Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal

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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ANECDOTE

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.

ANECDOTE

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.

INSIGHT

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.

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The best way to cook just got better. Go to http://HelloFresh.com/THEORIESOFEVERYTHING10FM now to Get 10 Free Meals + a Free Item for Life! * One per box with active subscription. Free meals applied as discount on first box, new subscribers only, varies by plan. Get 50% off Claude Pro, including access to Claude Code, at http://claude.ai/theoriesofeverything For the first time on TOE, I sit down with professors Anil Seth and Michael Levin to test the brain-as-computer metaphor and whether algorithms can ever capture life/mind. Anil argues the “software vs. hardware” split is a blinding metaphor—consciousness may be bound to living substrate—while Michael counters that machines can tap the same platonic space biology does. We tour their radical lab work—xenobots, compositional agents, and interfaces that bind unlike parts—and probe psychophysics in strange new beings, “islands of awareness,” and what Levin’s bubble-sort “side quests” imply for reading LLM outputs. Anil brings information theory and Granger causality into the mix to rethink emergence and scale—not just computation. Along the way: alignment, agency, and how to ask better scientific questions. If you’re into AI/consciousness, evolution without programming, or whether silicon could ever feel—this one’s for you.

Timestamps: - 00:00 - Anil Seth & Michael Levin: Islands of Consciousness & Xenobots - 08:24 - Substrate Dependence: Why Biology Isn't Just 'Wetware' - 13:13 - Beyond Algorithms: Do Machines Tap Into a 'Platonic Space'? - 21:46 - The Ghost in the Algorithm: Emergent Agency in Bubble Sort - 29:26 - Degeneracy: The Biological Principle AI is Missing - 36:34 - The Multiplicity of Agency: Are Your Cells Conscious? - 43:24 - Unconscious Processing or Inaccessible Consciousness? The Split-Brain Problem - 49:32 - The Ultimate Experiment to Decode Consciousness - 57:31 - A Counter-Intuitive Discovery: Consciousness is *Less* Emergent - 1:03:39 - Psychedelics, LLMs, and the Frontiers of Surprise

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