we prompt each other constantly—often without noticing.

a friend told me the goal of art is to invoke an emotional response. the viewer looks at a painting and it makes them dream, or feel fear, or curiosity. the painting is a prompt, and the emotion is the completion.

it works the same between people. someone styles their hair to look messy—it takes ten minutes with a brush to look careless. when they talk to you, you perceive them as easygoing. you respond differently than you would to someone in a suit. they prompted you, and your response was the next token.

we think we're autonomous agents making free choices. but we're being prompted all the time by appearance, tone, and environment. our brains handle the completion and we post-rationalize it as a decision later.

i've been playing with neurofeedback. the tones don't tell your brain what to do; they just prompt it. your brain figures out the rest without you understanding how. this isn't just a metaphor. i think this is literally how minds work, biological or otherwise.