Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

168 | Anil Seth on Emergence, Information, and Consciousness

Oct 11, 2021

Anil Seth, a renowned professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience, discusses the intricacies of consciousness as an emergent phenomenon. He dives into the concepts of emergence in complex systems and its relevance to both consciousness and artificial intelligence. The conversation highlights the brain's predictive capabilities and how it interprets sensory data, emphasizing the importance of information flow and transfer entropy. Seth's philosophical exploration challenges our understanding of how higher-level conscious experiences arise from simpler neural activities.

01:25:00

Episode guests

Anil Seth

Highlights

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Brains as Prediction Machines

01:54

Competition of Causes at Macro and Micro Levels

01:01

No Clean Separation Between Hardware and Software in Biological Systems

00:55

Consciousness and the Natural World

00:59

Intro

2min

Exploring Emergence and Consciousness

4min

Consciousness and Emergence: A Philosophical Exploration

12min

Exploring Emergence: Weak vs. Strong and Its Implications

6min

Understanding Emergence and Information Flow

11min

Understanding Transfer Entropy and Information Flow

2min

Exploring Emergence in Complex Systems

18min

Exploring Emergence: Dynamics and Observational Perspectives

3min

The Brain's Predictive Power

26min

Those of us who think that that the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely known tend to also think that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon that must be compatible with those laws. To hold such a position in a principled way, it’s important to have a clear understanding of “emergence” and when it happens. Anil Seth is a leading researcher in the neuroscience of consciousness, who has also done foundational work (often in collaboration with Lionel Barnett) on what emergence means. We talk about information theory, entropy, and what they have to do with how things emerge.

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Anil Seth received his D.Phil in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence from the University of Sussex. He is currently a professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at Sussex, as well as co-director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. He has served as the president of the Psychology Section of the British Science Association, and is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness. His new book is Being You: A New Science of Consciousness.

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