Erik Hoel: Free Will, Consciousness, and Hopeful Futures

The very great Erik Hoel joins me for a conversation on AI, free will, emergence, creativity, neuroscience, consciousness and much more. Hope you enjoy!

For the full transcript of our conversation, click here.

Important Links:

• The Intrinsic Perspective
• Erik on Twitter/X

Show Notes:

(0:00:00) Guest Introduction

(0:05:12) Innovative Structures in Fiction

(0:09:43) Gender Dynamics in Publishing

(0:13:19) Erik Hoel's Origin Story

(0:20:11) An Unorthodox Literary Trajectory

(0:30:34) Consciousness and Information Theory

(0:35:45) Science At the Edges

(0:45:07) Is There a Bull Case for Neuroscience?

(0:48:38) AI's Stunning Progress

(0:51:05) AI as an Annoying Toddler

(0:55:19) The Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Perspectives of Consciousness

(1:00:59) Understanding Free Will

(1:17:53) Closing Remarks

Books, Essays & Key People Mentioned:

• When the Map is Better than the Territory by Erik Hoel
• “How I taught my 3-year-old to read like a 9-year-old” by Erik Hoel
• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
• Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
• The Revelations by Erik Hoel
• Ulysses by James Joyce
• Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
• The Novels of Italo Calvino
• The World Behind the World by Erik Hoel
• Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
• Hamlet by Shakespeare
• King Lear by Shakespeare
• The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
• War and Peace by Tolstoy

Researchers & Thinkers

• Søren Kierkegaard
• Francis Crick
• Giulio Tononi
• Karl Friston
• Robert Sapolsky
• Judea Pearl
• Gary Marcus
• Julian Jaynes
• Francis Fukuyama
• Carl Sagan
• Boethius