Is There a Ghost in the Machine?

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

There's no ghost in the machine, but it feels like there. So what does that word mean? Your youthful questioning of what is the soul? And it takes a bit of effort to kind of get around that. We are designed to think about the world as objects, as things, as stuff. We have a harder time thinking about activity. That was really the stumbling block, block all along with consciousnes cause throughout the history of trying to sive, to solve the mind body problem.

Why do you exist? How did atoms and molecules transform into sentient creatures that experience longing, regret, compassion, and even marvel at their own existence? What does it truly mean to have a mind―to think? Science has offered few answers to these existential questions until now.

Michael Shermer speaks with computational neuroscientist, Ogi Ogas, about his unified account of the mind that explains how consciousness, language, self-awareness, and civilization arose incrementally out of chaos, and how leading cities and nation-states are developing “superminds,” and perhaps planting the seeds for even higher forms of consciousness.