Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal Michael Levin Λ Anil Seth: Your Brain Isn’t a Computer and That Changes Everything
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Sep 22, 2025 
Anil Seth, a cognitive neuroscientist exploring consciousness, and Michael Levin, a biologist studying bioelectricity and xenobots, dive into the debate over whether the brain functions as a computer. Seth discusses the concept of 'islands of consciousness' and how understanding consciousness might rely on biological substrates. Levin counters with insights on nonstandard substrates and emergent agency. They also explore psychophysics, consciousness in xenobots, and how algorithms might fall short of capturing life and mind. Together, they challenge traditional views on cognition and emergence.
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Studying Isolated Brain Islands
- Anil describes investigating 'islands of consciousness' like hemispherotomy patients to see if disconnected neural tissue can host experience.
- They combine theory and brain imaging to probe isolated neural systems' consciousness potential.
Compositional Agents In The Lab
- Michael Levin recounts building compositional agents by joining living and nonliving parts with interfaces to seek new collective intelligences.
- He plans to probe their goals, preferences, and attention to map novel cognitive spaces.
Test Perception In Novel Creatures
- Xenobots and hybrid constructs let researchers test whether general perceptual laws (Weber/Fechner, illusions) emerge without evolutionary histories.
- This probes which perceptual properties are substrate-intrinsic versus evolution-shaped.