I, scientist with Balazs Kegl Mark Solms
Sep 25, 2025
In a captivating discussion, Mark Solms, a neuropsychologist and author of The Hidden Spring, explores his feeling-based theory of consciousness. He argues that consciousness originates in the brainstem rather than the cortex and explains how competing homeostatic needs influence our feelings. Delving into the free energy principle, he discusses how feelings inform choices and voluntary actions. The conversation also touches on hierarchical levels of feelings as signals between nested organisms and the implications of these insights for understanding consciousness and virtual agents.
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Decorticate Rats Appear More Alive
- Jörg Panksepp showed decorticate rats to students who consistently misidentified them as more alive.
- The decorticate rats were more emotionally responsive despite lacking cortex.
Electrical Stimulation Caused Sudden Depression
- Deep brain stimulation near substantia nigra produced immediate suicidal depression in one patient.
- Stopping stimulation within 30 seconds removed the depression, showing powerful affective effects from brainstem stimulation.
Free Energy Links Feeling And Homeostasis
- The free energy principle formalizes homeostasis as prediction and surprise minimization.
- Feelings can be modeled as homeostatic prediction errors governed by active inference.
