Sex and Prediction Error, Part 2: Jouissance and The Free Energy Principle in Neuropsychoanalysis

Abstract

Jouissance refers to an excess enjoyment beyond (yet tied to) speech and representation. From the perspective of some Lacanian analysts, jouissance 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 summarized. 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 jouissance. This limit within prediction is analogous to the real as a structural negativity within the symbolic.