. In
part 1 of this series the metapsychology of jouissance was presented in
relation to the real and symbolic registers. Here, in part 2, Mark Solms’s
neuropsychoanalytic model of Karl Friston’s free energy principle is sum-
marized. In this model, “predictions” aim to resolve prediction errors—
most notably, those signaled by affective consciousness. “Surplus
prediction error”—prediction error that arises at the point where the
predictive model fails—is proposed to be a neural correlate of jouis-
sance. This limit within prediction is analogous to the real as a structural
negativity within the symbolic.
psychic functions are not housed in neural structures. Rather, they emerge
between constellations of activity in various neural centers (Kaplan-Solms
and Solms 2002). Individual parts are thereby necessary but not sufficient
for a given psychological function (Dall’Aglio 2019). Moreover, a neuro-
biological basis for a psychic function does not explain that function—it
merely describes its properties in another register. Psychic functions must
be explained in psychological terms (Solms 2015a), and often psychoana-
lytic concepts shed light on neurobiological functions.
This, however, does not mean that knowledge flows exclusively from
psychoanalysis to neuroscience, as Blass and Carmeli (2007) would have it.
Knowledge from one field can enrich the other, by providing converging
evidence, by challenging contradictory ideas, or by suggesting different
relationships among concepts (Dall’Aglio 2020, 2021). Neuropsychoanalysis
is a dialogue, not a reductionistic translation (Solms 2015a). As Verhaeghe
(1999) notes, Lacan’s registers (real, imaginary, and symbolic) are concep-
tual tools with which one may dissect phenomena (e.g., an analysand’s
speech, psychoanalytic theory, history, science). Drawing relationships
between neuroscience and Lacanian registers is an instance of such concep-
tual knifework.
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Sex And Prediction Error, Part 2
without being reducible to that history. The brain, while shaped by its
experience, is not a mere reflection of that experience. Thus, the object
we call the brain necessarily contains much that is beyond the brain. As
Ansermet and Magistretti put it, the brain seems “genetically determined
not to be genetically determined” (p. 8).
These neuroscientific findings resonate with Freud’s “infantile help-
lessness”—developed by Lacan as the “body-in-pieces”—which describes
the premature state of the newborn (Johnston 2013a). To put it simply, the
organism as an organized unity does not exist from birth. For Freud
(1914), the unity of the ego is not pre-given; it must be constituted by a
turn to the social world (see part 1). This psychoanalytic “subject-to-be”
resonates with the “premature” (i.e., genetically indeterminate) brain
whose constitution does not exist without the mark of the social environ-
ment (Johnston 2019).
I hope this openness on the side of neuroscience will assuage
antireductionist objections.2 Identifying a neural correlate of a psychoana-
lytic concept does not replace that concept—it opens the door for interdis-
ciplinary suggestions and new ideas. I will now turn to one such bridge:
jouissance in the neuropsychoanalytic model of predictive coding.
According to the free energy principle (Friston 2010), the brain operates
like a Bayesian inference machine, generating probabilistic “predictions”
about experiences. These predictions are compared to sensory feedback,
and any resulting discrepancy is called “prediction error,” “surprise,” or
“free energy.”3 In this model, the brain is not a passive recipient of sen-
sory impressions. Rather, it actively explains its experiences by construct-
ing a “predictive model.” “Prediction” is operationalized as a probabilistic
inference of the cause of a sensory input, either from within the body (i.e.,
interoception) or from the external world (i.e., exteroception). Prediction
error is the unexplained or unexpected part of experience, a measure of
entropy in a system (Friston 2010).
2For a more general discussion of the problem of associating the psychoanalytic mind with
the brain, see Blass and Carmeli (2007) and Dall’Aglio (2021).
3There are mathematical differences between the terms surprise, prediction error, free
energy, and entropy, but they are not essential to my argument and I will use them interchange-
ably. (For precise distinctions, see Friston 2010.)
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John Dall’Aglio
sensory input. Prediction requires the active engagement of the brain in anticipating its experi-
ence and adjusting its internal models. Such mechanisms involve motoric brain functions (e.g.,
cognitive control). Thus, motor logic applies to both action and perception. The relevance of this
point will be seen when I come to discuss the motoric unconscious.
5I will use the terms precision and salience interchangeably. Precision is also applied to
predictions. When so applied, it refers to confidence in the prediction—that is, how likely it is
to explain the ascending prediction error. More precise predictions more efficaciously explain
inputs. When applied to prediction errors, precision (better understood now as salience) refers
to the importance of the prediction error. These two applications converge in the following way:
the violation of precise (i.e., confident) predictions arouses salient prediction errors.
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Figure 1. Medial and lateral views of the brain (top) and Freud’s
topographic and structural models (bottom)
Dark blue = sensory projection cortex; light blue = sensory association cortex; green = motor
projection cortex; yellow = motor association cortex; red = autonomic nuclei; magenta =
arousal nuclei; white = basic emotion circuits. Freud’s models are color-coded to show the cor-
responding areas in neurofunctional anatomy. Reproduced from “The Conscious Id” (Solms
2013, Neuropsychoanalysis), copyright © The International Neuropsychoanalysis Society,
reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd, http://www.tandfonline.com on behalf of The
International Neuropsychoanalysis Society. (To see figure in color, go to online version at
APA.SAGEPUB.COM.)
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contemporary neuropsychoanalysis. One should note, however, that subcortical affective con-
sciousness is not agreed-upon in the neurosciences. LeDoux and Brown (2017), for example,
argue that Panksepp’s instincts are nonconscious and that the “emotional” quality derives from
cortical interpretations of this subcortical nonconscious arousal.
8The all-capitals style is Panksepp’s convention for a formal taxonomy of these neural
circuits.
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9As this predictive work might be considered the “binding” of ascending prediction error,
one might find a link with Bion’s “thinking” here (see Mellor 2018).
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can better reduce the free energy of the id. Table 1 summarizes Solms’s
incorporation of the free energy principle.
In sum, the cortical ego generates a predictive model that aims to
satisfy socioemotional needs (i.e., resolve prediction error). Affects gen-
erated in the id are felt as prediction error and are surprising. Surprise
here does not refer only to surprise as a “sensory affect” (Panksepp
1998)—it is “surprise” as what is not predicted, what is unexplained.
Optimization of predictions increases evidence for the ego as agent by
minimizing free energy associated with the external world and the inter-
nal body.
As mentioned above, the ego has different kinds of prediction at its
disposal, the two major classes being declarative and nondeclarative.
Declarative predictions are representational, including perception, mental
imagery, thinking, episodic and semantic memory, and so on. They are
accessible to the self-reflective ego, as their representational content can
be brought to mind and thought through (i.e., working memory). By con-
trast, nondeclarative predictions (e.g., procedural action plans and emo-
tional memories like fear-conditioning) are outside self-reflective control
and operate in an automatized fashion. Nondeclarative predictions are
nonrepresentational, outside of declarative thought and devoid of seman-
tic meaning. They have high precision relative to declarative predictions
and are therefore difficult to change. Correspondingly, declarative predic-
tions are more malleable (i.e., have greater neuroplasticity and lower pre-
cision) compared to nondeclarative predictions (Solms 2019).
Just as prediction error drives the updating of the predictive model,
affective consciousness drives changes in the cortical ego. This is how
Solms (2014) interprets Freud’s statement that “consciousness arises
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10It is important to remember that this does not exhaust our understanding of jouissance.
The concept may still be applied at other levels of analysis, such as race (Miller 2017), sex
(Zupančič 2017), and politics (Žižek 2018).
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(Verhaeghe 2004).
14One reason the present discussion of predictions as signifiers is insufficient is that it does
not differentiate nondeclarative predictions and prediction error, both of which have elements of
the real (see Dall’Aglio 2019); nor does it distinguish imaginary and symbolic predictions. For
example, language (a system of predictions) involves motor articulation (symbolic) and mean-
ing (imaginary). Yet Lacan also speaks of the “real” aspect of the signifier (i.e., the “letter”).
Capturing these different dimensions of prediction would require a more complex dissection of
the Lacanian registers, including how the real “refracts” in all three registers: imaginary real
(e.g., phenomenal experience of emptiness and nothingness), symbolic real (i.e., purely empty
signifiers and concepts; mathematical formulae), and real real (i.e., absolute negativity;
Johnston’s corporeal negativity) (Johnston 2019; Žižek 2004).
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15I claim that this arousal is still affective, but in the sense of the unbound jouissance of
das Ding, a “primary affect” that operates beyond the symbolic pleasure principle (Lacan
1959–1960; see part 1). This is one way to approach the difference between Panksepp and
LeDoux. Panksepp’s raw affective consciousness is neither straightforwardly emotional nor
simply nonconscious—it is a traumatic, unbound jouissance. Cortical interpretation (prediction)
tames this arousal into standard emotion.
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John Dall’Aglio
16One should note that the “linguistic” thereby has its roots in nondeclarative motor sys-
tems, in addition to its more familiar place in the left cortical hemisphere (Dall’Aglio 2019).
17Importantly, by localizing jouissance to incentive-sensitized motor programs, any
instinctual action is necessarily marked by this excess. While this may elide any difference
between drive and instinct (insofar as the motor end is necessarily marked by jouissance), it
would then be important to emphasize Lacan’s distinction (1972–1973) between phallic jouis-
sance (i.e., enjoyment within the law of phallic signification) and other jouissance (i.e., enjoy-
ment not-all within phallic signification). This topic is beyond the scope of this three-paper
series.
18See Ryan (2015) for a case of bilateral globus pallidus lesions resulting in a loss of
SEEKING engagement but then, after engagement with other instinctual systems, a reengage-
ment with the world. In such cases, we should explore whether there has been neuroplastic
recovery within SEEKING or whether alternative systems are capable of such redirection.
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19These axes are very similar to the two axes of the drive described by Johnston (2005),
which are also divided along real-symbolic lines.
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Lenses of Disjuncture
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Sex And Prediction Error, Part 2
via its sense organs, its view of the complex environment is incomplete.
Prediction can never fully keep up with the changing environment, always
leaving some prediction error.
Via Freud, however, the problem runs deeper. It is not civilization
(i.e., the external world) that causes our discontents, but rather the inevi-
table conflict of the drives (Johnston 2005). In fact, these intrapsychic
conflicts reverberate in civilization. Moreover, as I argue in part 1, drive
itself has a self-defeating nature: “Sometimes one seems to perceive that
it is not only the pressure of civilization but something in the nature of the
[sexual] function itself which denies us full satisfaction and urges us
along other paths” (Freud 1930, p. 105).
Solms (2020) posits certain “structural antagonisms,” though he does
not use the term. For example, he highlights intraneural conflicts, such as
the inevitable conflict between Panksepp’s instincts. For example, attachment
needs demand secure safety, yet SEEKING demands novelty. Whereas
the predictive model aims at eliminating prediction error, SEEKING
seeks the increase of prediction error. Even if the innate prediction of
SEEKING is to engage with uncertainty to reduce uncertainty, the fact
that one SEEKs uncertainty is at odds with the homeostatic goal of
prediction.
Another Solmsian disjuncture is the contrast between declarative and
nondeclarative predictions (Solms 2018). Nondeclarative predictions are
by definition inaccessible to declarative mechanisms. Some part of the
predictive system is necessarily alien to the rest of prediction. The inevi-
tability of premature automatization—which, for Solms, forever leaves
homeostasis at risk for imbalance—leans toward the “structural” nature
of predictive imperfection.
As I have noted in discussing SEEKING and marked motor traces,
there is also a disjuncture between affective consciousness and the motor
traces called on to bind the tension. In need-satisfaction, the motor plan is
tagged with incentive sensitization, becoming jouissance-filled and
engendering surplus excitation. This is a possible mechanism by which
instincts are hooked into SEEKING excess (see part 1), diverging from
homeostatic goals and aiming at the repetition of motor traces.
Moreover, as Bazan and Detandt (2013) argue, this excess (i.e., dopa-
mine spike, motor incentive sensitization) is necessary due to the lack of
attunement between vegetative, visceral systems (i.e., those generating
bodily needs; the “invertebrate body”) and the musculoskeletal motor
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system (i.e., the “vertebrate body”) that must act in the world to satisfy
those needs. In a Lacanian vein, they emphasize that there is no predeter-
mined guarantee or knowledge of which particular action will meet the
need. Thus, the surprising enjoyment (i.e., dopamine spike) is necessary
to associate the adequate action with need-satisfaction. Importantly, this
disjuncture is not unique to humans—it is likely present in all verte-
brates.20 In a tone resonating with the “coincidence” of negativity and
representation (see part 1), Bazan (2011) speaks of the failure of the motor
system to completely eliminate the tension—a “shortfall of action”—
which is at the basis of representation. Disjuncture has a productive
aspect.
Johnston (2019) suggests that this bodily disharmony is most pro-
nounced in the human brain, as evident in the disharmonious relation-
ships among neural systems. Developing insights from neuroscientists
like David Linden and Antonio Damasio, Johnston (2013a) emphasizes
how evolutionarily ancient brain systems associated with affective con-
sciousness (e.g., the brainstem) sit together in an uncomfortable “kludge”
with evolutionarily recent neocortical (cognitive) systems (Linden
2008).21 Rather than a unified system called “the Brain,” disparate brain
systems developed separately, along different lines.
The “brain” is thus composed of several layers of “sedimentation,”
with the thalamus—to use Damasio’s terms (2010)—as a “marriage bro-
ker” between an “odd couple”: the primitive, nondeclarative brainstem
and the representational neocortex (Johnston 2019). Despite their radi-
cally opposed functions, these systems are forced to interact to facilitate
survival. Thus, the brain’s “natural” (i.e., structural) state is one of incon-
gruity. In Lacanian fashion, Johnston insists “there is no intracerebral
relationship” (Johnston 2013a, p. 59). In other words, a formula for intra-
cerebral unity and harmony among brain systems does not exist. There is
a “natural” disjuncture (Dall’Aglio 2019).
Moreover, this “natural” incongruity is not simply a need-deficiency
remedied in biological terms. As discussed at the beginning of this paper,
the premature helplessness of the infant—mirrored in the “kludge-y” and
genetically open nature of the brain—prompts the turn to a “denaturalizing”
symbolic-imaginary reality (i.e., speech, images, etc.). In this way, the
20Thus, animals may be posited to have some sort of jouissance—another point where
Lacanian neuropsychoanalysis.
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argument.
23Although bridging neuroscience with notoriously antinaturalist Lacanian theory is no
laughing matter.
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predictions that fail to overcome this disjuncture are those which are
jouissance-filled.
The “originally lost prediction” is a way of emphasizing the struc-
tural (“original”) disjuncture within prediction where uncertainty (“lost
prediction”) may be marked. This contrasts with a view of two opposing
entities with a gap between them (Johnston 2005)—the gap is within pre-
diction. For example, consider how the free energy principle does not
simply oppose free energy to prediction. This is observable in the predic-
tive model’s calculation of expected free energy (Fotopoulou 2013; Parr
and Friston 2018). Recall that a prediction is a probabilistic inference of
the cause of a sensory input. It is probabilistic, not absolute (even if the
self-conscious ego feels sure of its reality). While the expected prediction
error and the encountered prediction error may differ, this computational
operation points to the fact that prediction is not an absolute resolution of
prediction error. What the brain takes to be its reality (i.e., its predictive
model of the world) is itself missing something, even though this “reality”
may be experienced as a phenomenological whole. There is an uncer-
tainty within prediction.
I propose that the expected free energy calculation is not simply a
cold expectation of error. It is meaningful, betraying a limit within predic-
tion. Indeed, the incompleteness (i.e., negativity, the real) within predic-
tion (perhaps indicated by expected prediction error) is the necessary
structure of prediction that allows surplus prediction error to drive
changes in the predictive model. Negativity is the well of creativity and
the potential for predictions to slip from their “natural” pre-givens.
It is for this reason that I characterize the failed predictions—those at
the precipice of the predictive model, beyond which is the chasm of the
real—as jouissance-filled. Even though they “predict” affective con-
sciousness, they do not totally remove prediction error; they are doomed
to endlessly repeat. They are the signifiers that mark the contours of the
real within the symbolic. Moreover, they themselves bind and engender
jouissance, the incentive sensitization that grants them an exciting,
rewarding quality beyond their homeostatic aim.
Thus, the predictions that demarcate the failure (i.e., the originally
lost prediction) within prediction are paradoxically the ones that are
enjoyed. In other words, the particular way we fail—the motor plans that
mark the point of unpredicted surprise—is our particular way of deriving
jouissance.
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On the paradox of a death drive that violates the pleasure principle, Freud
(1920) discusses a game invented by a child (presumably his grandson).
He describes the child, age one and a half, as “not at all precocious” but on
“good terms” with his parents and well behaved; “he never cried when his
mother left him for a few hours,” but he was “greatly attached to his
mother” (p. 14). The child had a “disturbing habit” of throwing away small
objects while saying “ooo,” which Freud interprets as fort [“gone”] (p. 14).
This expression was accompanied by “interest and satisfaction,” although
Freud attributes “greater pleasure” to a second act whereby the child some-
times pulled the toy back, uttering da [“there”] (pp. 14, 15).
One might suppose that the child has a secure attachment, given his
bond with the mother and his good behavior on her disappearance.
Nevertheless, separation from the mother would still arouse PANIC and
the corresponding prediction to SEEK the lost mother. One might suggest
that the child had learned a “secure attachment” prediction: “Mommy
will return, I just need to wait.” But this would still arouse some quota of
tension associated with the emergence of the gap.
Yet the child does not just sit there with the tension, nor does he cry.
Instead he invents a game. Whereas Freud speculates an attempt at mas-
tery over the mother’s disappearance, Lacan (1964) uses this scenario to
illustrate the emergence of objet a (i.e., the toys thrown around). Recall
that objet a is the materialization of negativity, an excessive presence in
the representational world. It is the object of the drive, the ungraspable
excess whose repetitive use allows the subject to derive jouissance (see
part 1).
When faced with the traumatic disappearance of the mother—the con-
frontation with negativity—the child invents a game by playing with
objects, metabolizing the drive arousal at the site of the gap. Freud’s dic-
tion is fortuitous: although there was “greater pleasure” attached to the da,
Freud recognizes the “interest and satisfaction taken in” the fort (pp. 15, 14).
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John Dall’Aglio
While da might stand in for the return of the mother, which would reduce
PANIC-tension, fort marks the “interest and satisfaction,” an excitatory
enjoyment—that is, jouissance. Fort marks a contour of the real: “gone” is
a signifier that stands in for what is absent. That the fort (i.e., throwing toys
away) was repeated more than the da (i.e., their return) highlights the inde-
pendence of jouissance from tension-reduction (Lacan 1964).
Here we have an aberration of PANIC. The predictions concerning
fort do not aim at the mother’s return or a substitute attachment. Rather
than tolerate the surplus jouissance of PANIC, the child puts this predic-
tion error to use. He invents a game which, if we are to agree with Freud
that the object stands in for the mother, might increase PANIC prediction
error. In this way, PANIC has deviated from its “natural predictive course”
and has been hooked into the logic of drive by targeting objet a. Chiefly,
rather than this aberration being cause for discontent, the child gets his
enjoyment—he does not cry and takes great joy from the game. In other
words, the child found a way to enjoy his jouissance (Fink 2011).
This example illustrates how the real—as the failure of homeostasis
(i.e., failure to reunite with the mother) and as cause for the slippage of
prediction (i.e., the child’s focusing instead on the objet)—is the site of
both creativity and jouissance. One must create when facing the surplus
prediction error at the precipice of one’s predictions. It is the child’s cre-
ation of a game that allows him to overcome the negativity of das Ding
and instead enjoy the use of objet a.
One might go a step further and suggest a hooking of PANIC into
PLAY—the child PLAYs a game of fort-da. In this sense, PLAY is also
hooked into the logic of the drive, deviating from its “natural” social pre-
diction (i.e., cooperative give-and-take with others, mastery and submis-
sion). By engaging with the prediction error at the site of negativity (with
all the slippages of instinctual predictions it entails), the child invents a way
to enjoy his jouissance. Neuroscientific evidence is not foreign to this for-
mulation, for “PLAY celebrates the joy of surprise” via its neuro-functional
intersection with SEEKING circuitry (Kellman and Radwan 2019).
A T ime F or U nderstanding : J o u i s s a n c e
I s S urplus P rediction E rror
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ORCID iD
References
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John Dall’Aglio
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John Dall’Aglio
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Sex And Prediction Error, Part 2
Duquesne University
Department of Psychology
211 Rockwell Hall
Pittsburgh, PA 15282
Email: dallagliojohn@gmail.com
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