Kind: captions
Language: en
as part of MIT course success zero nine
nine on artificial general intelligence
I got a chance to sit down with
Christophe Coe
who's one of the seminal figures in
neurobiology in neuroscience and
generally in the study of consciousness
he is the president the chief scientific
officer of the Allen Institute for brain
science in Seattle from 1986 to 2013 he
was the professor at Caltech before that
he was at MIT he is extremely well sited
over a hundred thousand citations his
research his writing his ideas have had
big impact on the scientific community
and the general public in the way we
think about consciousness in the way we
see ourselves as human beings he's the
author of several books the quest for
consciousness and your biological
approach and a more recent book
consciousness confessions of a romantic
reductionist if you enjoy this
conversation this course subscribe click
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leave suggestions for any people you'd
like to see be part of the course or any
ideas that you would like us to explore
thanks very much I hope you enjoy okay
before we delve into the beautiful
mysteries of consciousness let's zoom
out a little bit and let me ask do you
think there's intelligent life out there
in the universe yes I do believe so we
have no evidence of it but I think the
probabilities are overwhelming in favor
of it
give me a universe where we have 10 to
the 11 galaxies and each galaxy is
between 10 to the 11 10 to the 12 stars
and we know more stars have one or more
planets so how does that make you feel
it still makes me feel special because I
have experiences I feel the world I
experience the world and independent of
whether there are other creatures out
there I still feel the world and I have
access to this world in this very
strange compelling way and that's the
core of human existence now he said
human do you think if those intelligent
creatures are out there do you think
they experience
their world yes they evolved if they are
product of natural evolution if it would
have to be they will also experience
their own world so consciousness isn't
just a human your ID it's it's much
wider it's probably it may be spread
across all of biology we have the only
thing that we have special is we can
talk about it of course not all people
can talk about the babies and little
children can talk about the patients who
have have a Stoke and let's see the left
inferior frontal gyrus can talk about it
but most normal adult people can talk
about it and so we think that makes us
special compared to little monkeys a
dogs or cats or mice or all the other
creatures that we share the planet with
but all the evidence seems to suggest
that they to experience the world and so
it's overwhelmingly likely that other
alien that aliens would also experience
their world of course differently
because they have a difference in serum
they've different sense of they had a
very different environment but the fact
that I would strongly suppose that they
also have experiences if your pain and
pleasure and see in some sort of
spectrum and here and have all the other
sensors of course their language if they
have one would be different so we might
not be able to understand their poetry
about the experiences that they have
that's correct right so in a talk in a
video I've heard you mention support so
a DAC sound that you came up with
there you go up with as part of your
family when you were young first of all
you're a technically a Midwestern boy
you just secondly yes after that you
traveled around a bit and it's a little
bit of the accent you talked about
support so the DAC solid having these
elements of humaneness of consciousness
that he discovered so I just wanted to
ask can you look back and you childhood
and remember one was the first time you
realized you yourself sort of from a
third-person perspective or our
conscious being this idea of you know
stepping outside yourself and seeing
well there's something special going on
here in my brain I can't really actually
it's a good question I'm not sure I
recall a discrete moment I mean you take
it for granted because that's the only
world you know
at the only world I know you know it's a
world of seeing and hearing voices and
touching and all the other things so
it's only much later at early in my
undergrad days when I became when I
enrolled in physics and in philosophy
that I really thought about it and
thought well this is really
fundamentally very very mysterious and
there's nothing really in physics right
now that explains his transition from
the physics of the brain to feelings
where do the feelings come in all right
so you can look at the foundational
equation of quantum mechanics general
relativity you can look at the period
table of the elements you can look at
the endless 80g seat chat and our genes
and no way is consciousness yet I wake
up every morning to a world where I have
experiences and so that's the hub of the
ancient mind-body problem how do
experiences get into the world so what
is consciousness experience
consciousness is any any conte any
experience some people call it
subjective feeling some people call it
phenomenon phenomenology some people
call it quality of their philosophy all
denote the same thing it feels like
something in the famous word of as if a
loss at Thomas Nagel it feels like
something to be a bad or to be a you
know an American out to be angry or to
be sad or to be in love or to have pain
and that is what experience is any
possible experience could be as mundane
as just sitting in a chair could be as
exalted as you know having a mystical
moment you know in in deep meditation
those are just different forms of
experiences experience so if you were to
sit down with maybe the next skip a
couple generations of IBM Watson
something that one jeopardy
what is the gap I guess the question is
between Watson that might be much more
smarter than you then ask then all any
human alive but may not have experience
what is the gap well so that's a big big
question that's occupied people for the
last certainly last 50 years since we
you know since he happened the birth of
of computers that's a question on
chilling try to answer and of course he
did it in this indirect way by proposing
its test and operational test so but
that's not really that's you know he
tried to get it what does it mean for
person to think and then he had this
test like you lock him away and then you
have a communication with him and then
you try to to guess after while whether
that is a person or whether it's a
computer system there's no question that
now or very soon
you know Alexa or Siri or you know
Google now will pass this test right and
you can game it but you know ultimately
certainly in your generation
there will be machines that will speak
with complete poise that will remember
everything you ever said they'll
remember every email you ever had like
like Samantha remember in the movie her
yeah it's no question it's gonna happen
but of course the key questions is does
it feel like anything to be Samantha in
a movie home too does it feel like
anything to be Watson and there one has
to be very very strongly think they're
two different concepts here that we call
mingle there is the concept of
intelligence natural or artificial and
there is a concept of consciousness of
experience natural or artificial those
are very very different things now
historically we associate consciousness
with intelligence why because we live in
a world
leaving aside computers of natural
selection where we are surrounded by
creatures either our own kin that are
less or more intelligent or we go across
species some some are more adapted to
particular environment others are less a
tablet whether it's a whale or dog or
you go talk about a Paramecium or a
little worm alright and and we see the
complexity of the nervous system goes
from one cell to two specialized cells
to a worm that has three net that has
30% of its cells and nerve cells to
creature like also like a blue whale
that ever has had a billion even more
nerve cells and so they based on
behavioral evidence and based on the
underlying neuroscience we believe that
as these creatures become more complex
they are better adapted to it to their
particular ecological niche and they
become more conscious probably because
their brain calls and we believe
consciousness unlike the ancient ancient
people thought most almost every cult
thought that consciousness with
intelligence has to do with your heart
mm-hmm and you still to see that today
you see honey I love you is on my house
yes but what you should actually say no
honey I love you was all my lateral
hypothalamus and for Valentine's Day you
should give you a sweetheart
you know hypothalamic same piece of
chocolate another heart shaped chocolate
right and you know so we still have this
language but now we believe it's a brain
and so we see brains of different
complexity and we think well they have
different levels of consciousness
they're capable of different experiences
[Music]
but now we confront a world where we
know where we're beginning to engineer
intelligence and it's radical unclear
whether the intelligence we're
engineering has anything to do with
consciousness and whether it can
experience anything because
fundamentally what's the difference
intelligence is about function
intelligence no matter exactly how you
define it sort of an adaptation to new
environments being able to learn and
quickly understand you know you know the
setup of this and what's going on and
who the actors and what's gonna happen
next
gets all about function consciousness is
not about function consciousness is
about being it's in some sense much
fundamental you can see folks that you
can see this in two in several cases you
can see it for instance in the case of
the clinic when you're dealing with
patients who are let's say had a stroke
or had were in traffic accident etc
they're pretty much in mobile Terri
Schiavo you may have heard historically
she was a person here in the in the 90s
in flora - heart Stood Still she was
reanimated and for the next fourteen
years she was what's called in a
vegetative state so there are thousands
of people in a vegetative state so
they're you know they're you know
they're like this occasionally they open
their eyes for two three four five six
eight hours and then close their eyes
they have sleep-wake cycle occasionally
they have behavior they do you know
there but there's no way that you can
establish a lawful relationship between
what you see or the doctor says or the
mom says and what the patient does
correctly so so the so the there isn't
any behavior yet in some of these people
there is still experience you can you
can
design and build brain machine
interfaces where you can see there's
they still explain something and of
course at these cases of locked-in state
there's a famous book called that the
diving bell and the butterfly well yet
an editor French editor here the stroke
in the in the brainstem unable to move
except his vertical eyes eye movement he
could just move his the eyes up and down
and he dictated an entire book and some
people even lose this at the end it all
the evidence seems to suggest that
they're still in there in this case you
have no behavior your consciousness
second cases tonight like all of us
you're gonna go to sleep close your eyes
you go to sleep you will wake up inside
your sleeping body and you will have
conscious experiences they are different
from everyday experience you might fly
you might not be surprised that you're
flying you might meet a long-dead pet
childhood dog and you're not surprised
that you're meeting them you know but
you have conscious experience of love of
hate you know they can be very emotional
your body during this stage typically to
them state sends an active signal to
your motor neurons to paralyze you it's
called atonia right because if you don't
have that like some patience what do you
do you act out your dreams you get
proximal and behavioral disorder which
is a bad which is bad juju to get okay
third case is pure experience so I
recently had this what some people call
a mystical experience I went to
Singapore and went into a flotation tank
yeah alright so this is a big tub filled
was ever with water that's a body
temperature and Epsom salt you still
completely naked you lie inside of it
you close the layer Ignace complete
darkness soundproof so very quickly you
become body less because you're floating
and you're naked you have no rings no
watch no nothing you don't feel your
body anymore it's no sound soundless
there's no surf if a photon a sightless
timeless because after while early on
you actually hear your heart but then
that you you sort of adapt to that and
then sort of the passage of time ceases
yeah and if you train yourself like in a
meditation not to swing early on you
think aloud you it's a little bit spooky
you feel somewhat uncomfortable or you
think well I'm gonna get bored but
which I do not to think actively you
become mindless so there you are body
less timeless you know sound less
sightless mindless but you're in a
conscious experience you're not asleep
you're not asleep you're you you are
being of pure your pure being there
isn't any function you aren't doing any
computation you're not remembering
you're not projecting you're not
planning yet you're fully conscious
you're fully conscious there's something
going out there it could be just a side
effect so what is the the you mean
epiphenomenon so what is the salaat
effect meaning why what what what what
is the function of you being able to lay
in this sense sensory free deprivation
tank and still have a conscious
experience
additionally myself obviously we didn't
evolve with flotation tanks in our in
our environment I mean so biology is not
totally bad at asking why question to
the nominal question why do we have two
eyes why don't we have four eyes or
three eyes or something well no there's
probably a there is a function to that
but it's we're not very good at
answering those questions we can
speculate endlessly where biology is
very or science is very good about
mechanistic question why is that charged
in the universe right we find a certain
universe where there positive negative
charges why why does quantum mechanics
Hall you know what
why doesn't some other theory hold
quantum mechanics hold in our universe
is very unclear why so Tillie nominal
question why questions are difficult to
answer clearly there's some relationship
between complexity brain processing
power and consciousness but however in
these cases in these three examples RK I
gave one is an everyday experience at
night the other one is a young Tom on
third one it's in principle you can
everybody can have these sort of
mystical experiences you have a
dissociation of function form of
intelligence from from conscious no
consciousness you caught me asking a
white question let me ask a question
that's not a white question you're
giving a talk later today on the Turing
test for intelligence and consciousness
drawing lines between the two so is
there a scientific way to say there's
consciousness present in this entity or
not and to anticipate your answer
because
you also there's a neurobiological
answer so we can test a human brain but
if you take a machine brain that you
don't know tests for yet how would you
even begin to approach a test if there's
consciousness present in this thing okay
that's a really good question so let me
take in two steps so as you point out
for for for for humans let's just stick
with humans there's now a test called
the zap and zip it's a procedure where
you ping the brain using transcranial
magnetic stimulation you look at the
electrical reverberations essentially
using EEG and then you can measure the
complexity of this plain response and
you can do this in a way people in
asleep normal people you can do it in a
wake people and then anesthetize them
you can do it in patients and it's it it
has hundred percent accuracy that in all
those cases when you're clear the
patient or the person is either
conscious or unconscious the complexity
is either high or low and then you can
adopt these techniques to similar
creatures like monkeys and dogs and and
and mice that have very similar brains
now of course you you point out that may
not help you because we don't have a
cortex you know and if I send a magnetic
pulse into my iPhone or my computer it's
probably gonna break something so we
don't have that so what we need
ultimately we need a theory of
consciousness we can't just rely on our
intuition our intuition is well yeah if
somebody talks they're conscious however
then they're all these page children
babies don't talk right but we believe
that that the babies also have conscious
experiences right and then there are
these patients I mentioned did and they
don't talk when you dream you can't talk
because you're paralyzed so so what
would we ultimately need we can't just
rely on our intuition we need a theory
of constants that tells us what is it
about a piece of matter what is it about
a piece of highly excitable matter like
the brain or like a computer that give
rise to conscious experience we all
believe none of us believe anymore in
the old story it's a soul but that used
to be the most common explanation that
most people accept that in still a lot
of people today believe well there's
there's God and doubt only us was a
special thing that animals don't have
Rene Descartes famously said a dog if he
hit it with your carriage may Yelp me
cry but it doesn't have this special
thing it doesn't have the magic the
magic salt oh yeah
it doesn't have restaurants the soul now
we believe that isn't the case anymore
so what is the difference between brains
and and these guys silicon and in
particular once a behavior matches so if
you have cereal of tea or Alexan 20
years from now that she can talk just as
good as any possible human what counts
do you have to say she's not conscious
in particular if she says it's of course
he well cuz I'm conscious you are sir
are you doing and she'll say well you
know they will generate some way to yeah
she'll behave like a like a person now
there are several differences one is so
this relates to the problem they're very
hard
why is consciousness a hard problem it's
because it's subjective right only I
have it for only I know I've direct
experience of my own consciousness I
don't have experience your consciousness
now I assume as a sort of Bayesian
person who believes in probability
theory and all of that you know I can do
I can do an abduction to the to the best
available facts I deduce your brain is
very similar to mine if I put you in a
scanner your brain is graphic on a
behavior same with I do if if you know
if I give you this muesli and ask you
how does it taste you tell me things
that you know that that I would also say
more or less I yes so I infer based on
all of that that you're conscious now
we're silly I can't do that so there I
really need a theory that tells me what
is it about above any system this or
this it makes it conscious and we have
such a theory yes so the the integrator
information theory is but let me first
maybe his introduction for people are
not familiar the car can you you talked
a lot about pants psychism can you
describe what physicalism versus dualism
this you mentioned the soul what what is
the history of that idea what the idea
psychism although the debate really out
of which pan site-- chasm can emerge of
dualism versus physicalism or do you not
see pants psychism is fitting into that
and no you can argue there's some well
ok so let's step back so kemp psychism
is a very ancient belief that's been
around
I mean Plato and us
talks about it modern philosophers talk
about it of course in Buddhism the idea
is very prevalent that I mean the
different versions of it one version
says everything is in sold everything
arcs and stones and dogs and people and
forests and iPhones all of us all right
all matter is in soil that's sort of one
version another version is that all
biology all creatures small a large from
a single cell to a giant sequoia tree
feel like something that's one I think
is somewhat more realistic
so the different were willing me invite
feel like something I have have feeling
have some kind of like some it may well
be possible that it feels like something
to be a Paramecium I think it's pretty
likely it feels like something to be a
bee or a mouse or dog sure so okay so so
that you can see that's also so pants
item is very bored and you can to some
people for example Bertrand Russell
try to advocate this for this idea it's
called gazelian monism that that pant
psychism is really physics viewed from
the inside so the idea is that physics
is very good at describing relationship
among objects like charges or like
gravity all right you know this card the
relationship between curvature and mass
distribution okay that's the
relationship among thing physics doesn't
really describe the ultimate reality
itself it's just relationship among you
know quarks or all these other stuffs
from like a third-person observer yeah
yes and consciousness is what physics
feels from the inside so my conscious
experience it's a way the physics of my
brain particular my cortex feel from the
inside and so if you are Paramecium you
gotta remember you see Paramecium well
that's a pretty dumb creature this but
it has already a billion different
molecules probably you know five
thousand different proteins assembled in
a highly highly complex system that no
single person no computer system so far
on this planet has ever managed to
accurately simulate its complexity
vastly escapes us yes and it may well be
that that little thing feels like a tiny
bit now it doesn't have a voice in the
head like me it doesn't have
expectations you know it doesn't have
all that complex things but it may well
if you like something yep so this is
really interesting can we draw some
lines and maybe try to understand the
difference between life intelligence and
consciousness how do you see all of
those if you have to define what is a
living thing what is a conscious thing
and what is an intelligent thing do
those intermix for you or they totally
separate okay so a that's a question
that we don't have a full answer right
after a lot of this stuff we're talking
about today is full of mysteries and
fascinating ones right it was
approximately can go to Aristotle who's
probably the most important scientists
and philosophers ever lived in certainly
in Western culture he had this idea it's
called halo morphism it's quite popular
these days that there are different
forms of soul the soul is really the
form of something he saw he says all
biological creature have a vegetative
soul that's life principle today we
think we understand something molded
it's biochemistry nonlinear
thermodynamics all right then he says
they have a sensitive so only animals
and humans have also a sensitive soul or
an appetitive soul they they can see
they can smell and they have drives they
want to repeat use they want to eat etc
and then only humans have what he called
a rational soul okay right and that idea
that made it into christen dome and then
the rational soul is the one that lives
forever he was very young he wasn't
really I mean different readings of
Aristotle give different was that did he
believe that rational soul was immortal
or not I probably think he didn't but
then of course that made it into its who
Plato in the Christianity and then this
world became immortal and then became
the connection where after to God now
you so you ask me essentially you what
does our modern conception of these free
Aristotle would have called them
different forms life we think we know
something about it at least life on this
planet right although we don't
understand how to originate it but it's
it's been difficult to rigorously pin
down you see this in modern definition
of death it's in de facto right now
there's a conference ongoing again that
tries to defined
legally and medically what is death it
used to be very simple des is you stop
breathing your heart stops beating
you're dead right yeah totally
unconverted
if you're unsure you wait another 10
minutes if the patient doesn't breathe
you know he's
well now we have ventilators we have
half a pacemaker so it's much more
difficult to define what death is
typically des is defined at the end of
life and life is defined before yes so
before that okay so we don't have really
very good definitions intelligence we
don't have a rigorous data definition we
know something how to measure it's
called IG IQ or G factors right and and
we're beginning to build it in in a
narrow sense right like go alphago and
and and and Watson and you know Google
cars and uber cars and all of that that
still narrow AI and some people are
thinking about the artificial general
intelligence but roughly as we said
before it's something lose ability to
learn and to adapt to new environments
but that is as I said also it's radical
difference from experience and it's very
unclear if you build a machine that has
AGI it's not at all a priori it's not at
all clear that this machine will have
consciousness it may or may not so let's
ask it the other way do you think if you
were to try to build an artificial
general intelligence system do you think
figuring out how to build artificial
consciousness would help you get to an
AGI so or put another way do you think
intelligent requires consciousness in
human it goes hand in hand
in human or I think Ambala G
consciousness intelligence goes hand in
hand quite a solution because the the
brain evolved to be highly complex
complexity via the theory integrated
information theory is sort of ultimately
is what is closely tied to consciousness
ultimately it's causal power upon itself
and so in evolution evolved systems they
go together in artificial system
particular in digital machines they do
not go together and if you asked me
point-blank
is Alexa 20 point O in the year 2041 she
can easily pass every Turing test is she
conscious no even if she claims she's
concerts in fact you could even do a
more radical version of this thought
experiment we can build a computer
simulation of the human brain you know
what Henry Markram
in the Blue Brain Project or the human
brain project in Switzerland is trying
to do let's grant him all the success so
in ten years we have this perfect
simulation of the human brain
every new one is simulated in
hasil Amex and it has motor neurons it
has a Ibaka's area and of course it'll
talk and it'll say hi I just woken up I
feel great okay even that computer
simulation that can imprint some map on
to your brain will not be conscious why
because it simulates it's a difference
between the simulated and the real so it
simulates the behavior salted with
consciousness it might be it will if
it's done properly will have all the
intelligence that that particular person
they're simulating has but simulating
intelligence is not the same as having
conscious experiences and I'll give you
a really nice metaphor that engineers
and physicists stupidly get I can write
down in Stein's field equation nine or
ten equations that describe the link in
general relativity between curvature and
and mass I can do that I can run this on
my laptop to to predict that the sample
the black hole at the center of our
galaxy will be so massive that it will
twist space-time around it so no light
can escape I it's a black hole right but
funny have you ever won that why doesn't
this computer simulation suck me in
alright it simulates gravity but it
doesn't have the causal power of gravity
it's a huge difference so it's a
difference between the real and and the
simulator just like it doesn't get wet
inside the computer when the computer
runs code that simulates a weather storm
and so in order to have to have
artificial continents you have to give
it the same causal power as a human
brain yes you have to build so-called a
neuromorphic machine that has hardware
that is very similar to the human brain
not a digital clock for normal computer
so that's just to clarify though you
think that consciousness is not required
to create human level intelligence it
seems to accompany in the human brain
but for a machine not of court so maybe
just because this is AGI let's dig in a
little bit about what we mean by
intelligence so one thing is the G
factor these kind of IQ tests of
intelligence but I think if you maybe
another way to say so in 2040 2050
people will have Siri that is
just really impressive do you think
people will say serious intelligent yes
intelligence is this amorphous thing so
it to be intelligent it seems like you
have to have some kind of connections
with other human beings in a sense that
you have to impress them with your
intelligence and their feels you have to
somehow operate in this world full of
humans and for that there feels like
there has to be something like
consciousness so you think you can have
just the world's best natural NLP system
natural language understanding a
generation and that will be that will
get us happy and say you know what we've
created an AGI I don't know happy no
well yes I do believe we can get what we
call high-level functional intelligence
particular sort of the G you know this
this fluid like intelligence that we
cherish particularly the place like MIT
right in in in machines I see a boy I
know reasons and I see a lot of reason
to believe it's gonna happen very you
know over the next 50 years of 30 years
so for beneficial AI for creating an AI
system that's so you mentioned ethics
that is exceptionally intelligent but
also does not do does you know aligns
its values with our values as humanity
do you think then in his consciousness
yes I think that that is a very good
argument that if we're concerned about
AI and the threat of a aisle and Nick
Bostrom accidentally said I think having
an intelligent that has empathy right
why do we find abusing a dog why do most
of us find that apartment abusing any
animal right why do we find that
apartment because we have this thing
called empathy which if you look at the
Greek really means feeling with I feel a
compass of empathy I have feeling with
you
I see somebody else suffer that isn't
even my conspecific it's not a person
it's not a lot but it's not my wife or
my kids it's it's a dog but I feel
naturally most of us not all of us most
of us will feel emphatic and so it may
well be in the long-term interest of
survival of Homo sapiens sapiens that if
we do build AGI and it really becomes
very powerful
that it has an emphatic response and
doesn't just exterminate humanity so as
part of the full conscious experience to
create a consciousness artificial or in
our human consciousness do you think
fear maybe we're gonna get into the
earlier days with Mitch and so on but do
you think fear and suffering are
essential to have consciousness do you
have to have the full range of
experience of it to have a system that
has experience or can you have a system
that only has a very particular kinds of
very positive experiences look you can
have in principle you can people have
done this in the rat where you implanted
electrode in the hypothalamus the
pleasure center of the head and the rat
stimulated some above and beyond
anything else it doesn't care about food
or natural sex or drink anymore to
stimulate itself because it's it's such
a pleasurable feeling I guess it's like
an orgasm just you have you know all day
long and so a priori I see no reason why
you need different forever I need a
great variety now clearly to survive
that wouldn't work but if I'd engineered
artificially I don't think I don't think
you need a great variety of conscious
expense you could have just pleasure or
just fear it might be a terrible
existence but I think that's possible at
least on conceptual logical count cause
any real creature whether artificially
engineered you want to give it fear the
fear of extinction that we all have and
you also want to give it a positive
appetitive states states that it wants
to that you want the Machine encouraged
to do because if they give the Machine
positive feedback so you mentioned
pants.i chasm to jump back a little bit
you know everything having some kind of
mental property how do you go from there
to something like human consciousness so
everything having some elements of
consciousness - well is there something
special about human consciousness what
so so just it's not everything like a
spoon there's no I the the form of Pam
Jochum
I think about doesn't ask I
consciousness - anything like this the
spoon
my liver however it is the theory the
integrated information theory does say
that system even ones that look from the
outside relatively simple Atlee if they
have this internal causal power they are
they it does feel like something the
theory a poet doesn't see anything
what's special about human biologically
we know what the one thing that special
about human is we speak and we have a
overblown sense of our own importance
right
we believe we exceptional and where does
God's give - - into the universe but the
but behaviorally the main thing that we
have we can plant we can plan over the
long term and we have language and that
gives us enormous amount of power and
that's why we are there the current
dominant species on the planet
so you mentioned God you grow up a
devout Roman Catholic you know Roman
Catholic family so you know with
consciousness you're sort of exploring
some really deeply fundamental human
things that religion also touches on so
where does where does religion fit into
your thinking about consciousness and
you've you've grown throughout your life
and changed your views and religion as
far as I understand yeah I mean I'm now
much closer to so I'm not a Roman
Catholic anymore I don't believe there's
sort of this God the God I was I was
educated to believe in you know sits
somewhere in the fullness of time I'll
be united in some sort of everlasting
bliss I just don't see any evidence for
that look the world the night is large
and full of Wonders right there are many
things that I don't understand I think
many things that we as a cult I look we
don't even understand more than four
percent of all the universe right dark
matter dark energy we have no idea what
it is maybe it's lost socks what do I
know so so all I can tell you is it's a
sort of mom my current religious or
spiritual sentiments much closer to some
form of Buddhism can you - without the
reincarnation
unfortunately there's no evidence for in
reincarnation so can you describe the
way Buddhism sees the world a little bit
well so the you know they talk about so
when when I spent several meetings with
with the Dalai Lama and what always
impressed me
about him he really unlike for example
at either the Pope was some Cardinal he
always emphasized minimizing the
suffering of all creatures so they have
this from the early beginning they look
at suffering in all creatures not just
in people but in in everybody this
universal and of course by degrees right
in an animal
Jerell will have less is less capable of
suffering than a then a well developed
normally developed human and they think
consciousness pervades in this universe
and they have these techniques you know
you can think of them like mindfulness
etc and meditation that tries to access
sort of what they claim of this more
fundamental aspect of reality I'm not
sure it's more fundamentalist I think
about it there's a physical and then
this is inside view consciousness and
those are the two aspects that's the
only thing I've I have access to in my
life and you gotta remember my conscious
experience and your conscious experience
comes prior to anything you know about
physics comes PI to knowledge about the
universe and atoms and super strings and
molecules and all of that the only thing
you directly are acquainted with is this
world that's populated with with things
in images and and sounds in your head
and touches on all of that I actually
have a question so and it sounds like
you kind of have a rich life you talk
about rock climbing and it seems like
you really love literature and
consciousness is all about experiencing
things so do you think that has helped
your research on this topic
yes particular if you think about it the
the various states so for example you do
our climbing or now I do
oink-cool going and a bike every day you
can get into this thing called the zone
and I've always I want to I want to Bob
about a particular with respect to
consciousness because it's a strangely
addictive state you want to you want to
appear I mean once people have it once
you want to keep on going back to it and
you wonder what is it so addicting about
it and I think it's the experience of
almost close to pure experience because
in this in the zone you're not conscious
over in a voice anymore but there's
always this inner voice nagging you
right you have to do this you have to do
that you have to pay your taxes yet this
fight was your ex and all of those
things are always there but when you're
in the zone all of that is gone
and your justice in this wonderful state
while you're fully out in the world a
job you're climbing or you're hauling or
biking or doing soccer what or whatever
you're doing and sort of consciousness
sort of is is your all action or in this
case of pure experience you're not
action at all but in both cases you
experience some aspect of of can't you
touch some basic part of off of
conscious existence that is so basic and
so deeply satisfying you I think you
touch the root of being that's really
what you're touching there you're
getting close to the root of being and
that's very different from intelligence
so what do you think about the
simulation hypothesis simulation theory
the idea that we all live in a computer
simulation have you knowit's justice for
her I think it's as likely as the
hypothesis had engaged hundreds of
scholars for many centuries are we all
just existing in the mind of God right
right and this is just a modern version
of it it's it's it's it's equally
plausible people love talking about
these sorts of things I know their book
written is about the simulation
hypothesis if that's what people want to
do that's fine it seems rather esoteric
it's never testable but it's not useful
for you to think of in those terms so
maybe connecting to the questions of
free will which you've talked about I
think vaguely wherever you saying that
the idea that there's no free will it
makes you very uncomfortable so what do
you think about free will and from that
you from a physics perspective or a
consciousness perspective what is it all
okay so from the physics perspective
leaving inside quantum mechanics we
believe we live in a fully deterministic
world right but then comes of course
quantum mechanics so now we know that
certain things on principle not
predictable which as you said I prefer
because the idea that at the initial
condition of the universe and then
everything else we're just acting out
the initial condition of the universe
that doesn't that doesn't mean it's not
a romantic notion no certainly not right
now when it comes to consciousness I
think we do have certain freedom we are
much more constrained by a physics of
course and by our past and by our own
conscious desires and what our parents
told us and
what our environment tells us we we all
know that our there's hundreds of
experiments that show how we can be
influenced but finally in the in the
final analysis when you make a lifetime
talk not really about critical decision
what you really think should I marriage
should I go to this school that could
should I take this job is that job
should I cheat on my taxes or not these
sort of these are things what you really
deliberate and I think under those
conditions you are as free as you can be
when you when you bring your entire
being anti conscious being to that
question and try to analyze it on all
the the various condition and then you
take you make a decision you are as free
as you can ever be that is I think what
what free will is it's not a will that's
totally free to do anything it wants
that's not possible right so as Jack
mentioned yet you actually read a blog
about books you've read amazing books
from I'm Russian from Bulgakov cha oh
yeah Neil Gaiman Carl Sagan Murakami so
what is a book that early in your life
transformed the way you saw the world
something that changed your life
Nietzsche against did that spokes are
twister because he talks about some of
these problems you know he was one of
the first discoverer of the unconscious
this is you know a little bit before for
it when it was in the air and you know
he makes all these claims that people
sort of under the guise or under the
mask of charity actually are very non
charitable so he sort of really the
first discoverer of the great land of
the of the unconscious and that that
really struck me and what do you think
what do you think about the unconscious
what do you think about Freud we think
about these ideas what's what's just
like dark matter in the universe what's
over there in that unconscious a lot I
mean much more than we think this is
what a lot of last hundred years of
research has shown so I think he was a
genius misguided towards the end but he
was all he started out as a
neuroscientist but he contributed he did
the studies on the on the lamprey he
contributed himself to the neon
hypothesis the idea that there
discreet units that we call nerve cells
now and then he started then he he vote
you know about the unconscious and I
think it's to there's lots of stuff
happening you feel this particular when
you're in a relationship and it breaks a
son alright and then you have this
terrible you can have love and hate and
lust and anger and all of its mixed in
and when you try to analyze yourself why
am I so upset it's very very difficult
to penetrate to those basements those
caverns in your mind because the prying
eyes of conscience doesn't have access
to those but they're they are made in
the amygdala or you know lots of other
places they make you upset or angry or
sad or depressed and it's very difficult
to try to actually uncover the reason
you can go to a shrink you can talk with
your friend endlessly
you couldn't start finally a story why
this happened why you love you or don't
love or whatever but you don't really
know whether that's actually the with
that that actually happened because you
simply don't have access to those parts
of the brain and they're very powerful
you think that's a feature or a bug of
our brain the fact that we have this
deep difficult to dive into subconscious
I think it's a feature because otherwise
look we are we are see is like any other
brain or nervous system or computer we
are severely band-limited if we if
everything I do every emotion I feel
every my movements I make if all of that
had to be another control of
consciousness I couldn't I I couldn't I
wouldn't be here all right so so what
you do early on your brain you have to
be conscious when you learn things like
typing or like riding on a bike but then
you what you do you train up or out I
think that involve basal ganglia and
stratum you bear you train up different
parts of your brain and then once you do
it automatically like typing you can
show you do it much faster without even
thinking about it because you've got
this highly specialized what Francis
Crick and I called zombie agents that
are sort of that taking care of that
while your consciousness can sort of
worry about the abstract sense of the
text you want to write and I think
that's true for many many things but for
the things like all the fights you have
with the ex-girlfriend things that you
would think are not useful to still
linger somewhere in the sub
conscious so that seems like a bug that
it would stay there you think it would
be better if you can analyze it and then
get it out of there or just forget it
ever happened you know that that seems a
very buggy kind of well yeah but in
general we don't have and that's
probably functional we don't have an
ability unless it's extremely of cases
clinical dissociations right when people
are heavily abused when they completely
repress them they the memory but that
doesn't happen in in in you know in
normal people if we don't have an
ability to remove traumatic memories and
of course we suffer from that on the
other hand probably if you had the
ability to constantly wipe your memory
you probably do it to an extent that
isn't useful to you
so yeah it's a good question with the
balance so on the books is Jack
mentioned correct me if I'm wrong but
broadly speaking in academia and the
different scientific disciplines
certainly an engineering reading
literature seems to be a rare pursuit
perhaps I'm wrong in this but that's in
my experience most people are read much
more technical text and do not sort of
escape or seek truth in literature it
seems like you do so what do you think
is the value what do you think
literature asks the pursuit of
scientific truth do you think it's good
it's useful for given access to much
wider array of human experiences how
valuable do you think it is well if you
want to understand human nature and
nature in general then I think you have
to better understand wide variety of
experiences not just sitting in a lab
staring at a screen and having a face
flashed onto you've won a million
pushing a button that's what that's what
I used to do that for most psychologists
do there's nothing wrong with that but
you need to consider lots of other
strange states you know and literature
is a shortcut for this well yeah as
literature that's that's what literature
is all about all sorts of interesting
experiences that people have the you
know the contingency of it the fact that
you know women experience what different
black people experience the world
different and you know the one way to
explain that is reading all these
different literature and try to find out
you you see everything so relative
read eBooks million years ago they
thought about certain problems very very
differently than us today we today like
any culture think we know it all that's
common to every culture every culture
believes that at a day they know it all
and then you realize well there's other
ways of viewing the universe and some of
them may have lots of things in their
favor so I this is a question I wanted
to ask about time scale or scale in
general when you with IIT or in general
try to think about consciousness try to
think about these ideas we kind of
naturally think in human timescales
do you or and also entities that are
sized close to humans do you think of
things that are much larger much smaller
its containing consciousness and do you
think of things that take you know well
is this you know it ages eons to uh to
operate in their conscious cause effect
cause effect it's a very good question
so I think a lot about small creatures
because experimentally you know a lot of
people work on fly then and bees alright
so and most people just think they are
tormented a this box for heaven's sake
right but if you look at their behavior
like bees they can recognize individual
humans they have this very complicated
way to communicate if you've ever been
involved or you know your parents when
they bought a house what sort of
agonizing decision that is and bees have
to do that once a year right when they
swarm in this spring and then they have
this very lab that way they have three
nut Scouts it did they go to the
individual sites they come back there
this power this dance literally where
they danced for several days they try to
recruit other needs is that a
complicated decision wait when they
finally want to make a decision the
entire swarm the scouts warm up the
entire swarm then go to one location
they don't go to fifty location they go
to one location that the scouts have
agreed upon by themselves that's awesome
if you look at the circuit complexity
it's 10 times more denser than anything
we have in our brain or the only of a
million neurons but then you know it's
amazing complex complex behavior very
complicated circuitry so there's no
question they experience something their
life is very different they're tiny
they only live you know for four workers
live maybe for two months so I think IIT
tells you this in principle the
substrate of consciousness is the
substrate that maximizes the
cause-effect power over all possible
space
temple grains so when I think about for
example do you know the science fiction
story the black cloud okay it's a
classic by Fred Hoyle the astronomer he
has this cloud intervening between the
earth and the sand the Sun and leading
to some sort of to global cooling this
is written in the 50s it turns out you
can using the the radio dish they
communicate was actually an entity it's
actually an intelligent entity and they
they sort of they convinced it to move
away so here you have a radical
different entity and in principle IT
says well you can measure the the
integrated information in principle at
least and yes if that if the maximum of
that occurs at a time scale of month
rather than enough it sort of fraction
of a second yes and they would
experience life where each moment is a
month rather than or microsecond right
rather than a fraction of a second in in
the human case and so there may be forms
of constants that we simply don't
recognize for what they are because they
are so radically different from anything
you and I are used to again that's why
it's good to read or to watch science
fiction what we want to think about this
like this is friend you know Stanislav
LEM this polish science fiction writer
he wrote Solaris I was turned into a
Hollywood mo