“The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships … We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself”    Carl Sagan (Cosmos, 1980)

Please close your eyes for a moment and consider what you will be doing tomorrow. While you are thinking about appointments, dinner plans or a physical activity, something very intriguing is happening: You are mentally navigating through a simulated future created by your brain. Although thinking about tomorrow just now felt like a deliberate process, it appears to be a fundamental aspect of how the brain operates. For example, when deciding to cross a busy street the future location of moving traffic is internally computed at great speed to determine when it will be safe to cross the street. 

In general, I am intrigued by the interplay between the brain’s externally-oriented (perception of ‘what is out there’) and internally-oriented (prior knowledge, our internal models of the world) processes that shape our experiences, thinking, and decisions.