Anil Seth's "Being You? A New Science of Consciousness"

Anil Seth, Neuroscientist, Author, and Public Speaker who has pioneered research into the brain basis of consciousness for more than 20 years.
Moderated by Susan Schneider, Ph.D., William F Dietrich Distinguished Professor of Philosophy in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters; Member of the Brain Institute. Schneider is founding director of the Center for the Future Mind.
What does it mean to "be you"- that is, to have an inner conscious experience of the world around you and yourself within it? Historically, humanity has considered consciousness to be a primarily spiritual or philosophical inquiry, but science is now mapping out compelling biological theories and explanations for consciousness and selfhood.
Please join us for a book salon presentation on this important topic by Anil Seth on his new, international bestseller, Being You, which The Guardian describes as, "...an exhilarating book: a vast-ranging, phenomenal achievement that will undoubtedly become a seminal text."
Seth's fascinating argument is that we do not perceive the world as it objectively is, but rather that we are prediction machines, constantly inventing our world and correcting our mistakes by the microsecond, and that we can now observe the biological mechanisms in the brain that accomplish this process of consciousness.
About the Center for Future Mind
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Technology is rapidly changing the face of society. What awaits us in our technological future? For example, should there be an upper limit on technological innovations to extend our lifespans or redesign our minds? Could artificial intelligence (AI) surpass human-level intelligence? Should we merge with AI, and is that even scientifically possible?
We seek to answer important questions like these at the Center for the Future Mind, a multi-disciplinary hub located in the Gruber Sandbox where thought leaders in areas such as philosophy, complex systems, AI, and neuroscience come together to analyze vital scientific, societal, and ethical issues. With world-famous thought leaders, a major media profile, and regular presentations to Congress and their staff, the Center aims to enhance our understanding of the future of intelligence.
The center is directed by Susan Schneider, the William F. Dietrich Distinguished Professor at FAU and former NASA Chair and Distinguished Scholar at the Library of Congress.
See more at our website and subscribe to this channel to join and engage with future conversations
www.fau.edu/future-mind/
www.fau.edu/sandbox/

[@electric7309]

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation:
00:00 🧠 Anil Seth's Introduction and Central Theme of Consciousness
- Anil Seth, a leading researcher in consciousness science, introduces the central theme of consciousness in his talk.
02:50 🔍 The Question of "Who Am I?" and Self-Change Blindness
- Anil Seth raises the question of personal identity, discussing the concept of self-change blindness and how our sense of self is shaped by continuity.
04:56 👁️ Change Blindness and Perception
- Seth uses a change blindness demo to illustrate how our conscious experience can be a construction of the brain, highlighting that we don't see reality as it is but rather as it's useful for us.
16:24 💭 Conscious Content and the Brain as a Prediction Machine
- Anil Seth explains the brain's role as a prediction machine, emphasizing that perception is a process of informed guesswork based on top-down predictions and bottom-up sensory signals.
22:57 🧠 Evidence of conscious perception and expectations:
- Studies showing that people consciously see what they expect more easily and quickly.
- Conscious content is carried by top-down predictions.
- People tend to see what they expect, indicating a connection between perception and expectations.
26:01 🌀 Exploring altered perceptual experiences:
- Using a hallucination machine based on deep learning to alter perceptual experiences.
- Investigating differences between psychedelic hallucinations and those in dementia and psychosis.
- Perceptual experiences are shaped by the balance between prediction and prediction error.
30:08 🌌 Understanding selfhood and consciousness:
- The self is not a separate entity but an integral part of conscious experience.
- Selfhood consists of various aspects, including the bodily self, perspectival self, and volitional self.
- The self is a controlled hallucination, rooted in predictive processes.
35:28 🫁 Perceiving the self as a living organism:
- Interoception, or perceiving the body's internal state, is a form of predictive perception.
- Predictions about interoceptive variables serve the function of regulating the body's well-being.
- Consciousness is intimately tied to the imperative of staying alive.
39:24 🧐 Variability in conscious experience:
- Each individual inhabits a unique perceptual world based on their own predictive processes.
- Octopuses illustrate the potential diversity of inner universes.
- Our subjective experience is just one way of being conscious.
40:04 🤖 Implications for artificial consciousness:
- Consciousness is deeply grounded in the nature of living beings.
- Artificial consciousness may not be simply a matter of programming intelligence.
- The nature of the body and its regulation play a crucial role in consciousness.
44:11 📚 The future and the book:
- The future of understanding consciousness remains uncertain and may take time.
- Progress may involve a shift in perspective rather than a sudden revelation.
- Humility in approaching the problem is essential.
46:24 🧠 Disambiguation of theories on consciousness
- There is ongoing debate and research on theories of consciousness, with various competing ideas.
- Progress has been made, but a complete understanding of consciousness is still elusive.
- The perspective on consciousness is expected to change substantially in the next 20 years.
47:28 🔄 Interception and Exterception Interaction
- Interception and exterception are closely related, and it's challenging to completely separate them.
- Interception serves exterception, and there's integration at multiple levels.
- The distinction between epistemic and instrumental perception crosses both domains.
49:07 🤖 The Regulatory Aspect of Perception
- Theperception can be seen as a regulatory process, where the brain constantly adjusts to external stimuli.
- Examples like catching a ball illustrate how perception is about regulating actions.
- The distinction between perception for figuring out what's there and control-oriented perception is complex and interconnected.
52:41 🌌 Life and Consciousness Connection
- The speaker suggests that the connection between life and consciousness might be a key to understanding the hard problem.
- There's an exploration of how the regulation of life processes may relate to consciousness.
- The idea of life breathing "fire into the equations" is presented as a potential way to solve the hard problem.
54:07 🧪 Defining Life and Consciousness
- Discussion on the challenges of defining life, especially in the context of astrobiology.
- Different theories exist regarding the nature of life, including whether it's substrate-independent.
- The idea of constructing a conscious machine and the ethical implications are explored.
56:09 🤖 Roadmap to Constructing Conscious Machines
- The debate about the feasibility of constructing conscious machines is discussed.
- The speaker highlights the ethical concerns and the need for responsible research.
- The distinction between understanding consciousness and attempting to build conscious machines is emphasized.
01:08:55 🧾 Filtering and Limiting Consciousness
- Perception involves both filtering and expanding the information available to us.
- The speaker discusses the concept of a filter or barrier that prevents information overload.
- The limitation of our conscious perception is acknowledged, and it's connected to the creative process.
01:09:50 🧠 The role of consciousness in sensory perception
- Consciousness plays a role in filtering sensory information to guide behavior and physiological regulation.
- It's not merely a narrowing down of possibilities but also a creative process.
- Sensory perception doesn't mean everything is immediately relevant for our survival.
01:10:31 🎨 Creativity and consciousness
- Consciousness plays a role in the recognition and evaluation of creativity.
- The generative stage of creativity may not rely heavily on consciousness.
- Judges of creativity are typically conscious observers, and the decision about what's creative often requires integrating information across different time scales.
01:11:59 📆 Upcoming event at the Science Museum
- An upcoming event at the Science Museum with Anil Seth, Roger Penrose, and Helen Stewart is mentioned.
- They discuss the event and express their enthusiasm for it.
- The conversation ends as the in-person crowd is headed to a reception.
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[@nadadenadax4903]

Anil is giving scientific evidence to what zen koans and some spiritual teachers have been saying since hundreds and thousands of years:
There is no fundamental reality (to the brain)
There is no (continuous) self
you are not the body
A bird is not a bird, it is a perception of a bird...
And also what systemic biologists like Maturana and Varela have been saying, that living systems are self-regulating, autopoietic observers.
Thank you so much for this connection.

[@robertkoekoek9630]

Is "Consciousness the only thing we can be sure of"? Put another way: is consciousness the only 'sure' tool to confirm consciousness? A self-fulfilling, confirmation bias? Is consciousness a process or a 'thing'? Or both? Like a computer? What if a room full of transistors finds patterns which make 'us' believe it is conscious? If consciousness can be simulated, is it 'real'? Is consciousness itself hallucinated?

[@richardnunziata3221]

If consciousness is not substrate dependent but is in the connections then there is not difference between a simulated consciousness and a imbedded one. Stop with the objectification of subjective experience .