The Pursuit of Neuro-Ethology

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The pursuit of neuro-ethology is one of looking at things like predator prey behaviors, any kind of behavior you'd see in the natural world. So rather than bringing an animal into the lab and do what is effective for creating scientific measurements, repeatability, you take what you get in nature or you try to recreate it in the lab. And so there's a whole tradition there and that's what I pursued, except it was a lab run by a former high-energy physicist who was at Caltech. We devised the very first robot that used the same principles as weak electric fish to sense objects.

Consciousness has many aspects, from experience to wakefulness to self-awareness. One aspect is imagination: our minds can conjure up multiple hypothetical futures to help us decide which choices we should make. Where did that ability come from? Today’s guest, Malcolm MacIver, pinpoints an important transition in the evolution of consciousness to when fish first climbed on to land, and could suddenly see much farther, which in turn made it advantageous to plan further in advance. If this idea is true, it might help us understand some of the abilities and limitations of our cognitive capacities, with potentially important ramifications for our future as a species. Support Mindscape on Patreon or Paypal. Malcolm MacIver received his Ph.D. in neuroscience in 2001 from the University of Illinois and the Beckman Institute of Advanced Science and Technology. (This was after an unconventional childhood where he dropped out of school at age 9 and later talked his way into a community college program.) He is currently a professor of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Neurobiology at Northwestern University. In 2009 he was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering. Northwestern Web Page Google Scholar Talk on sensing and planning Paper: “The Shift to Life on Land Selected for Planning” Twitter See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.